Open schoolarship and the practice at RMIT university

Abstract

In 2015, the United Nations released the program of seventeen goals for sustainable development strategy. Quality education is the top four and one of the most important goals of the SDGs program. One of the key topics covered in the United Nations’ development goals is “ensuring inclusive and equitable education” for everyone (UN n.d.). Open practices are anticipated to improve access to education, reduce cost, enhance research impact, and facilitate the equitability, effectiveness and transparency of education and scholarship (Veletsianos & Kimmons, 2012) which should perfectly match the education goal of SDGs program. While several educational institutions started working around the open practices, RMIT is not an exception as it has introduced numerous initiatives under the open scholarship program in 2021.Open scholarship encompasses three areas: Open Access, Open Research and Open Education. In 2021, RMIT joined and became part of the Open Scholarship initiative. This paper introduces the open scholarship movement and delves into its meaning and the three core aspects of Open scholarship: Open Access, Open Research, and Open Education. It also provides a global perspective on open academic practices. Furthermore, the paper explores the practical implementation of open scholarship at RMIT University, covering topics such as Open Education (Open Educational Resources, the Pressbooks Authoring and Editing Platform), Open Research, RMIT Research Repository, CAUL Read and Publish Agreements, and Open Scholarship Policy.