Report from the National Council

Report from the National Council

Welcome to the following new members who have joined since publication of the December Newsletter.

• Margaret Cameron ASH
• Dr Des GRIFFIN AM
• Judith POWELL
• Robert STOVE
• Jamie VARACALLI
• Dr Diana WYNDHAM

Have your say

As a result of a query from one of ISAA's members in the Northern Territory about the cost of receiving ethics approval for independent research involving humans and/or animals, the National Council has agreed that ISAA is not in a position to establish an Ethics Committee but has put the problem before the National Health and Medical Research Council and the Australian Research Integrity Commission.

The practical issue of cost can be over come to some extent by the independent researcher choosing an appropriate Ethics Committee and making submission for waiving of the fee. Council will probably discuss any other implications of this at its meeting in April 2011 and any comments that individual members have should be sent to the Acting Hon. Secretary Jane Burns: janemburns@bigpond.com

ISAA Review on line

ISAA has now entered into three non-exclusive licence arrangements with recognized academic databases:

• Informit RMIT;
• Cengage (formerly Thomson Gale, USA)
• and EBSCO (USA).

The agreements will enable ISAA Review articles to be accessed on-line by subscribers to the databases thus enabling these articles to be read by a much larger audience, especially by the academic community. In the case of Informit (established in 1989), its publications are at present available to most Australian universities and libraries as well as private research institutions, subject to conditions. On-line reading and use of any article is confined to authenticated subscribers to the databases with controls over re-use. The copyright of authors of Review articles is not affected in any way.

It is Council's view that the wider audience that potentially available through these agreements is most important and will be welcomed by members and others writing for the Review. It is not expected that the royalties received would be large but it is intended to apply them to the furtherance of ISAA's aims and objectives.

Website

ISAA Council sees the ISAA website as a vital part of our public profile and at the last Council meeting agreed to accept a quote from Wave Source Design to enable the ISAA website to be professionally refurbished. A committee of five was formed to prepare material to be used in the refurbishment and work has begun on putting this together. Monica Dennison agreed to be the liaison with Wave Source Design.

Monica Denison

More news from Council will be posted shortly