Welcome to the Open Access Australasia website

About Us

Our goal is to make Australasian research outputs open for all.

The group was founded in 2013 as the Australian Open Access Support Group, AOASG. In 2015, with the addition of members from New Zealand and a change of focus, it became the Australasian Open Access Strategy Group.

In 2021, we became Open Access Australasia.

We support all models of open access, and in particular we endorse the principles of the  F.A.I.R. Access Policy Statement  for research outputs to be Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable, ensuring they can be part of the global research ecosystem. 

We are committed to advocating for and raising awareness of open access in Australia and New Zealand through collaboration regionally and internationally and building capacity and expertise within this region.

This website aims to be an authoritative source of information on all aspects of open access in Australia and New Zealand.

Our major focus is on open access to research publications – preprints, peer reviewed scholarly manuscripts, books, monographs and theses. We also contribute to initiatives in open research practices, data, software, open educational resources, reform of research assessment and copyright and open licenses.

The Patron of Open Access Australasia is Emeritus Professor Tom Cochrane, Faculty of Law at QUT.

 

Open Access Australasia Strategy 2023-2024

Principles

The principles that underpin the work of Open Access Australasia are:

  • Equity in scholarly communications, to both access and publish research
  • Support for a diverse ecosystem of open access approaches
  • Support for integrity and quality in research
  • Maximisation of the impact of research
  • Appropriate and respectful use of Indigenous knowledges
  • Retention of rights by authors or their institutions

Our strategic priorities for 2023-2024

  • Advocate and lead on discussions for diverse approaches on open access and open research strategies nationally, regionally and internationally
  • Be the authoritative regional resource for open access and open research in Australasia
  • Strengthen existing and build new partnerships regionally and internationally.

Related initiatives

Though our work will continue to focus primarily on open access, we are mindful of the need to ensure that it aligns with work regionally and globally on open research initiatives more widely. We will continue to monitor developments across the entire research lifecycle and will participate as appropriate.  

Rationale and specific activities associated  with strategic priorities

Advocate and lead in discussions for diverse approaches to open access and open research

Rationale

Open Access has developed rapidly over the past 2 years and there is now a need for strong leadership and advocacy on a diversity of approaches to open access.

Specific Activities
  • Influence work in Australia on open access through meeting policy makers and other key groups and individuals
  • Support open access developments in Aotearoa New Zealand, including through the Open Access working group
  •  Promote the work of UNESCO and other national and international work on Open Science, including through the Australian Open Science Network
  •  Respond to government and other policy consultations
  • Be proactive in writing and other dissemination on open access and open science

Be the authoritative regional resource for open access and open research in Australasia

Rationale

There is a need for unique Australasian content and resources tailored to this region.

Specific Activities
  • Maintain and further develop the website as an authoritative source of information and resources on open access
  •  Contribute to or lead research on open access and open research
  • Develop and run online courses and provide other resources on open access
  • Succession planning

Strengthen existing and build new partnerships regionally in Australasia and internationally

Rationale

As open access uptake increases across the region, there is an associated increase in the need for diverse communities of practice to support experts and other practitioners in Open access

Specific Activities
  • Develop the Australian Open Access Community of Practice group
  •  Run regional and international webinar series to promote awareness of the diversity of open access approaches
  • Engage with our membership through practitioner working groups
  • Continue to diversify and grow membership

 

 

 

Meet Members

The Open Access Australasia membership is made up of 32 universities across Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand, Creative Commons Australian chapter, Tohatoha Aotearoa Commons, ALIA, Australian Digital Alliance, Wikimedia Australia, Australian Citizen Science Association and National and State Libraries Australasia.

Meet Open Access Australasia Executive Committee and Staff

The Open Access Australasia Executive Committee (2022-2024) are:
Kim Tairi, Auckland University of Technology (AUT) Te Wānanga Aronui o Tāmaki Makaurau (Chair)

Ko Maungatautari te maunga; Ko Waikato te awa; Ko Waikato te iwi; Ko Kim Tairi tōku ingoa. He Kaitoha Puku ahau ki Te Wānanga Aronui o Tāmaki Makaurau e mahi ana.

Kim Tairi is an indigenous, intersectional feminist and librarian. Her career spans more than 25 years in both Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand. The Kaitoha Puka (University Librarian) at Te Wānanga Aronui o Tāmaki Makaurau (AUT) she is Aotearoa’s first Māori University Librarian and proud to be a wahine Māori in higher education senior leadership. AUT is a values-based institution and Kim is pleased to work for a University that aims to enhance the mana of others.  Her commitment to the work of OAA steams from a deep-seated belief that bibliodiversity and open research benefits not only the research community but society more widely.

Dimity Flanagan, University of Melbourne (Deputy Chair)

Dimity Flanagan is the Manager, Scholarly Communications at the University of Melbourne where she is responsible for Open Scholarship and research outputs management. In this role, Dimity leads on training and advocacy of Open Research practices, drives service improvements and technical enhancements in the University’s repository ecosystem, and supports the University in its response to emerging opportunities in scholarly publishing.

