By Kelly Hetherington, Repository Officer
Next week (October 21st-27th) is Open Access Week 2024! The theme has been announced as ‘Community over Commercialisation’:
Open Access Week 2024 will continue the call to put “Community over Commercialization” and prioritize approaches to open scholarship that serve the best interests of the public and the academic community
This is my 5th Open Access week since joining the Open Research team in 2019 and this year’s theme really captures why I value and enjoy my job as part of the DRO team – helping to make sure all research at Durham can benefit the wider community with no barriers. I thought this would be a great opportunity to reflect on my experiences of witnessing or being involved with research benefitting people in Durham and beyond. I’m very aware that there will be so many more examples – our team would love to continue this conversation so please get in touch with your examples at dro.admin@durham.ac.uk
#OpenDurham at the Library 2019
For my first Open Access week on the team I organised an event for the library and we welcomed Beng Huat See and Nadia Siddiqui from the School of Education; Dorothy Cowie from the Department of Psychology and Cecilia Tomori from the Department of Anthropology to the library to talk to staff.
We learned about how open access research benefitted many people, highlights included:
- Nadia telling us about how depositing in DRO had allowed educators in Pakistan to read about her research in the country without a paywall
- Dorothy told us about how her team’s research supported children with limb differences
- Cecilia spoke about her work in Durham’s Parent-Infant Sleep Lab. The Durham Infancy and Sleep Centre provides the website Basis – the ‘baby sleep info source’ which is an information service for new parents and professionals – actively demonstrating how the research is used for the benefit of the wider community to help people make ‘informed choices about infant sleep and night-time care’
You can find out more detail about this event in our blog post: https://dulib.blog/2020/01/15/throwback-thursday-open-durham/
Chris Stokes – Glaciologist
Also in 2019, Chris Stokes, a Glaciologist from the Geography Department talked to me for a blog post about his research which focuses on glaciers and climate change. Climate change is having a devastating impact on the worldwide community and Chris spoke to us about how a particular research paper, ‘Widespread distribution of supraglacial lakes around the margin of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet’, had been picked up by many news outlets who were able to then report the facts. He drew attention to a Northern Echo article that presented the information in an easy to understand way.
Clare McGlynn – Law Department
In 2020, during lockdown, Clare McGlynn (virtually) discussed her research in Open Access week: https://dulib.blog/2020/10/22/openaccessweek2020-a-conversation-with-professor-clare-mcglynn-qc-hon/
Clare’s open access research has influenced laws on issues such as ‘upskirting’, ‘revenge porn’ and ‘image based sexual abuse’. These laws will ensure victims can feel safer in the community, as well as provide victims with the understanding that they are not alone.
Nayanika Mookherjee – Anthropology
For Open Access Week 2022, we asked Nayanika Mookherjee to speak to the library for the blog. Again, the links to how the open access research benefits communities were very clear – for example, by giving survivors of violence a voice but also focussing on making sure these stories are documented ethically. A fantastic example of this work is found in the open access video, Biragona: Towards Ethnical Testimonies of Sexual Violence
Nikki Rutter – Sociology
I spoke to Nikki Rutter in October 2023, to coincide with Child to Parent Abuse Awareness Day (this year held on Monday 14th October). Nikki discussed her background as a social worker, and now her open access research means that she can have a positive influence on many more families – as the research is read and acted upon by many social work professionals – who will hopefully adjust their practice to support families that are impacted (https://dulib.blog/2023/10/13/open-research-in-conversation-with-nikki-rutter-department-of-sociology/).
Nikki is excellent at collaborating with parents and making sure that the community her research focuses on are involved. I am very grateful to currently be a parent-collaborator a study that explores the involvement of services for young people experiencing explosive and harmful impulses, and their families – watch this space!
The Centre for Neurodiversity and Development
As a parent carer to an autistic child, I attended a lunch session organised by Durham University carer’s network; PhD students from the Centre for Neurodiversity and Development talked to us about their research (and their theses will all end up being open access in our etheses repository!). Their research looked at areas such as ‘understanding school attendance experiences for neurodivergent pupils’ and ‘the social experience of autistic pupils in secondary schools’ – all of this research helps to shape the understanding of neurodivergence in the community, thus improving life opportunities and experiences for neurodivergent individuals and their loved ones.
In 2021, Mary Hanley spoke to us about the ‘Triple A’ project for the blog. This project used research (many of it open access) to provide a toolkit for teachers to support children facing difficulty with ‘Attention, Arousal and Anxiety’ in the classroom.
We are very excited to be welcoming Debbie Riby and the team to the library in December 11th 2024 – this will give all of our library colleagues the opportunity to find out more about the research.
Thank you!
Thank you to all of the academics and researchers who have spoken to me over the last five years – these are my own personal experiences of learning how amazing Durham research is supporting a wide range of communities – what are yours? Tag us on X/Twitter @DRODurham or drop us an email dro.admin@durham.ac.uk with your examples!
RSS - Posts
Leave a Reply