Skip to Main Content

JCU logoLibrary Guides

Open Access Publishing

Open Access Week 2021

JCU open access activities will be held during the course of Open Access Week which this year, is being held 25-31 October.

  • Open Access Week Webinar was held online on 28 October with Dr Ginny Barbour, Director, Open Access Australasia, and Professor Sarah Larkins, Dean, JCU College of Medicine and Dentistry as speakers. A recording is available from the link below.
  • Winners of the two JCU Open Access awards, the HDR Open Access Advocate Award 2021, and the ECR Open Access Champion Award 2021 were announced at a presentation event held on 25 October. 
  • Many events were organised by Open Access Australasia
  • Check out our Open Access Guide for information about the many benefits of open access and how you can publish open access.
  • There were several social media posts during October 2021.

ECR Open Access Champion Award 2021

The ECR Open Access Champion 2021 Award will be awarded to the JCU ECR who, in the opinion of an expert judging panel, has made the greatest contribution to Open Access through their research publications within the previous three years.

The Selection Panel will comprise: 

  • Professor Maxine Whittaker (CPHMVS),
  • Professor Jacob Wood (CBLG),
  • Amanda Krause (CHS)
  • Tove Lemberget, Team Leader, Repository and Metadata Services (LIS) and
  • Jayshree Mamtora, Scholarly Communications Librarian (LIS).

The winners of the 2021 Awards are:

  • ECR Open Access Champion: Rachel Hay (CBLG)
  • ECR Green Open Access Champion: Jacqueline Lau (Coral Reefs CoE)
  • Highly Commended Adjunct for Open Access Publishing: Adeshine Adekunle (AITHM)

HDR Open Access Advocate Award 2021

To mark Open Access Week 2021 (25-31 October), JCU Library and Information Services (LIS) and the Graduate Research School (GRS), are once again pleased to invite entries for the  “HDR Open Access Advocate” competition. The theme for this year's Open Access Week is:                                       "It Matters How We Open Knowledge: Building Structural Equity".

The competition is open to all JCU Higher Degree by Research candidates, with a prize awarded for the best short communication that answers the question, “How do you benefit from open knowledge and why?”. All entries should be submitted here .

Creativity is encouraged in responses, and entries in any form (from short essay to tweet to haiku to multimedia video) will be accepted – so long as they are short and sweet! Maximum one page in length.

Judging criteria are as follows:

  • Did the communication provide a clear and simple answer to the question?
  • Was the communication comprehensible to a wide range of audiences across multiple disciplines and interests?
  • Did the entrant make engaging points without trivialising the issue?
  • Did the entrant convey enthusiasm for their advocacy of the benefits of open knowledge?
  • Did the communication capture and maintain the interest of the judges?
  • Did the communication convince the judges about the benefits to open knowledge?

 All PhD candidates who submit an entry will be entitled to claim 1 point in the Leadership and Initiative category of RD7003 Professional Development.

The Prize: The winner will receive a $200 book voucher, jointly sponsored by the JCU Library and Information Services, and the GRS. 

Please submit your entry by COB Monday 11 October 2021.

The Judging Panel will comprise:

  • Michelle Redman-McLaren (Associate Dean Research Education, CMD)
  • Liz Tynan (Associate Professor, GRS)
  • Jayden Engert (HDR Candidate and 2020 winner)
  • Nathan Garvey (Research and Data Repository Officer, LIS) 
  • Jayshree Mamtora (Scholarly Communications Librarian, LIS).

The winners of the 2021 Award are:

JCU Open Access Week 2021 WEBINAR

Opening up Research Webinar 28 October, 3pm AEST 

Opening up research in 2021: global and national developments and what it means for you

Dr Ginny Barbour, Director, Open Access Australasia 

If 2020 was the year when open access really came to prominence because of its importance in dissemination of research and advancing knowledge in the pandemic, then 2021 was the year when concrete open policy initiatives were realised.

This talk will be a chance to get an insider’s perspective on some of the key international and regional developments and to discuss what they mean at a university and researcher level - including their relevance to publishing that supports locally important, including Indigenous, research.

Speaker Bio: Dr Ginny Barbour (ORCID profile) is Director of Open Access Australasia (previously Australasian Open Access Strategy Group) and is Co-Lead, Office for Scholarly Communications, Queensland University of Technology (QUT). In 2004, she was one of the three founding editors of PLOS Medicine. She has been involved with many Open Access, publishing, and ethics initiatives including Chair of COPE (2012-2017), Chair of DORA Advisory Group, Chair of Cochrane Library Oversight Committee, and as a Plan S Ambassador. She is on the NHMRC’s Research Quality Steering Committee.

Open access publication from a researcher’s perspective: good intent but problematic execution
Professor Sarah Larkins, Dean, College of Medicine and Dentistry

The world of open access publication is changing rapidly, and researchers, funders and universities are struggling to keep up.  The intent to facilitate free and open availability of research findings is a good and fair one, and funders have responded by mandating open access for funded research.  Whilst there are small numbers of open access publications with no or low article publishing fees, many more are wildly expensive and beyond the capacity of most researchers or academic groups.   Libraries meanwhile are devoting their stretched resources to subscription fees.  This presentation will outline some of the challenges of this transitional period from the perspective of a researcher and research group leader.