This work builds on her significant experience working on Open Access in the UK where she was the Scholarly Communications Lead at the British Library and the Repository Manager at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Latrobe University
David Groenewegen

David Groenewegen is University Librarian at La Trobe University, where he is responsible for leading and directing the Library’s expertise, collections and environments that empower and inspire our communities’ learning, teaching and research.  Prior to joining La Trobe David held several university library leadership positions at Monash University and he has also worked at a senior strategic, policy and management level in both higher education institutions and on national level projects, including the Australian National Data Service.

Michelle Blake, University of Waikato

Michelle Blake is the University Librarian at the University of Waikato. She recently returned to NZ after 15 years in the UK where her most recent role was Director of Library & Archives (Interim) at the University of York. She has also held management positions at LSE.

Michelle is passionate about the value and impact of libraries and their transformative power for public good and works to challenge traditional notions of what a library is.

She is a champion of UX (user experience) methodologies to engage with communities to place them at the heart of what we do. She is skilled in harnessing digital technologies to enhance innovation and instill an ethos of continuous improvement.

Having just returned from the UK she is excited to utilise her knowledge and experience to address the challenges and opportunities within the Australasian research OA landscape.

Fiona Bradley, UNSW Sydney

Fiona has worked at the institutional, national, and global levels to advance open access and access to information. She currently leads scholarly communications and repositories, digital and physical infrastructure, and corporate services at UNSW Sydney and has previously held roles with national and international organisations representing libraries and their users.

Her experience includes open infrastructure, policy reform, the UN SDGs, capacity building, and equitable access. Fiona’s other appointments include the Trove Strategic Advisory Committee, co-lead of the IFLA Open Access working party, IFLA Freedom of Access to Information and Freedom of Expression committee (IFLA FAIFE), and Chair of the SCOSS Advisory Committee. Her presentations and papers are available via ORCID.

Clare Thorpe, Southern Cross University

Clare Thorpe is an award-winning library leader, evidence-based research-practitioner, and board director. She has worked in academic and state libraries since 2001. Clare is the Director, Library Services at Southern Cross University where she is providing strategic direction, innovation and leadership by enacting transformative cultural change.

She is passionate about building the evidence-base of library and information science through scholarly and informal communication channels. Clare is committed to empowering a culture of openness in education and research to enable equitable and perpetual access to knowledge for our communities.

Director
Mark Sutherland

Mark joined Open Access Australasia as Director in 2024. Formerly Mark was Executive Director of the Council of Australian University Librarians (CAUL), involved in negotiating the first transformative scholarly content agreements for Australasia and representing the sector on the Chief Scientist’s Open Access Stakeholder Advisory Panel. Over many years, he has had extensive experience in managing research support and related services in university library settings, including setting up institutional repositories and contributing to related policy development. He was involved in AOASG, the forerunner to Open Access Australasia, in the mid-2010’s, including as a member of the Executive Committee in 2018-19. Mark has also acted as secretariat for the cross-sectoral FAIR Steering Group that was subsequently reconstituted as the Australian Open Science Network. He has experience with the wide range of stakeholders and the broad spectrum of concerns across the open access landscape in both Australasian and international arena.

Senior Project Officer
Janet Catterall

Janet is currently Senior Project Officer for Open Access Australasia and has been with OAA since 2022. Janet has worked as a research-focused academic librarian in universities for over twenty years in the US, Canada and Australia, most recently working at James Cook University as a health liaison librarian. Janet has a defining interest in open access and scholarly communications and has conducted her own research in this area as well as in health. Janet also serves as Editor-in-Chief for the Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communications, a diamond open access journal based in the United States. Janet is passionate about diversity and equity in open scholarship. Her ORCID profile is here

Terms of reference

  1. Advocacy
  • To advocate for open access outcomes from publicly funded research
  • To provide leadership through providing information to government funding bodies, researchers and policy makers
  1. Collaboration
  • To collaborate and develop relationships with organisations of researchers and scholarly communications (for example the Australia Digital Alliance http://digital.org.au, Council of Australian University Librarians https://www.caul.edu.au/) to support open access
  • To maximise the collective knowledge of Open Access Australasia (previously AOASG) membership by collaborating with each other to support open access objectives
  1. Raising awareness
  • To provide a voice within the region on open access and to contribute to international discussions around the world
  • To ensure that the research community and the community more broadly has access to accurate information on open access, actively identifying and addressing misinformation.
  • To remain abreast of, and engage in, current debates including providing arguments for open access
  • To identify potential issues for the future including their complexities and possible impacts
  1. Lead and build capacity
  • To remain nimble and flexible and evolve to ensure the organisation is sustainable.
  • To develop capabilities in Australian and New Zealand research organisations to advance open access.

UNSW Library, Sydney provides administrative support for Open Access Australasia. The staff are physically based at QUT in Brisbane.