Rate My Professor Richard White

Richard White serves as Manager, Copyright and Open Access at the University of Otago, a position he has held since 2015, following his role as Copyright Officer from 2007 to 2015. Affiliated with the Vice-Chancellor's Office and University Library, he holds a Master of Arts degree from the University of Otago, where his 1997 thesis examined Satire and Dickens. White's career focuses on advancing open scholarship, copyright compliance, and access to educational resources within the university environment. He authors the Open Otago blog, providing guidance on open access policies, Creative Commons licensing, open educational resources, and related initiatives. White has supported collaborative projects, including the development of an open access media studies textbook led by Otago academics and the promotion of open textbooks tailored to New Zealand, Australia, and Pacific contexts.

White's research contributions include conducting institutional surveys on open access publishing, such as the University of Otago Open Access Publishing Survey Results (2016 and 2017, co-authored with Melanie Remy), which analyzed publishing practices and demographic factors influencing open access uptake. His peer-reviewed publications encompass 'Student Views on the Cost of and Access to Textbooks: An Investigation at University of Otago (New Zealand)' (2017, Open Praxis, with Sarah Stein, Simon Hart, and Philippa Keaney), exploring student perspectives on textbook affordability; 'Only Two out of Five Articles by New Zealand Researchers are Free-to-Access: A Multiple API Study of Access, its Impact on Open Citation Advantage, Cost of Article Processing Charges (APC), and the Potential for Indigenous Researchers' (2021, with Rachel KA White and others); and 'Legal and Ethical Considerations around the Use of Existing Illustrations to Generate New Illustrations in the Anatomical Sciences' (2025, Anatomical Sciences Education, with Jon Cornwall and others). White is a member of the Universities New Zealand Copyright Expert Working Group and has delivered presentations on copyright for university staff, including a video resource on legal copying practices.