What is Open Access Week?
Open Access Week is an important annual event that highlights the value of making research, data, and educational resources freely accessible to everyone.
This year's theme, "Community over Commercialisation" a continuation from 2023, emphasizes the ongoing need to engage in scholarly practices that serve both the public and academic communities.
JCU Library OA initiatives
JCU Library helps promote and enable Open Access to research and education for our university community all year around! Open Access Week is a chance to acknowledge the great work being done, both nationally and internationally.
Open Access Week Awards 2024
Since their inception in 2020, the Open Access Week awards have grown into a wonderful event which acknowledges the hard work of Open Access advocates in the JCU community. In 2024, we are presenting four awards across a variety of categories:
- ECR Open Access Champion Award 2024 – will be awarded to the JCU ECR who has made the greatest contribution to Open Access through their research publications from 2021-2024.
- HDR Open Access Advocate Award 2024 – will be awarded to the HDR candidate who produces a poster which is a pleasing and persuasive combination of text and visual imagery that offers strong advocacy for the benefits of Open Access publication.
- Open Education Champion Award 2024 – will be presented to the staff member who has made the greatest contribution to open education at JCU during 2023-2024.
- JCU Open eBook Excellence and Impact Award 2024 – honors an outstanding open educational resource published in 2022 or 2023 that significantly enhances the JCU student experience.
To learn more about the judging panel, awards, and prizes see our web page for more information.
ResearchOnline@JCU and the Retroactive Green Open Access Initiative
The ResearchOnline@JCU repository is an online archive for the collection, preservation, and dissemination of JCU research. In an effort to increase the visibility and accessibility of the university’s research outputs, we invited researchers to participate in our Retroactive Green Open Access Initiative. The initiative encourages authors to deposit the author accepted manuscript, that is the final version of their accepted paper without publisher formatting, into our repository when the published version is not freely available. This is called “green” Open Access publishing and is in accordance with the University’s Open Scholarship Policy. If you would like to participate, please contact our team.
Open Access Videos
JCU Library interviewed academics who shared their insights and experience on the benefits of publishing Open Access.
- Developing an Open Access publishing strategy with Professor Sean Ulm and Dr Emma Rehn
- Building an Open Access research community with Dr Amanda Krause and Dr Daniel Miller
- Publishing using green Open Access with Professor Siggi Gudergan
Read and Publish Agreements
Read and Publish Agreements (RAPs) are a pathway to publishing research as Open Access. These publisher agreements take the fees the Library already pays for journal subscriptions and repurposes them to cover both the reading of and publishing in select lists of journals. As at 2024, JCU has signed 18 Read and Publish Agreements, with over 10,000 journals for JCU researchers to publish in. You can download a list of the current journals within the 2024 agreement, now with added CiteScore metrics from our guide.
JCU Open eBooks
In the spirit of Open Access, learning and teaching resources created under the same overarching principles of free access are facilitated by our Open Education team. JCU Library is using Open Educational Resources (OERs) to widen participation and break down financial barriers which may impede access to high-quality learning materials.
Since 2021, JCU Library has assisted in the creation and publication of 22 open eBooks, with many more in production. These resources can be found on the JCU Open eBook platform. For a selection of Open eBooks curated by librarians see our discovery collection.
Key webinars to attend during Open Access Week:
Do you want to learn more about Open Access from practitioners in the field? Open Access Australasia is running three webinars during Open Access Week, which are free for anyone to register and view online.
- 22 October, 12pm AEST – Open and Accessible: When open isn’t enough. Register here.
- 23 October, 12pm AEST – Communities in Action: Cutting through the rough with diamond journals and open knowledge. Register here.
- 24 October, 12pm AEST – Communities con-tech-ualised? How can technologies support communities and their decisions around opening their knowledges? Register here.
Learn more about Open Access by checking out our Open Access Library Guide.
Any questions?
If you have questions about Open Access? Please contact the library or read more about it on our Open Access Publishing guide.
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