The ARC has announced a new Open Access Policy, which takes effect from the 1st 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.

It differs from the NHMRC Open Access Policy, in that it will not be applied retrospectively to existing funded research.

The policy commences on 1 January 2013, but the first publications are not potentially due to be made available in an institutional repository until after 1 January 2014.
The policy will be incorporated into all new Funding Rules and Agreements released after 1 January 2013. It will not be applied retrospectively to pre-existing Funding Rules and Agreements.

The aim of ARC's Policy is to ensure that the findings of publicly funded research are made available to the wider public as soon as possible. Both the research community and the public gain from knowledge derived from ARC funded research, and both wish to derive maximum benefit from these outputs.

Commentaries on the policy…..

The Conversation

9 Jan 2013 - Free for all: ARC-funded research now open to the public

15 Jan 2013 - What is open access and why should we care?

On the 13th December the latest open-access journal eLife was official launched. A press release yesterday stated eLife, the open-access journal for outstanding advances in life sciences and biomedicine reveals a fresh approach to presenting and using scientific content on its new website.

eLife aims to provide a journal portal that invites visitors to

Explore - Important new research and associated data
Read - Commentary by experts and colleagues

eLife is supported by Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Max Planck Society and Wellcome Trust.

Commencing around April 2013 the NIH will begin to hold processing of non-competing continuation awards if publications arising from grant awards are not in compliance with the public access policy. Once publications are in compliance, awards will go forward. Funded organizations will be given at least five months to prepare for the new process, and can use this time to make sure that publications comply with the policy. For more details: http://nexus.od.nih.gov/all/2012/11/16/improving-public-access-to-research-results/

APL materials will be a premier, international, rapid-publication, open-access journal in advanced materials research. It will span the whole breadth of functional materials research. Submitted papers will be afforded a high-quality review process with fast turnaround, and will benefit from exceptional visibility and prestige once published. Articles of both an experimental and theoretical nature on materials with a range of functional properties (including but not limited to electronic, optical, electrical, magnetic, biological, ionic, multifunctional and emergent phenomena) are invited. Submissions open on 1 January 2013.

• Free, permanent, online access to your article
• Article level metrics; analytics to measure reader-interest in your article
• Fair, fast, and rigorous peer review
• Worldwide media coverage for your work
• Creative Commons licensing so you retain copyright

SCOAP³, the Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics, has developed an innovative model to achieve open access to peer-reviewed journals in high-energy physics (HEP).

SCOAP³ will convert high energy physics articles in the leading journals to gold open access. The publishers of these articles and journals are fully acknowledged through peer review and editorial services and the provision of the final published versions. The objective is to convert content in these journals from their current subscription-based model to open access, while preserving all the values provided by quality publishers and publications. SCOAP³ is funded without additional cost to libraries, via the re-direction of their currently funded HEP subscriptions.

ScienceDirect has provided free access to the 2012 Nobel Laureates most-cited ground-breaking research published in Elsevier journals in recognition of these extraordinary scholars and their contributions to science in the fields of Medicine, Physics, Chemistry and Economics. All eight Nobel scientists have connections with Elsevier, publishing journal articles and book chapters. Find links to selected free articles here. Check the Nobel Prize website for further information on the 2012 Nobel Laureates.