What’s in this issue

• What’s new in OA & scholarly publishing in Australia & Aotearoa New Zealand

• What’s new in OA & scholarly publishing globally

• Recent writing & resources on OA

• Upcoming events in OA & scholarly publishing

Contributions to the newsletter or the blog, especially notice of upcoming events, are welcome. Contact us here. If this newsletter was forwarded to you and you’d like to receive it directly, please sign up

Interested in joining OAA? See our member benefits and infographic Our Value and get in touch contact@oaaustralasia.org

AuSCCoP

Recently, the convenors from each of the groups got together to talk through leadership of the groups for 2027 and beyond. Over the coming months we’ll be calling for expressions of interest for new convenors across all three communities. In the meantime, the invitation is always open: if you’re curious about what the role involves, reach out for a chat.

Otherwise, a reminder that we won’t be meeting in October, but we’ll be back together for a watch party in early November and our last official meeting for the year will be on November 17 at 12pm AEST 1pm AEDT and 3pm NZST.

Members continue to contribute to the shared Glossary of scholarly communications terminology and are also invited to add their ideas for the group to the feedback form. If you’re interested in knowledge sharing, exchanging ideas, and connecting with colleagues in a friendly and supportive space, you’re very welcome tojoin the CoP. Meeting times for 2026 are listed here.

AuSCCoP Diamond Open Access Publishing group.

ISSN International invited the community to write an article from the IFLA 2026 presentation Scaling Equity from the Ground Up: Diamond Open Access and an Emerging Library Community of Practice in Australasia (presented by Jayshree Mamtora.)

The Diamond CoP are currently developing a webpage for the OAA website to profile Diamond Open Access in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand. All going well, the webpage will be live by the end of 2026.

Please note that the Across Oceans, Shared Goals: Library Publishing from Canada and Australasia webinar on October 15 replaces the usual CoP Meeting – so the next full meeting is December 16.

Please add your diamond journal to our Australasian Diamond Discovery Hub and feel free to share resources, guidelines and websites for diamond here

We welcome all new members. Details for joining the CoP and the meeting schedule for 2026 can be found here: how to join.

AuSCCoP Repositories group

The last meeting saw a lively discussion concerning implications for repositories of the updated ARC OA policy. The group next meets on Tuesday 10th November at 11am AEST 12pm AEDT 2pm NZST. Two of the co-conveners of the Repositories Group will be coming to the end of their tenure at the close of the year so watch your inbox for a call for EOIs for this role for the group. More information about the Repository group, dates for 2026 and how to join.

Aotearoa Scholarly Communications CoP

This CoP consists of subgroups for open educational resources, open access, Open Journal Systems, research data management and research impact metrics. Information about all of the Aotearoa groups can now be found on OAA’s website find out more and sign up for meetings

What’s new in OA & scholarly publishing globally

Reframing Repositories: Why Repositories Matter More Than Ever

COAR has now published all six narratives about the value of repositories on the Reframing Repositories webpage:

• The untapped public value of open access repositories

• Safeguarding digital sovereignty through local stewardship and preservation

• Repositories unlock the potential of multilingual scholarship

• The role of repositories in maintaining research integrity

• Repositories as active participants in the scholarly publishing process

• The role of repositories in supporting responsible research assessment

This narrative series is a useful resource for anyone making the case for repositories. The evidence-based pieces show how repositories support open access while also safeguarding research through local stewardship, improving the visibility of multilingual scholarship and helping maintain research integrity.

France releases Open Science Strategy for 2026–2033

France’s new Open Science Strategy 2026–2033 sets out an eight-year ambition to make open science the default, with a first action plan covering 2026–2029. It builds on a reported rise in open-access publications in France from 38% to 61% since 2018, while recognising that the services and infrastructure supporting open science remain fragile. Of particular interest to the open-access community, the strategy calls for stronger support for open scholarly publishing and shared research infrastructure, alongside action on research data, software and public reporting of clinical trial results. It also identifies research assessment and international collaboration as important ways to change practice, while retaining the principle that research should be “as open as possible, as closed as necessary”.

Guidelines for the Governance of Indigenous Peoples’ Data in Scholarly Publishing

By Lydia Jennings, Riley Taitingfong, Kristina Vrouwenvelder, Mia Ricci, Jane Anderson and other contributors.

The Guidelines for the Governance of Indigenous Peoples’ Data in Scholarly Publishing have been developed through a collaboration involving the Collaboratory for Indigenous Data Governance, the Equity for Indigenous Research and Innovation Co-ordinating Hub (ENRICH), and Te Kotahi Research Institute at the University of Waikato in Aotearoa New Zealand. These new guidelines offer practical guidance for publishers, editors and others in scholarly communication. They show how Indigenous Data Sovereignty and the CARE Principles can inform decisions throughout the publishing process, helping ensure that open science practices respect Indigenous Peoples’ rights and authority over their data.

Guidance for Indigenous Collections and Indigenous Data: Recommendations from Creative Commons and Local Contexts

By Jane Anderson, Maui Hudson, Hop Hopkins, Corrie Roe, Vanessa Smith.

Also published this month, this guidance offers practical recommendations for cultural heritage institutions working with Indigenous collections and data, particularly when making materials available online. Developed by Local Contexts and Creative Commons, it shows how Creative Commons licences and Local Contexts Labels and Notices can be used together to support access while respecting Indigenous communities’ authority and protocols. In this recent webinar the authors explain more about the Guidance.

