Denise Nicholason and I have been working together to create a programme to celebrate Open Access week (18 – 22 October) here at Wits University, with a series of lunchtime seminars promoting openness – including Open Access, Open Educational Resources (OER), Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) and Open Data.
The seminars include the following themes:
18 Oct – Openness – the key to creating a culture of innovation at Wits
19 Oct – Publishing Smart – Tools that maximize scholarly impact
20 Oct – Open Education – Openness and educational resources
21 Oct – The Right to Research – an activists guide to Open Access
22 Oct – What are you doing about Open Access?
Presentations and discussions will take place during the lunch hour and will be aimed at raising awareness about the concept of openness.
- We want to promote participation in a local, national and international communities of practice that share an open attitude
- We also want to help local academics and students here at Wits to realise that they can make open choices when publishing research, creating or using digital media.
- We want to give participants the opportunity to familiarise themselves with a range of teaching techniques often associated with open resources (podcasts, blogs, web video etc).
We would love to have you attend our programme and if you can recruit participants using the Open Access Promo Presentation, all the better.
If you want to show case some open initiatives here at WITS please notify me and we’ll be very happy to demonstrate your project, research or work.