This OA week Open Access Australasia is delighted to present a diverse set of events across the week. With an underlying international theme of It Matters How We Open Knowledge: Building Structural Equity, we have planned the series of events to highlight the range of initiatives that contribute to an open ecosystem. We are thrilled to have such a fantastic line up of participants throughout the week.
We think this line up also highlights how many people and organisations are keen to work towards advancing open. As a background to the week, in this region, open initiatives in Australia are highlighted on the poster that CAUL and Open Access Australasia presented at the OA 2020 meeting. Work in New Zealand is highlighted by the findings of the CONZUL working group that has documented OA in New Zealand.
In 2021 Open Access Australasia relaunched, after previously being known as AOASG. As part of that relaunch, as well as a change of name and a new web site, we developed a set of principles and set out our work for 2021-22. The principles that underpin the work of Open Access Australasia are:
- equity in scholarly communications
- a diverse ecosystem of open access approaches
- 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
We hope that these principles resonate and will spark discussions on how we build an open scholarly communication system. Globally, this has been yet another extremely active year for OA. After 2020 showed the importance of open research in combating the COVID-19 pandemic, 2021 has shown how important it is to consolidate the gains in understanding of openness in 2020 to ensure a long term open scholarly communication system that is equitable and diverse.
Key policy initiatives this year include the work by Dr Cathy Foley, Australia’s Chief Scientist and a range of international developments including the UNESCO Open Science Recommendation, and ongoing work by OA2020 and cOAlition S.
As always, the work this week and throughout the year reflects the efforts of many people. Many thanks are due to the group who have worked to pull this series of events together -Thomas Shafee (La Trobe), Sam Elkington-Dent (USC), Sandra Fry (Open Access Australasia), Kate Knox (Otago), Kate Davis (CAUL), Alicia Starr (Avondale), Lucy Walton (WSU), Nicole Faull-Brown (UON), Ginny Barbour (Open Access Australasia), Angela Booth (UON) and Sally Murray-Walsh (Open Access Australasia). We are very grateful to our members for their ongoing support of Open Access Australasia, and to the Open Access Australasia Executive Committee.
Whatever your interest in open access and open research, we hope that you find something of interest this week to inspire and engage you.
Ginny Barbour, Director, Open Access Australasia
Martin Borchert, Chair, Open Access Australasia Executive Committee