Open knowledge in action to support research, student and community engagement
Happy International Open Access Week! Previously we introduced you to the fundamentals of open access, explored open educational resources, open research publications and how AI is impacting open knowledge practices. This post, authored by guest contributor Clare, Client Experience Librarian by day and community archivist by night, delves into some different ways Deakin Library supports researchers and students in opening up and expanding the reach of their work, thereby making research more accessible to communities within and beyond academia. Clare provides examples, resources, tips and insights from Library staff and our Open Access Week event panellists into how and why the answer to the question, ‘Who Owns Our Knowledge?’ could be: ‘your communities.’
Public programs and exhibitions
Our Library Public Programs and Exhibitions team elevates the voices and stories of marginalised members of our community and helps make research visible and accessible within communities through their partnership-driven work.
They commissioned Lowell Hunter, a Nyul Nyul Saltwater man, and an artist known as the SaltyOne, to create an artwork outside the Deakin Library Prime Ministerial Library, as part of The Fire Within exhibition in 2024. When speaking of the work he created for the exhibition, Hunter said, “being able to create a story, in a building like this, I think is important, because it’s about bringing culture into these places, and showing we are still here, we’re still very proud and strong in our identity, in our culture, and who we are. The story that I am telling is true to who I am, and what I’ve learned from my elders. It’s really important for me to be able to carry on with that legacy and responsibility, so that’s what I’m doing now, being able to work with the Deakin Motion Lab and Deakin Library, and they’ve been amazing in helping me bring this vision to life.”
Watch the full video to learn more about The Fire Within exhibition:
The team has also facilitated powerful opportunities for object-based learning in the curriculum and in community through exhibitions and programs. Reflecting on the Hostile Terrain exhibition, Dr David Boarder Giles, Senior Lecturer in Anthropology, noted that “the whole point is to make visible what previously might not have been seen”.
Watch the full video to hear more from the academics and students involved in the exhibition:
Find out more about Library Exhibitions and Programs.
Open Educational Resources
Our Open Education team has helped many academics share and co-create research with students and communities in the form of Open Educational Resources.
Reflecting on Enabling and Optimising Recovery from COVID-19, Danielle Hitch illustrates that “OER suits this resource perfectly because it’s a rapidly developing field of knowledge with multiple new studies emerging every single day. So, this online textbook will be relatively easy to update as new information comes to light. Traditional textbooks take six months to one year to publish and, in this case, anything that was published and made available in that format would be out of date before it even hit the shelves.”
Communication Concepts, Communication and Teamwork Skills to Support Neurodiversity Historical thinking for senior secondary students: A collection of teaching and learning activities 2022, and Diverse Historical Narratives and Perspectives: A Collection of Learning and Teaching Activities 2023 were co-created with students and created opportunities for students to not just read research knowledge but contribute to research and practice in their professional / vocational communities before they graduated.
Teagan Menhenett, co-author of Communication and Teamwork Skills to Support Neurodiversity OER, Psychology (Honours) student, a mentor in the NAVIGATE program and neurodivergent herself, understands the unique barriers students like her face and wanted to make the resource interactive through H5P activities to increase accessibility:
“I know, as a student, I really appreciate it when learnings are interactive; I find it much more engaging for my brain. So, while developing this resource, interactivity was forefront in my mind and when I learnt about H5P’s I knew they would be perfect! When students, neurodivergent or not, are supported in a way that works best for their brain, they are much more likely to do well academically, and, most importantly, to enjoy their learning, so I tried my best to embed a variety of different interactive activities for this reason.” – Teagan Menhenett, Co-Author and Psychology (Honours) student
Not only do we help academics and students use and make OERs, but we have also created many new Library Resource Guides, especially those in the new GenAI resource hub with openly licensed material and openly licensed them, so you and others can adapt and build on them too.
Find out more about Open Educational Resources: Overview – Open Educational Resources (OER) – LibGuides at Deakin University
Engaging Research Communication
In collaboration with Deakin’s Researcher Development Academy, Deakin Library’s Scholarly Services Librarians and Copyright team supports the Visualise your thesis competition, which helps graduate researchers foster research advocacy and communication skills needed to translate their research with broader communities.
Kira Morgan, the People’s Choice award winner in 2024 was interviewed as part of the new Deakin ‘Stories of Wonder’ podcast where she discusses her passion for science communication and how the professional development she has had in this space has helped improve her research and communications skills:
“I’m passionate about science communication as well as advocating for women and underrepresented groups … So I’ve been able to do a lot of talks about that. I’ve been able to take a lot of career and professional development workshops … I even took part in a lot of science communication competitions at Deakin and elsewhere and that’s helped me to not only realise what I want to do afterwards but it has also helped improve my skills as a researcher … and become a better communicator. It’s helped me learn how to engage with people outside of my little research bubble as well.”
If you missed out on the Visualise Your Thesis competition this year or want a refresher, check out our resources on creating an infographic, making a video, and navigating Copyright and Creative Commons licenses:
Based on their workshops and with inspiration from the winning entries, the team has offered the following practical tips for those interested in learning more about communicating their research outside of universities and perhaps competing next year:
- Hook the audience in with a question
- Tell a clear story or narrative
- Give context to the research by linking it back to a relatable challenge
- Communicate how your research provides a solution
- Use Creative Commons and public domain media or create and openly license your own media
Deakin Researcher Development Academy Senior Lecturer Dr Wade Kelly delivered several workshops in the Engaging Research Communication Program and made a series of short videos on the topic freely available online.
Sharing research knowledge through community-controlled (Diamond) Open Access journal publishing
Deakin Library staff have been supporting Associate Professor Judi Parson to establish a new open access play therapy journal on our Open Journals at Deakin platform.
Community-controlled (Diamond) journals are fully open access journals that don’t charge fees to readers or authors. Diamond journals focus on serving the needs of their research community rather than generating profit from the publishing business model.
Part of Judi’s motivation for opening up play therapy knowledge in this way is to make knowledge more accessible to children and their families who are an integral part of their research and practice.
Food for thought
As a last thought, we encourage you to ask the communities involved in and/or impacted by your research how they would like to receive the knowledge created from your research, and we encourage you to evaluate a publisher’s ethics by looking at how well their practices align with principles of transparency, accountability, inclusivity, and the public good when deciding where to publish your research.
Next steps
- Join us for an online event on Thursday, 23 October at 10.00am, where we will be discussing this year’s International Open Access Week theme with panellists from the open publishing community. Register now.
- Explore our new Publishing and open access guide
- Check out the Open Access Australasia’s Open Access Week program to join more discussions on the politics of knowledge and community ownership of knowledge.
- Catch up on past blog posts and subscribe to our new Open Ed Newsletter
- Contact your librarians if you’re interested in creating a small infographic, video or OER or a larger event or exhibition.