This year’s Open Access week theme, Who Owns Our Knowledge? seeks to encourage a candid conversation about which approaches to open scholarship prioritise the best interests of the public and the academic community, and which do not.
JCU open access activities will be held during the course of Open Access Week, 20-26 October, 2025.
Join us for JCU Library's Open Access Week Panel Session: "Open Access and Copyright in the Age of AI", a lively discussion exploring how generative technologies are reshaping our understanding of creativity, ownership, and access to knowledge. From the ethics of AI training on copyrighted works to the future of open scholarship, our speakers will probe whether existing frameworks can survive the rapid evolution of machine authorship. This discussion invites scholars, artists, and technologists alike to imagine what intellectual property, and intellectual freedom, might mean in the AI era.
Facilitator: Distinguished Professor Dean Jerry, College of Science and Engineering, JCU
Panellists:
Online, Thursday 23 October, 2:00pm (AEST, Brisbane). Register here.
The ECR Open Access Champion 2025 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 to four years.
The winner/s will receive a $200 book voucher sponsored by JCU Library.
The Judging Panel will comprise:
2025 WINNERS:
To mark Open Access Week 2025 (20-26 October), JCU Library 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, Who Owns Our Knowledge?, seeks to encourage a candid conversation about which approaches to open scholarship prioritise the best interests of the public and the academic community—and which do not. Read more about the theme here.
Entrants are asked to produce a poster, similar to one they might present at a conference, addressing the theme. We recommend that HDR candidates seeking to enter undertake poster training provided by Dr Tullio Rossi at Animate Your Science. Details of how to access this training are available on SkillsJCU.
The judging criteria for the 2025 competition are shown below. Overall, we are looking for a pleasing and persuasive combination of text and visual imagery that offers strong advocacy for the benefits of Open Access publication. The competition closes at noon on Tuesday 7 October
The competition is open to all JCU Higher Degree by Research (HDR) candidates, with the prize awarded for the best response to the theme as above:
Judging Criteria:
All HDR candidates who submit an entry will be entitled to claim 1 point in the Leadership and Initiative category of Professional Development.
Prize
The winner in each category will receive a $200 book voucher, jointly sponsored by the JCU Library and the GRS.
The Judging Panel comprised:
2025 WINNERS
The Open Education Champion Award 2025 will be presented to the staff member who, in the opinion of an expert judging panel, has made the greatest contribution to open education at JCU during 2024-2025.
The award celebrates an individual who has significantly advanced the uptake of open education and textbook affordability strategies at JCU. This initiative aims to enhance the student experience by making education more accessible and affordable while supporting JCU’s innovative digital-first learning and teaching approach. During the JCU Library’s Textbook Affordability Project (2024-2025), this award particularly acknowledges open education and textbook affordability advocacy targeted at first-year core subjects.
A $200 prize will be awarded to the individual who has contributed the most toward
2025 Winner: Colleen Hodgins, Education Design
The JCU Open eBook Excellence and Impact Award honors an outstanding open educational resource published in 2023 or 2024 that significantly enhances the JCU student experience. This award acknowledges the significant efforts of authors in creating an eBook that has made education more accessible and affordable, while promoting JCU’s innovative digital-first learning approach. During the JCU Library’s Textbook Affordability Project (2024-2025), this award particularly acknowledges eBooks that target first-year core subjects.
The prize will be awarded to the author(s) and/or editor(s) who have contributed the most toward:
2025 winner: Communication Skills for Health Professionals. Edited and authored by Brock Cook, CHS
“Bring Out Your Dead!”: Make your past publications freely accessible to the world
In an effort to increase the visibility and accessibility of the university’s research outputs, we invite researchers to participate in our Retroactive Green Open Access initiative running from 1 July to 30 September.
This activity is run in the form of a competition, where the Academic who has the largest number of restricted articles converted to "green open access" will have their achievements acknowledged in the form of a trophy. Each College/JCUS will have a winner!
Information on the competition and how to make your restricted articles Open Access is in the following word document.
2024 WINNERS:
College of Arts, Society and Education: Dr Ines Zuchowski
College of Business, Law and Governance: Dr Breda McCarthy
College of Healthcare Sciences: Dr Amanda Krause
College of Medicine and Dentistry: The HART Project
College of Public Health, Medical and Veterinary Sciences: Professor Andreas Lopata
College of Science and Engineering: Dr Mostafa Rahimi Azghadi
JCU Singapore: Dr Tan Kim Lim
https://oaaustralasia.org/open-access-week/
Tuesday October 21, 2025. 9 am AEST The politics of knowledge: who controls the story and who has access to it?
Wednesday October 22, 2025. 12pm AEST Community ownership: Relation, reciprocity and responsibility
Thursday October 23, 2025 12pm AEST Vive la révolution! Taking our knowledge back Register here.
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.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International License, unless otherwise noted. 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.
