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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-AU link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>This post may be unbelievable, so if you don’t like reading unbelievable things before breakfast, delay reading further until you think you can cope with it.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><i><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Universities Australia</span></i><span style='font-size:12.0pt'> (which is a body composed of all Australian Vice-Chancellors) has released a paper in February, entitled ‘<b>An agenda for Australian Higher Education 2013-2016</b>’. In it the vice-chancellors express their collected intentions and wisdom regarding open access. I quote from the section subtitled ‘<b>Open access to research</b>’ on page 44:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:36.0pt'><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>“Universities Australia believes that there is enormous public benefit in increasing access to the outcomes of all research, especially research that has been publicly funded. There are a number of logistical, practical and commercial issues that need to be addressed to achieve this goal and Universities Australia, with the support of government, is committed to making Australia’s high-quality research output freely accessible to all.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>So far, so good. Indeed, great! Now turn to ‘<b>Actions: Expand research outreach</b>’ on p45 to see how motherhood statements become reality:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:36.0pt'><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>“To increase the visibility of university outputs and make them more useful for the broader community, universities will include metadata on research publications in their institutional repositories…’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Really? The metadata is already in the open domain. Metadata is a routine by-product of publishing. Mind you, the universities will add <i>Socio-Economic Objective</i> codes and <i>Field of Research</i> codes from the Australian Bureau of Statistics classification, which publishers don’t.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:36.0pt'><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>“…and will expand the proportion of full text publications available to 50% by 2030.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>50% of what? Current annual output? 2013-2016 output? Measured how long after publication? Why 50% which is not a stable position? And 17 years into the future to achieve even this paltry target, by which time no current vice-chancellor will still be in office; indeed in some cases there will be two changes of CEO! This is just procrastination – poorly thought out, and a fob-off. One could have hoped that Universities Australia could have been more decisive. I suggest as an alternative:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:36.0pt'><i><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Universities will provide the full text of all their research publications, or a link to where such a full-text can be found, in their institutional repositories no later than the end of 2016. Compliance should be measured six months after publication in the case of biological and medical research, twelve months in the case of all other sciences, and two years in the case of humanities and fine arts.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Notes: <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoListParagraph style='text-indent:-18.0pt;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1'><![if !supportLists]><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><span style='mso-list:Ignore'>1.<span style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'> </span></span></span><![endif]><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>This is an achievable timetable, and within the planning timeframe of the report.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoListParagraph style='text-indent:-18.0pt;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1'><![if !supportLists]><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><span style='mso-list:Ignore'>2.<span style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'> </span></span></span><![endif]><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The embargoes mirror those of the RCUK.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoListParagraph style='text-indent:-18.0pt;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1'><![if !supportLists]><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><span style='mso-list:Ignore'>3.<span style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'> </span></span></span><![endif]><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The content provision matches the requirements of the Australian research councils, except the humanities and fine arts are given some extra embargo leeway.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoListParagraph style='text-indent:-18.0pt;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1'><![if !supportLists]><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><span style='mso-list:Ignore'>4.<span style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'> </span></span></span><![endif]><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>While the statement states ‘all’ as a target, achievement of say 95% should be regarded as acceptable by 2017.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoListParagraph style='text-indent:-18.0pt;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1'><![if !supportLists]><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><span style='mso-list:Ignore'>5.<span style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'> </span></span></span><![endif]><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The universities can then press even harder for an efficiency dividend, with the Australian Government simply harvesting data from the repositories for both HERDC (data collection) and ERA (research evaluation), and relieving themselves of unnecessary work.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Arthur Sale<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>University of Tasmania, Australia<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>‘<o:p></o:p></span></p></div></body></html>