Speaker Bio: Professor Sarah Larkins is the Dean of the College of Medicine and Dentistry at James Cook University, Director of Research Development, Division of Tropical Health and Medicine; and Professor, Health Systems Strengthening. With a career focus in health systems research, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health, rural and remote medicine, public health, and health professional education, Sarah has a long history of service and leadership. She was an inaugural Director of the Australian Primary Health Care Research Institute and a past member of the World Health Organisation Technical Working Group on Health Workforce Education Assessment Tools.

Open Access Australasia Events

Monday 25 October, 11-12pm AEST

Growing the Value of Research by Nurturing the Open Knowledge Ecosystem

Who gets access to humanity’s research knowledge? Is it just a case of bringing down barriers or do we need to build bridges? What does the future of knowledge exchange look like and what power do we have to shape it? This panel will discuss the complex ways that different parts of the knowledge ecosystem interact, drawing on their expertise ranging from advising Australia’s Prime Minister, to founding open access news services, to keeping Wikipedia’s medical information accurate, to guiding nationwide research funding.

register here

Tuesday 26 October, 11-12pm AEST

Shaking up the Culture of Research Assessment

The outputs from academic research are many and varied. Funding agencies, institutions that employ researchers, and researchers themselves all have a desire and need to assess the quality and impact of academic outputs, to ensure they are assessed accurately and evaluated fairly. In order to support a change to more open research practices, and to support early career researchers, a change in thinking is needed in how research is valued and assessed. Join us for a panel discussion on ways in which research assessment can be improved.

register here

Tuesday 26 October, 1-2pm AEST

Hack OA Everyday: Virtual Escape Room

Not sure you’re keeping up to date enough with all things open access? Do you panic when it’s suddenly October and OA Week is nearly here? Join Open Access Australasia for an interactive Virtual Escape Room and learn how to Hack OA everyday! 

Registration:

This session has been created for an OA practitioner audience and will be capped at 20 participants. Due to this cap, please discuss with and nominate one OA practitioner to represent your institution or organisation. Once you have decided on a nominee please fill out the nomination form and OAA will contact the nominee with the details.

nomination form

Wednesday 27 October, 11-12pm AEST

Open Across the Research Spectrum: what different disciplines can learn from each other

Join us for a session looking at the range of possible aims and approaches for getting knowledge to the people who need it. For some it’s making alternatives to otherwise unavoidable paywalls, for others it’s making the most of data resources. Some are working to help people connect with written and oral history, others are looking to ensure evidence-based policy making in government. Join us as we share ideas that we can adapt to our own research.

register here

Wednesday 27 October, 1-2pm AEST

How to Address Global Challenges with Open Science

The last couple of years have taught us a lot about the importance of open science in accelerating research and supporting collaboration in order to address the challenges facing us globally. As the COVID pandemic recedes, we are now facing an even larger challenge in the form of climate change including how we can adapt what we’ve learnt from research during COVID to the climate emergency.

register here

Thursday 28 October, 11-12pm AEST

Indigenous Voices: openness through a First Nations lens

This session is the first of two discussions on openness and knowledge equity through a First Nations lens. The session will focus on the concepts and philosophy of research with Indigenous people and knowledge and how it is more complex than simply ‘open’ or ‘closed’.

[The scope of these sessions are being developed with participants and may evolve before the session]

register here

Thursday 28 October, 1-2pm AEST

Indigenous Voices: putting principles into practice

We’ll be following on from the earlier principles session by looking at how to put these concepts into action. This will be similarly wide-ranging, touching on licenses, publishing practices, specific archives and data architectures, with illustrative case studies.

[The scope of these sessions are being developed with participants and may evolve before the session]

register here

Friday 29 October, 11-12pm AEST

Another Kind of Open: exploring the benefits and barriers to the creation and use of open educational resources

You’ve heard of open access for research publications, but have you considered the role of openness in teaching and learning? In this interactive session, we’ll explore open educational resources (OERs) and their benefits, through a series of case studies and unpack some of the barriers to using, adapting and creating OERs. Whether you are new to OERs or an experienced OER specialist, join us for this interactive event and be part of the conversation on moving the OER agenda forward at a national level.

register here

Friday 29 October, 1-2pm AEST

Making Research Truly Accessible: insight unshared is thwarted potential

Academic communication can be highly exclusionary. How can we make research findings more accessible whilst retaining accuracy? Our panel of experts in social media outreach, communicating across the sciences, arts and humanities, and visualising research will discuss how to work genuinely accessible for greater equity and impact.

register here

https://oaaustralasia.org/events/oa-week-2021/

We acknowledge the Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the first inhabitants of the nation and acknowledge Traditional Owners of the lands where our staff and students, live, learn and work.Acknowledgement of Country

Creative Commons Licence
Except where otherwise noted, this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International License. Content from this Guide should be attributed to James Cook University Library. This does not apply to images, third party material (seek permission from the original owner) or any logos or insignia belonging to JCU or other bodies, which remain All Rights Reserved.

.