The “Bring Out Your Dead” Green Open Access Initiative
From 1 August to 18 November, we invited researchers to send through the peer-reviewed author accepted manuscripts of published journal articles from the last five years that were still locked behind a paywall. We added these manuscripts to the existing publication records to bring the articles new life through Open Access. Through the competition, we were able to make 141 articles and book chapters free to read for researchers and members of the public. Manuscripts continue to come into the repository even now, and we have made more than 169 research outputs Open Access from August this year.
What is Green Open Access?
Open Access is a foundational element of a broader movement in the international research community called Open Knowledge or Open Science. The central premise of Open Knowledge is that the information being produced by government-funded institutions such as universities should be freely available to the public. Open Access seeks to make the outputs of research, including journal articles, books, book chapters and conference papers publicly available to everyone around the world at no cost to readers.
There are many pathways to making publications like journal articles Open Access, but some of these pathways can cost authors and institutions significant sums of money. Historically, publishers have charged a subscription fee to libraries and individuals for access to the journal articles they publish. Gold Open Access involves researchers paying publishers to cover the revenue from subscription fees for an article, which can amount to as much as $17,000 for a single journal article Open Access.
Green Open Access is different because there is no cost to readers or authors. Rather than paying for the final, published version of an article or book chapter to be made freely available, Green Open Access involves depositing a manuscript of a publication, after it has undergone peer review but before it has been typeset, in a repository like ResearchOnline@JCU. Most publishers allow these manuscripts to be made publicly available for free, usually after an embargo period of 12-24 months has elapsed to allow for subscription sales.
2024 Winners
As part of the 2024 competition, we announced one winner from each of our colleges, and one winner from JCU Singapore. Congratulations to the winners of the inaugural competition:
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
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| L-R: Ulf Schmitz, Professor Andreas Lopata and Jayshree Mamtora |
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| L-R: Daniel Miller, Amanda Krause and Jayshree Mamtora |
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| L-R: Stephen Anderson, Jayshree Mamtora, Annette Messell, Mostafa Rahimi Azghadi (winner), Peter Robertson and Professor Mohan Jacob |
For further information please contact Jayshree Mamtora, Manager, Scholarly Communications, JCU Library.
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