---------- Forwarded message ---------- List-Post: [email protected] List-Post: [email protected] Date: Thu, 28 Aug 2008 12:53:19 +1000 From: Greg Welsh <Greg.Welsh -- .mq.edu.au> To: harnad -- ecs.soton.ac.uk Subject: Open Access announcement
Hi Stevan thought you might be interested in the following announcement best wishes Greg Macquarie University embraces the next information revolution 28 August 2008 Research conducted by Macquarie University experts will soon be freely available to anyone with access to the internet, following a unanimous decision by the Macquarie University Council last night. Council voted to endorse University Senate recommendations that research articles be deposited in the online Macquarie University repository ResearchOnline (http://www.researchonline.mq.edu.au) after their acceptance for publication. "This historic decision will make Macquarie's scholarly work much more available to researchers, including those in developing countries and those without access to expensive journal subscriptions," said Vice-Chancellor, Professor Steven Schwartz. "It is an example of using modern communication technology to achieve one of the oldest and most central academic aims - the free dissemination of knowledge." The Macquarie decision follows similar initiatives by overseas universities such as Harvard and Stanford, and funding bodies such as the US National Institutes of Health, National Research Council of Canada and European Research Council. "All academics have an interest in disseminating their work to the widest possible audience, but historically, the only way to do this was to publish papers in peer-reviewed journals," Schwartz said. "Although academics do much of the work associated with these journals for free, the journals can still be prohibitively expensive. Some cost $20,000 for a one-year subscription." Manuscripts of Macquarie research that are accepted for publication will now be immediately available to anyone on the web. In a few cases, access to some articles may be temporarily embargoed because of a journal's policy. However, Professor Schwartz said that embargoes are the exception rather than the rule. "The great majority of scholarly journals do not object to making authors' self-archived papers 'Open Access' immediately," he said. "Studies have also demonstrated repeatedly that Open Access significantly increases the citation of articles, as well as enhancing other metrics of research usage and impact, in all disciplines, so our academics are unlikely to want to restrict access to their work." Media contact: Greg Welsh (02) 9850 7456, 0407 200 474, greg.welsh -- mq.edu.au Greg Welsh Media Manager Marketing Unit MACQUARIE UNIVERSITY NSW 2109 Phone: +61 (0)2 9850 7456 Mobile: +61 (0)407 200 474 Fax: +61 (0)2 9850 9457 www.mq.edu.au
