---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 28 Aug 2008 12:53:19 +1000
From: Greg Welsh <Greg.Welsh -- .mq.edu.au>
To: harnad -- ecs.soton.ac.uk
Subject: Open Access announcement
Hi Stevan
thought you might be interested in the following announcement
best wishes
Greg
Macquarie University embraces the next information revolution
28 August 2008
Research conducted by Macquarie University experts will soon be freely
available to anyone with access to the internet, following a unanimous
decision by the Macquarie University Council last night.
Council voted to endorse University Senate recommendations that
research articles be deposited in the online Macquarie University
repository ResearchOnline (
http://www.researchonline.mq.edu.au) after
their acceptance for publication.
"This historic decision will make Macquarie's scholarly work much
more available to researchers, including those in developing countries
and those without access to expensive journal subscriptions," said
Vice-Chancellor, Professor Steven Schwartz.
"It is an example of using modern communication technology to achieve
one of the oldest and most central academic aims - the free
dissemination of knowledge."
The Macquarie decision follows similar initiatives by overseas
universities such as Harvard and Stanford, and funding bodies such as
the US National Institutes of Health, National Research Council of
Canada and European Research Council.
"All academics have an interest in disseminating their work to the
widest possible audience, but historically, the only way to do this was
to publish papers in peer-reviewed journals," Schwartz said.
"Although academics do much of the work associated with these
journals for free, the journals can still be prohibitively expensive.
Some cost $20,000 for a one-year subscription."
Manuscripts of Macquarie research that are accepted for publication
will now be immediately available to anyone on the web. In a few cases,
access to some articles may be temporarily embargoed because of a
journal's policy. However, Professor Schwartz said that embargoes are
the exception rather than the rule.
"The great majority of scholarly journals do not object to making
authors' self-archived papers 'Open Access' immediately," he
said.
"Studies have also demonstrated repeatedly that Open Access
significantly increases the citation of articles, as well as enhancing
other metrics of research usage and impact, in all disciplines, so our
academics are unlikely to want to restrict access to their work."
Media contact: Greg Welsh (02) 9850 7456, 0407 200 474,
greg.welsh -- mq.edu.au
Greg Welsh
Media Manager
Marketing Unit
MACQUARIE UNIVERSITY NSW 2109
Phone: +61 (0)2 9850 7456
Mobile: +61 (0)407 200 474
Fax: +61 (0)2 9850 9457
www.mq.edu.au
Received on Thu Aug 28 2008 - 17:35:19 BST