Open access in Australia: An odyssey of sorts?

Abstract

Scholarly communication change and open access (OA) initiatives in Australia have followed an Odyssean path in the last decade. The stop-start nature of early initiatives demonstrates that institutional leadership is essential for the successful deposit of academic content in an institutional repository. Similarly, OA policies from the two Australian Research Councils were delayed for nearly a decade, partly due to publisher pressure and bureaucratic conservatism. More successful has been the development of full, or hybrid, open access university e-presses. These presses, usually embedded in the scholarly infrastructure of the university, provide monographic models for wider global consideration. Australian universities are now reflecting, partly through recent Research Council edicts and monitoring global OA developments, greater awareness of the need for action in scholarly communication change.