Open Scholarship Policy

Intent

The University values and supports intellectual discoveries, recognising that knowledge has the power to change lives and that through the adoption of Open Scholarship practices it will contribute to the wide and rapid dissemination of scholarly outputs.

The commitment to all forms of openness and transparency in the scholarly and research environment will enhance the visibility of JCU research publications, research data and open educational resources, resulting in global advancement and collaboration for the benefit of all societies. The Open Scholarship principles outlined in the policy provide JCU authors with a means of achieving equitable access to their work, maximum public benefit, and will help contribute to future discoveries.

This policy has been developed in accordance with guidelines and practices from the following organisations and principles:

• The Open Access policies of the Australian Research Council (ARC) and the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC)
• The Council of Australian University Librarians (CAUL) Statement on Open Scholarship
• Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC)
• F.A.I.R (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable).

Scope

Applies to all JCU Authors including professional, conjoint and adjunct staff, Higher Degree by Research students (HDR) and any affiliates where a JCU attribution occurs.

Definitions

Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) - The final (peer-reviewed and corrected) manuscript version of a research output, as accepted for publication. This version should not have the publisher’s formatting or typesetting associated with the Version of Record.

Embargo - A period of time imposed by the publisher, author or funder and which restricts full text access to a specific version of the work.

Institutional Repository - Hosted within the institution and is an online archive for the collection, preservation, and dissemination of research outputs.

Open Access (OA) - is a set of principles and practices that make scholarly publications freely available to all users, with no financial, legal or other barriers, beyond those associated with access to the Internet. The primary methods of facilitating Open Access are by paying an Article Processing Charge (APC) to the publisher (‘Gold’ Open Access) to make the Version of Record freely and immediately available, or by depositing an Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) version of the research output to an institutional repository (‘Green’ Open Access). AAMs may be subject to an embargo, depending on publishers’ policies.

Open Scholarship - a term to describe the embodiment of open access research outputs, open data, open educational resources and all other forms of openness in the scholarly and research environment. Open Scholarship enables research to be verifiable, reproducible and collaborative.

Open Educational Resources – learning, teaching and research materials in any format that are publicly available with an open license that permits no-cost access and use, adaptation, and redistribution.

Research Data - any information collected, generated or created during a research project. Data that will validate research findings must be preserved, and should (where possible) be shared, to maximise public benefit from research.

Research Outputs - Any work produced during a research project. Typical research outputs include journal articles, books and book chapters, conference papers, reports, grey literature (such as working papers), protocols, patents, software or non-traditional research outputs (NTROs) including creative works.

Version of Record (VoR) – The final, published version of a research output with the publisher’s formatting and editing applied. This version is generally not allowed to be made available in an institutional repository unless a fee (often referred to as an Article Processing Charge) has been paid to make it Open Access immediately.

Policy

1. James Cook University encourages open scholarly practices across the research life cycle to ensure research integrity is maintained through transparency, and to maximise public benefit from JCU scholarship.
2. The University is committed to the widest possible dissemination of all scholarly outputs - to ensure discovery of, and equitable access to JCU research outputs, research data and educational resources.
3. The University recognises that research practices and methods will vary across disciplines, and that open access may not always be achievable for all scholarly outputs produced by JCU authors. However, the University requires the sharing of scholarly outputs, including research data, wherever possible, to support reproducibility and communicability of research to validate research outputs and to advance public confidence in JCU scholarship.
4. The University is committed to the provision of the services, systems and infrastructure required to support the deposit of research outputs into the institutional repositories and facilitate their open dissemination.
5. The University requires the deposit of research outputs and research data to the respective institutional repositories known as ResearchOnline@JCU and Research Data JCU.
6. The University requires that, where the Version of Record of a research publication is not freely and openly accessible, the Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) must be deposited to ResearchOnline@JCU immediately upon publication to facilitate ‘Green’ Open Access.
7. The University strongly supports the sharing and re-use of research data, especially where it underpins research outputs, while taking into account any ethical, legal, cultural or other considerations that apply to the data.
8. The University supports the adoption, adaptation, and creation of high quality Open Educational Resources (OERs) where they contribute to quality educational experiences and student success.

Related policy instruments

• Authorship Procedure
• Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research
• Disclosure of Interests and Management of Conflicts of Interest Procedure
• Intellectual Property Policy and Procedure
• Management of Data and Information in Research Procedure
• Managing and Investigating Potential Breaches of the JCU Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research Procedure
• Publication & Dissemination of Research Procedure
• Researcher Supervision Procedure
• ResearchOnline Procedure
• Staff Code Conduct Policy

Other related documents

• Australian Research Council Open Access Policy
• National Health and Medical Research Council Open Access Policy

Administration

NOTE: Printed copies of this policy are uncontrolled, and currency can only be assured at the time of printing.

Approval Details

Revision History