Figure 1: Number of articles in AJET (upper) and HERD (lower),
1997-2004, by first author's region of institutional affiliation
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AJET does have a venerable, simple and progressive policy on copyright. Since foundation in 1985, "Copyright in individual articles contained in Australian Journal of Educational Technology is vested in each of the authors in respect of his or her contributions". In 2004, Australian became Australasian. Apart from that, no changes were made, no justification ever given, no arguments ever arose, and, as far as we can determine, the policy has never been questioned by an author or a reader. Consider the question of 'justification', absent in AJET's copyright policy, but usually specified by other publishers in terms of protection and dissemination. Here are three examples, from a commercial publisher and a society:
Copyright for articles published in these journals is retained by Inderscience Publishers, to ensure both the widest dissemination and protection of material published in Inderscience journals. Authors are asked to assign world-wide copyright in both print and other media in their papers, including abstracts, to Inderscience. This enables us to ensure copyright protection against infringement, and to disseminate your article, and our journals, as widely as possible. International Journal of Learning Technology (IJLT) [1]It is interesting that AER, a recent adopter of an open access, free to the Internet policy (as discussed in Idle Moment No.1 [4]), shares a key sentence, word for word, with HERD. Your Editors will try to identify the author of this sentence, partly because recognition could be due, and partly because we would like to clarify what was meant by "copyright protection" and "widest possible readership", at the time that sentence was written. Copyright protection is a law [5], and not an action that a publisher has to take on behalf of authors. Whilst the intention to "disseminate... to the widest possible readership" is admirable, the phrase has different meanings for different stakeholders. For a commercial publisher, "widest possible readership" means "obtain more readers by selling more subscriptions". For a society publisher, it means "obtain more members by offering subscription as a membership benefit". For authors it meant, pre-Internet, that obtaining more readers was dependent upon a publisher's success in selling more subscriptions, or recruiting more members. For readers, pre-Internet, there was a similar dependence upon the publisher's success. Post-Internet, after the 1990s revolution in scholarly publishing enabled by the Internet and HTTP (hypertext transfer protocol), the term "widest possible readership" has become open to a radically new scope. This is all Internet users, if a publisher wishes to take advantage of near zero marginal costs per copy distributed "free to the Internet". In the new scholarly publishing environment, a copyright policy that makes claims about "widest possible readership" whilst not offering "free to the Internet" is flawed to the point of near silliness.It is a condition of publication that the authors vest copyright in their articles, in HERDSA. This enables us to ensure full copyright protection and to disseminate the article, and the journal, to the widest possible readership in print and electronic formats, as appropriate. Authors may use the article elsewhere after publication without prior permission from the publisher (Carfax Publishing, Taylor & Francis)... Higher Education Research & Development [2]
It is a condition of publication that authors vest copyright in their articles, including abstracts, in The Australian Educational Researcher. This enables us to ensure full copyright protection and to disseminate the article, and the journal, to the widest possible readership in print and electronic formats as appropriate. Authors may, of course, use the article elsewhere after publication providing that prior permission is obtained from the Managing Editor. The Australian Educational Researcher [3]
The casual reader could be forgiven for perceiving that many strange inconsistencies occur in the topic of scholarly publishing and copyright. Take this example from a major publisher's 'FAQs' on copyright, that indicates a most unusual use of the term 'public domain'. Used, but not actually implemented!
All Taylor & Francis journals are now published in simultaneous print and electronic, online editions; the latter is made available to institutional subscribers at no additional cost, on an open site LAN licence, for any number of concurrent users. Thus the electronic version of any paper accepted by and published in the Journal is available in the public domain, as the definitive version. [6]Seriously, whilst we can say with confidence that the intentions of AJET's copyright policy and open access policy are firmly established, and strongly supported by authors [7], we may need to work upon the details of how we express these policies clearly, efficiently and purposefully. One approach we intend to keep under review is the use of internationally standardised licencing classes as propounded by the Creative Commons [8], now developing in Australia [9]:
Creative Commons is an international initiative which is attempting to reconceptualize the way we think about and create and share intellectual property, particularly in a creative context...Creative Commons aims to better identify, negotiate and reutilise content for the purpose of creativity and innovation. [10]
Figure 1: Number of articles in AJET (upper) and HERD (lower),
1997-2004, by first author's region of institutional affiliation
Notes: The classification of countries into the regions Asia-Pacific and Rest of World was based upon Australia Post's charging zones [12]. Data was obtained by inspection of printed copies of the journals. The counts for 2004 are incomplete.In the context of scholarly journals in general, and AJET in particular, what is "internationalisation" and why is it deemed to be an important purpose? The word "international" is common enough in journal titles. For example, in the Taylor and Francis Group's list of about 121 journals classified under education, "international" occurs 21 times in titles [13]. Many journals announce their "international, peer reviewed" status in the publisher's description, but reasons for seeking to be "international" are rarely stated. One interesting exception is International Education Journal [14], based at the School of Education, Flinders University of South Australia. This journal's aims include the phrases "examination of educational issues from a cross-cultural or indigenous people's perspective", and "syntheses of research findings from comparative and cross-national studies in education." IEJ seeks to define a different kind of merit and benefit in being "international", when stating that:
True to our name, we believe in the value of authors from a wide range of nationalities, cultures and contexts. Although we only currently publish in the English language we encourage contributions from around the world, particularly from the Asian countries. ... we do not discriminate against authors from non-English speaking backgrounds. On the contrary, we offer an Editorial Service to improve poorly written papers. [14]Whilst there is an admirable link between "international", and "cross-national" and "cross cultural", viewed as positive features in the aims for a journal, the potential implication that other journals might discriminate and may fail to provide appropriate editorial support for NESB or LOTE [15] authors would be strongly contested by editors of many other journals, including AJET's Editors.
