Erinn Finley
Staff Writer
[email protected] 

Four Murray State professors received the Lana Porter Open Access Initiative Award for their academic open access research projects: Ismail Karabas, Christopher Lennon, William Mulligan and James Humphries.

The Lana Porter Open Access Initiative Award is an award established by Board Member of the Murray State University Foundation Lana Porter to celebrate open access research, which is research that is available for free to the public. 

Recipients of the award have made significant contributions to open access research, such as publishing articles in open access journals, publishing open access chapters or full monographs or archiving works in an open access repository. Recipients are given stipends to help fund research projects. 

Applicants describe a nominee’s accomplishments and submit to the Open Access Initiative Award committee. Criteria that were evaluated are as follows: 

• ??The open work was created during the same period of time in which the applicant was as a full-time faculty/staff member, or student, of Murray State University,
• The significance of the work to the research and professional development of the applicant,
• The ability to provide evidence of commitment to open access or open education,
• Applications must be completed in full.

Karabas, assistant professor of marketing, said he was notified of receiving the award during the Spotlight on Open Scholarship Practices Zoom session.

“I was very surprised as I had no idea I was one of the recipients of this award,” Karabas said. “It made me feel very excited and honored to have been recognized at this level.”

Karabas’s nomination packet included several research articles, which are available on his Google Scholar profile. 

Karabas said his interest in open access research stemmed from not being able to access papers. 

 “Even at high quality institutions like Washington State University or Murray State University, there are several journals that the University does not have a subscription for,” Karabas said. “Every time I can’t access something, it inspires me to make sure my work is accessible to everyone.”

Lennon, assistant professor of microbiology, said he was honored to receive this award.

“I am strongly committed to open access publishing as it makes the knowledge generated by the tireless work of academic researchers freely available to all,” Lennon said. “This not only increases the potential impact of this knowledge, but it removes the inequity in access experienced by many scholars at less wealthy institutions, both in the U.S. and abroad.”

Lennon said since research is often funded by federal and state taxes, research should be available to the taxpayer. 

“Finally, in this time where misinformation is abundant and easily accessible, it is important that we remove barriers to the high-quality work generated at Murray State and other academic institutions,” Lennon said. 

Lennon said his lab at Murray State will be working on researching Biological Roles and Biotechnological Applications of Inteins, using a R15 Academic Research Enhancement Award. 

The research in Lennon’s nomination packet includes multiple articles available on his Google Scholar profile. 

Mulligan, professor of history, said he was pleased and honored to be recognized for his project. Mulligan has been working on a project to digitize the Jackson Purchase Historical Society’s Journal through the University Libraries’ Digital Commons. 

“Pogue had one of a very few complete sets of the Journal and they agreed to do the digitization,” Mulligan said. “Going back and scanning the paper copies and doing quality control is a slow process, but the Pogue did a great job. I was mostly the initiator and coordinator.” 

 Humphries, professor of history, also aided in the project digitizing the Jackson Purchase Historical Society Journal.

Mulligan said he is working on a couple of research projects  He said he is researching the Civil War in western Kentucky, especially the role of African Americans. Several essays from this project are in the Jackson Purchase Historical Society journal. These essays are or will soon be available through open access. 

 “The second is on a community of Irish immigrant copper miners in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, ‘’ Mulligan said. “I have tracked down their place of origin in Ireland and the development of their community between 1845 and World War I.” 

 Mulligan also is in the process of putting together a book of his writings on the Civil War and writing a book on the Irish immigrant miners.

Karabas encouraged other scholars to publish open access research by submitting their work to Scholarly Communication Librarian AJ Boston. 

“To my scholar colleagues who are reading this story: You too can make your work available to everyone with no cost or copyright issues,” Karabas said. “…This way the copy that still belongs to the author will be available online and you will not only have more reach but likely also more citations.”