The theme for Open Access Week for 2018 is ‘Designing equitable foundations for open knowledge.’ But open systems aren’t always set to a default of ‘inclusive’, and there are important questions that need to be raised around prioritisation of voices, addressing perpetual conscious and unconscious bias, and who is excluded from discussions and decisions surrounding information and data access. There are also issues of the sometimes-competing pressures to move toward both increased openness and greater privacy.

Special Guest Speakers are Dr Ruth DeSouza, Academic Convenor, Data, Systems and Society Research Network (DSSRN) and Dr Fiona Tweedie, Data Strategy Advisor at University of Melbourne.