A selection of key pages from all 45 Australian tertiary education Web sites were analysed to assess their compliance with basic accessibility standards, as required by Australian anti-discrimination legislation. The results--98% of sites failed to comply--suggest that Australian university Web sites are likely to present significant barriers to access for people with disabilities. (Alexander, 2004)In the section on text equivalents for PDF content, Alexander (2004) outlined a number of problems for persons with disabilities, and pointed out that "as a result of these limitations, the Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC) have issued the following advice":
The Commission's view is that organisations who distribute content only in PDF format, and who do not also make this content available in another format such as RTF, HTML, or plain text, are liable for complaints under the DDA (HREOC 2002).A matter we need to take into consideration. From time to time we check AJET web pages for our degree of compliance with W3C's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines [16]; we also use the W3C Markup Validation Service [17].
Roger Atkinson
AJET Production Editor
Catherine McLoughlin
AJET Editor
Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission ( 2002). World Wide Web Access: Disability Discrimination Act Advisory Notes, Version 3.2. http://www.hreoc.gov.au/disability_rights/standards/www_3/www_3.html
Martin, E. and Ling, P. (1997). Editorial. Higher Education Research and Development, 16(1), 5-7.
Style Manual for Authors, Editors and Publishers (2002). 6th ed. Wiley Australia.
| Conferences advertised in AJET 20(3) |
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ASCILITE 2004 Beyond the Comfort Zone http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/perth04/ Perth, 5-8 December 2004 |
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AusWeb 2005 http://ausweb.scu.edu.au/ Royal Pines Resort, Gold Coast, Qld 2-6 July 2005 |
The Australasian Journal of Educational Technology is a refereed research journal published three times per year jointly by the Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education and the Australian Society for Educational Technology. Prior to Volume 20, 2004, AJET's title was Australian Journal of Educational Technology. Members of ASET, ASCILITE and ISPI (Vic) receive AJET as a part of their membership benefits.
For details on submission of manuscripts, subscriptions and access to the AJET online archives, please see http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/
For review inquiries, contact the Editor, Associate Professor Catherine McLoughlin, School of Education (ACT), Australian Catholic University, PO Box 256, Dickson ACT 2602, Australia. Email: C.McLoughlin@signadou.acu.edu.au, Tel: +61 2 6209 1100 Fax +61 2 6209 1185. For production matters and subscriptions contact the Production Editor and Business Manager, Dr Roger Atkinson, 5/202 Coode Street, Como WA 6152, Australia. Email: rjatkinson@bigpond.com, Tel: +61 8 9367 1133.
AJET is managed by an Editorial Board nominated by ASCILITE and ASET. The 2004 Editorial Board comprises:
Catherine McLoughlin (Editor), Australian Catholic UniversityCopyright in individual articles contained in Australasian Journal of Educational Technology and its predecessor title is vested in each of the authors in respect of his or her contributions. Copyright in AJET is vested in ASET (1985-86), AJET Publications (1987-1996), and ASCILITE and ASET (from 1997).
Roger Atkinson (Production Editor)
Trish Andrews, University of Queensland
Carolyn Dowling, Australian Catholic University
Mike Keppell, Hong Kong Institute of Education
Lori Lockyer, University of Wollongong
Mary Jane Mahony, University of Sydney
Elizabeth Stacey, Deakin University
© 2004 All rights reserved. No part of this journal may be reprinted or reproduced without permission from the publishers. ISSN 1449-3098 (print) 1449-5554 (online).
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