19 November 2021
An article, Australia’s open-access challenge by Jenny Sinclair appeared in Research Professional News on 19 November, 2021. Here is an excerpt:
At a national open-access conference hosted by Open Access Australasia online in late October, NHMRC executive director Prue Torrance expanded on the challenges presented by the development of open access, such as “maintaining the integrity of the research”.
She stressed that it is particularly important for open-access publishing to identify the stage at which the publication was released—for instance, if it had been peer reviewed—and to maintain permanent versions.
Torrance added that open access would increase the use of research by policymakers and by other researchers, and she said that the “use of evidence by policymakers and by practitioners is really critical”.
“One of the things open access gives us even more potential [for] into the future is really large-scale analyses…once everything is on a common interoperable platform,” Torrance said.
National concerns
At the same conference, chief scientist Foley also emphasised the need to keep the integrity of published research on the path to open access.
She said that during the pandemic, the wider public had become more accustomed to accessing research. But not all of this work has gone through the traditional peer-reviewed process before making it into the public domain.
There was a risk, said Foley, of “a lowering of the integrity and trust”.
The full article can be accessed here.