Insert before page 65 of the CAUL papers
CAUL/CONZUL
4 April 2005-03-31
Agenda Item 654
Australian Research Information Infrastructure Committee
The ARIIC met on Wednesday, 30 March 2005. A key agenda item concerned the identification of
projects which might be funded by DEST under the Systemic Infrastructure Initiative.
DEST is planning to issue a public call for expressions of interest in mid April. It is likely that funding
will be available for projects which contribute at a systemic level to:
 digital management of Australian research information
 maximising access to digital resources in Australian universities, especially regional
universities
 adopting a national approach to improving open access to the results of publicly
funded research
 providing effective linkages between sets of research information to enable seamless
access by researchers
 creating new types of digital libraries to manage extremely large data sets
It would be useful if CAUL members could provide feedback on the type of facilities and/or services
which they will need in order to meet the objectives listed in the dot points.
With regard to Open Access, ARIIC has endorsed a statement which is attached. There has been some
criticism of the Statement by Professor Stevan Harnad who believes that it strays from the orthodoxy of
‘institutional self-archiving of articles published in the existing journals’. He also, perhaps quite
rightly, criticised the ARIIC and other statements which are full of rhetoric but which do not have
implementation strategies. The sixteen Scottish universities recently committed themselves to
establishing institutional repositories of research papers and doctoral theses, and Finland is likely to
move in a similar direction.
Given the proposed call by DEST for projects to be funded from the Systemic Infrastructure Initiative,
it may be time to consider how to best support the implementation of its Open Access Statement.
Action will need at least the collaboration and support of the AVCC and the ARC as well as other
organizations involved in funding and supporting Australian research. Activities which might be
considered include:
 national promotion and awareness campaigns aimed at policy and funding bodies, publishers
and individual scholars
 commitment from the AVCC, ARC, NHMRC and DEST that results of publicly-funded
research should be available on open access either by means of self-archiving or through
publication in an open access journal and that research grants cover fees for publication
 encourage research publishers to offer open access publishing streams with fair pricing
 fund institutions wanting to establish repositories
 encourage, and where practical mandate, researchers to deposit copies of their outputs
(articles, reports, conference papers, etc) in an institutional or co-operative repository
 review intellectual property policies, to ensure that researchers have the right and duty to
provide an open access version of their research
 support to increase the content supplied by universities to the Australian Digital Theses
project
 increase funding for the ARROW and APSR projects to enable them to fast-track their
programmes and to include other participants
 underwrite demonstrator projects which permitted other Open Access-compliant repository
software to be tested
 support international collaboration on matters relating to open access.
Comment from CAUL members would be appreciated.
John Shipp
31 March 2005
Insert before page 65 of the CAUL papers
CAUL/CONZUL
4 April 2005-03-31
Agenda Item 654
ARIIC OPEN ACCESS STATEMENT
ARIIC has a commitment to the development of a coherent information infrastructure for Australian
higher education. Successful achievement of this commitment is dependent on systems of academic
publishing and communication that enable the rapid and affordable dissemination of the outcomes of
research and scholarship, and on the preservation of the scholarly record for the future.
ARIIC recognises that:
 digital communications offer opportunities for the development of more efficient and effective
systems of academic publishing.

research is increasingly conducted globally by collaborations facilitated by grids of
communications and computing power, and access to shared information resources will assist
such endeavours.

open access to the outcomes of research will enhance the profile of universities and national
research programs, contribute to the further advancement of knowledge, and recognise the
public contribution to the funding of research.

maintaining the quality and authority of academic publishing and the integrity of the scholarly
record is of critical importance through any evolution.

access to builds informed communities and contributes to the elimination of social and
economic disadvantage.
ARIIC acknowledges that the Australian government has supported the Open Access declaration
formulated by the OECD Committee for Scientific and Technological Policy. 1 It is also noted that
scholarly bodies throughout the world have issued statements and declarations relating to their
commitment to open access initiatives that will enhance global access to scholarly information. 2
In agreement with the intentions of these statements ARIIC declares it will work towards:

building the infrastructure, such as institutional repositories, that will advance open access.

raising awareness of the principles and practice of open access publishing within Australian
research institutions.

implementing public policies that ensure fair use of copyrighted information for educational
and research purposes.

cooperating with Australian governments to improve access to scholarly information, and to
maximise the amount of information in the public domain.
Endorsed 17 December 2004
1
http://www.oecd.org/document/15/0,2340,en_2649_34487_25998799_1_1_1_1,00.html
2 Definition of open access publication:
An open access publication is one that meets the following two conditions:
1. The author(s) and copyright holder(s) grant(s) to all users a free, irrevocable, world-wide, perpetual (for the lifetime
of the applicable copyright) right of access to, and a licence to copy, use, distribute, perform and display the work
publicly and to make and distribute derivative works in any digital medium for any reasonable purpose, subject to
proper attribution of authorship, as well as the right to make small numbers of printed copies for their personal use.
2. A complete version of the work and all supplemental materials, including a copy of the permission as stated above, in
a suitable standard electronic format is deposited immediately upon initial publication in at least one online repository
that is supported by an academic institution, scholarly society, government agency, or other well-established
organisation that seeks to enable open access, unrestricted distribution, interoperability, and long-term archiving.
An open access publication is a property of individual works, not necessarily of journals or of publishers.
Community standards, rather than copyright law, will continue to provide the mechanism for enforcement of proper attribution
and responsible use of the published work, as they do now.
This definition of open access publication has been taken from A Position statement by the Wellcome Trust in support of open
access publishing ( http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/en/1/awtvispolpub.html) and was based on the definition arrived at by delegates
who attended a meeting on open access publishing convened by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in July 2003.