As this extraordinary year in open access begins to wind down we take stock of the year that was.  We’ve welcomed three new members to Open Access Australasia this year, provided advice on OA developments across the region, organised six webinars on a wide variety of topics, coordinated a smorgasbord of talented & passionate advocates for the 2022 Open Access Week and most recently completed the second iteration of our OA101 course after its launch in May this year. Please check our latest blog for a wrap up of Open Access week events and links to the recordings. There have been important policy developments such as the NHMRC’s strengthened Open Access Policy, and MBIE’s new Open Research policy both of which which support equitable & open access to research across Australasia. 

We look forward to working with our members and the wider OA community in 2023. Our office will be closed over the holiday period, retuning to full working the week of the 16th Jan. 

Wishing everyone a safe and peaceful holiday season, however you celebrate it.

For regular news updates, check our Twitter account  

 


UNESCO Toolkit under construction
The first three of eight guidance documents in the UNESCO Open Science toolkit have been released.  They were developed by the UNESCO Working Groups on Open Science Policy and Policy Instruments to aid the implementation of the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science. They are:

An online index to the knowledge-sharing platforms on UNESCO Natural Science Sector priority themes (biodiversity, climate change, disaster risk reduction, ocean science, and water) is also under development, and expected to be launched early next year.

UN Library hosted OA for Climate Justice projects webcast
The United Nations Library hosted a virtual event “Open Access for Climate Justice” on 30 November to continue the conversation from  Open Access Week. The webcast  highlighted innovative projects working at the intersection of climate and open research and outlined how members of the climate change and open communities can get involved. SPARC collaborated with the Open Climate Campaign to organise the event. The recording is here.

Leeds initiative aims to democratise knowledge
University of Leeds is creating and championing a bold new initiative, the Knowledge Equity Network to champion open knowledge in higher education; in teaching, research and societal outreach. 

UKRI, the European University Association & OPERAS have announced they will sign the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment’s Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment. The agreement aims to recognise the diverse outputs, practices and activities that maximise the quality and impact of research for the research, researchers and research organisations assessment. The new vision for the research assessment requires that it will be based primarily on a qualitative judgement for which peer review is central, and supported by responsible use of quantitative indicators. UKRI brings together the UK’s seven disciplinary research councils, Research England, and Innovate UK. The EUA represents more than 850 universities and national rectors’ conferences across Europe. OPERAS is the European Research Infrastructure for the development of open scholarly communication in the social sciences and humanities.

Creative Commons is 20 years old!
Read about the history here. This jazzy video gives a 60 second snapshot.

New OA publishing group & blog
The Fully OA blog has been launched to provide a platform for collaboration and exchange of ideas between publishers who only publish Open Access content.  Membership of the group is based only on the organisation’s publishing model (Open Access) and is independent of the organisation’s business model, (commercial, or non-profit, or charging APCs).  It evolved from the OASPA Interest Group of Fully OA journal organizations and hopes to bring together a diversity of different voices and perspectives.

100% OA commitment from Royal Society of Chemistry
The Royal Society of Chemistry has committed to making all of its 44 journals open access within the next five years. It’s the first chemistry publisher to commit to such a model.  The society hopes to negotiate new ‘institutional or funder level’ agreements, where institutions pay a flat rate so that their researchers can publish in RSC journals without paying individual article processing charges. Read more.

Invest in Open Infrastructure summit for Funders
In November IOI hosted its first Funders Summit with participants helping to shape the pilot of a collective funding mechanism for open infrastructure. IOI has committed US$100,000 to this pilot, and is seeking additional co-investment and commitment from partners who would like to invest in the open infrastructure necessary for research to thrive. Read more.

India pushing for national open access
As part of India’s latest science, technology and innovation policy being developed by its Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser and the Department of Science and Technology, the government is proposing to make scholarly literature accessible for all by negotiating with scientific publishers to set up national subscriptions.  Read more. 

Ireland launches National Action Plan for Open Research
The plan (2022-2030) is aligned with Impact 2030: Ireland’s Research and Innovation Strategy with three broad themes:
Theme 1 – Establishing a culture of open research
Theme 2 – Achieving 100% open access to research publications
Theme 3 – Enabling FAIR research data and other outputs
Read more about the plan here.



Big birthday for ORCID
It’s been 10 years since the registration of the first the ORCID ID and now there are 15 million records tied to these persistent identifiers for researchers. Read more stories & stats about ORCID here.  Or read ORCID’s new publication ORCID’s First Decade: From Startup to Sustainability 



NASA updates Scientific Information Policy 
NASA’s Science Mission Directorate (SMD) has released an important update to its Scientific Information Policy. It requires that:

• Peer-reviewed publications are made openly available with no embargo period.
• Research data and software are shared at the time of publication or the end of the funding award. 
• Mission data are released as soon as possible and unrestricted mission software is developed openly.
• Science workshops and meetings are held openly to enable broad participation. 

SPARC notes that “While this policy does not serve as NASA’s official response to the OSTP Nelson Memorandum, it is a good indication of what we are likely to ultimately see in NASA’s agency-wide public access plan, which is due out in February 2023.”

ALLEA Statement and Recommendations on Read and Publish deals
European Federation of Academies of Sciences and Humanities (ALLEA)  makes three key recommendations:

1. Negotiate future deals considering national and EU copyright law.
2. Move away from the current rights assignment models.
3. Harmonise EU legislation to allow publication of post-print versions without embargo

Read more

The results of the third edition of SPARC Europe’s Survey of European academic libraries on the topic of Open Education (OE) and Open Educational Resources (OER) are now available. The 2022 survey explores what work is being done by academic librarians to implement the UNESCO OER Recommendation  in the three years since its inception in 2019. SPARC plans to use the collected data to organ activities going forward and to provide libraries with Open Education support in the future. Read more.

Investments in Open at USA Unis $$$
A new report from the Association of Research Libraries, US University Member Expenditures Services, Collections, Staff, and Infrastructure in Support of Open Scholarship which investigated spending on open content and infrastructure at 46 libraries found that the total was US$32m with an average expenditure per institution of $785,940, representing an average of 2.26% of the total library budget (ranging from 0.19% to 11.02%).