Recommend a resource for Open Access Week

Have a resource that could spark conversation about this year’s theme, The Cost of Knowledge? The International Open Access Week Advisory Committee is inviting recommendations of articles, datasets, recordings, presentations and tools ahead of Open Access Week, 19–25 October. Resources from any region and in any language are welcome; submissions will be reviewed for alignment with equitable open access before being shared on the OA Week website.

Should we retire the OA colours?

OpenAlex is asking for feedback on a proposal to replace open access labels such as gold, green and bronze with a clearer description of each work’s access, location and licence. If you use OA data for reporting, policy or research, read the proposal and share your views through a short form by Friday 13 November 2026. No changes to OpenAlex are being made yet; the team will review responses before deciding what happens next.

Supporting the infrastructure behind open access

In this recent blog post, DOAJ thanks its supporters and introduces new ways for publishers and data users to support its suite of work. For OAA, it’s a timely reminder: open access relies on open infrastructure, and that infrastructure needs sustained support.

Mark your calendars for November 5 2pm AEST/ 3pm AEDT/ 5pm NZDT when we are joining with CAUL to host a webinar with DOAJ’s Joanna Ball.

Reports

Open Access Policies in EU Member States and Beyond.

A new European Commission report finds that open access has advanced across Europe, but differing policies and uneven implementation still create barriers for researchers and institutions. Drawing on 35 countries, the report looks beyond whether countries have open access policies to whether researchers have the legal rights, repository support and incentives to put them into practice. It also examines rising article processing charges and makes the case for more sustainable, fee-free publishing modelsit calls for more coordinated approaches to repositories, publishing costs and research assessment, alongside sustained support for open science infrastructure.

What we are reading:

How to Build a Sovereign Global Knowledge Commons

By Mark Huskisson and Johan Rooryck.

Mark Huskisson and Johan Rooryck argue that scholarly knowledge is vulnerable to commercial capture and political interference. They make the case for Diamond Open Access and for keeping the infrastructure behind scholarly publishing in the hands of the communities it serves. Their challenge to governments, funders and policymakers is to invest in that infrastructure for the long term—not just in access to individual publications.

Recommendations for Revising the Open Access Classification System in OpenAlex

By Juan Pablo Alperin et al.

A working group recommends moving beyond the familiar gold, green, hybrid and bronze labels used to describe open access in OpenAlex. Instead, it proposes describing each research output through three separate questions: is it free to read, where is it available, and what licence does it carry? The aim is to make open access data clearer and more useful across articles, preprints, books, datasets and other outputs.

Keeping up with AI

Preprint estimates widespread LLM-assisted writing in biomedical articles

A new preprint from researchers at Samsung AI Center and the University of Warsaw shows that large language models don’t just hallucinate individual fake names, they generate correlated “ghost” identities that recur across outputs (Claude tends to pair “Elena Vasquez” with “Marcus Chen,” for instance). The authors traced these fabricated names into the wild, finding over 1,600 ghost-authored records with real, harvestable DOIs on Zenodo, and a fabricated “researcher” profile on ResearchGate with 35 papers spanning entirely unrelated fields. It’s a striking, concrete illustration of how AI-generated fake identities can slip into scholarly infrastructure, though worth reading with some caution: it’s an unreviewed preprint from a small two-author team, based on a fairly modest set of prompts. Still, it offers a useful heuristic for spotting suspicious profiles going forward.

OUP survey highlights researcher uncertainty about AI disclosure

A new Oxford University Press survey of more than 2,600 researchers found that 74% were unsure what AI use they should disclose, while only 36% kept records of their AI use during research. Among respondents who had prepared journal manuscripts in the previous year, 46% said they had not fully disclosed their AI use. The findings point to a need for clearer expectations: OUP has also updated its guidance for authors and editors on responsible use and disclosure.

What we are watching

Indigenous Data Sovereignty, Research Data Management, and Emerging AI Challenges in Tertiary Libraries

In this webinar, hosted by LIANZA’s Tertiary and Education Libraries Special Interest Group, Lee Timutimu draws on his work as Kaihāpai Mana Raraunga (Data Sovereignty Steward) at the University of Waikato Library to explore research data management through a Māori-first lens. He considers how libraries can support researchers while respecting Māori, Pacific and Indigenous knowledge systems and community authority over data—and why emerging uses of data in AI make questions of consent, governance and future reuse more pressing.

Lee will be one of the speakers at our October 14th OA Week event, The Cost of Knowledge: Paying in Data – Surveillance, AI and the Future of Open Access along with Sarah Lamdan and Nick Shockey. See more or register for this webinar.

What we are listening to

A conversation with Ulrich Herb on open access

In this episode of Against the Grain, a Charleston Hub podcast associated with the Charleston Conference, Michael Upshall speaks with Ulrich Herb of Saarland University Library about his work supporting scholarly publishing and how attitudes to open access have changed since the Budapest Open Access Initiative in 2002.

Upcoming events in OA & scholarly publishing

OEGlobal Conference 2026

7 – 10 October 2026, Online

Internet Librarian Connect 2026

27 – 29 October 2026, Online

2026 Open Education Conference

27 – 29 October 2026, Online

2026 Charleston Conference

2–6 November 2026, Charleston, SC, USA and online

2026 Association for Interdisciplinary Meta-Research and Open Science

30 November – 2 December 2026, Wellington, Aotearoa NZ

Library Publishing Forum

10 – 13 May 2027, online.

The Higher Education Technology Agenda (THETA) 2027

23 – 26 May 2027, Melbourne, Australia.