Our position on Open Knowledge

At its heart, open knowledge is about ensuring Murdoch University’s research and scholarship can reach further, connecting with the communities, practitioners, policymakers and future researchers who can use it to inform practice, shape thinking and create positive change.

This position statement provides a clear, values-led direction for supporting openness in ways that are ethical, sustainable and aligned with Murdoch’s commitment to sharing knowledge for public benefit. We will now build on the statement by working with our research community to embed open knowledge as a practical and sustainable part of how Murdoch creates and shares knowledge.

Dawn McLoughlin, University Librarian

Open Knowledge Creation and Publication Position Statement

Purpose

Murdoch University recognises research and other forms of knowledge creation, translation, and engagement as a public good with societal benefits for global and local communities. This Open Knowledge Creation and Publication Pathways position statement affirms support for Murdoch’s scholarly outputs being shared as openly as possible to:

• Maximise societal benefits,
• Ensure equitable access to scholarly outputs,
• Evidence our research impact, and
• Build learning cultures and communities.

Definition

We adopt a sector-aligned definition of open knowledge creation that “encompasses open access, open data, open science, open educational resources, and all other forms of openness in the scholarly and research environment” (CAUL, 2019). In practice, open scholarship can include publishing in open access journals, making research data openly available, preregistering planned research, citizen science and community engagement initiatives.¹

MU principles for open knowledge

We encourage and support:

1. A diverse, scholar led, ethical, and sustainable open ecosystem, with open knowledge practices aligned with Ngala Kwop Biddi and Murdoch’s values of Authenticity, Integrity, Respect, Inclusivity, and Openness.
2. Murdoch’s knowledge creation being published “as openly as possible, as closed as necessary” and adhering to the FAIR and CARE principles. ² 
3. Multiple pathways to open knowledge, and the use of the Murdoch Research Portal and CAUL open access agreements.
4. Researchers including a rights retention clause in their manuscript to ensure they retain full reuse rights over their research.
5. Scholarly outputs, including research theses, being made open in a timely and accessible manner, in line with funder and contractual obligations.

Preferred pathways to open publishing

We discourage APC payments to hybrid journals. Our preferred pathways to open knowledge publishing include:

• Publisher agreement-based routes,
• Repository-based open access in the Research Portal, or
• Scholar led and diamond open access journal venues.

¹ See, for example, Keep Carnaby's Flying: Ngloolarks Forever.

² Landi, A., Thompson, M., Giannuzzi, V., Bonifazi, F., Labastida, I., da Silva Santos, L. O. B., & Roos, M. (2020). The “A” of FAIR–as open as possible, as closed as necessary. Data Intelligence, 2(1-2), 47-55. https://doi.org/10.1162/dint_a_00027.

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