Open Access: sometimes all it takes is the right person

We can debate the economics, complexities, details, implementation… of open access publishing for as long as we like. However, the basic principle: that publicly-funded research should be publicly-accessible seems to me at least, very obviously correct and “the right thing to do”. So this, from April 2012, was very depressing. Open access not as simple as it sounds: outgoing ARC boss For those outside Australia, the ARC is the Australian Research Council. Much debate ensued in which one contributor to the comment thread wrote: …it is particularly galling that Sheil is projecting her own simplistic understanding of open access onto its advocates. Hopefully she will be replaced at the Australian Research Council by someone who understands and supports open access. Voilà. The ARC has introduced a new open access policy for ARC funded research which takes effect from 1 January 2013. According to this new policy the ARC requires that any publications arising from an ARC supported research project must be deposited into an open access institutional repository within a twelve (12) month period from the date of publication. I did giggle at the assumption that the author’s version of their article is by default a Word document, but then I guess that’s true for > 90% of authors. Outcomes like this come dangerously close to restoring hope. Filed under: australia, open access Tagged: arc, open access, publishing
Source: What You're Doing Is Rather Desperate - Category: Bioinformaticians Authors: Tags: australia open access arc publishing Source Type: blogs