Awareness week to spread the word about knowledge sharing

UCT is joining the world in raising awareness about open access as it hosts various events highlighting the potential benefits it holds for scholarly research.

In doing so the university distinguishes itself as one of more than 900 institutions in over 90 countries participating in Open Access Week from 21 - 25 October.

The university is celebrating Open Access Week, now in its seventh year; by sporting an orange banner on its homepage and prominently displaying the list of events relating to it.

This year's global theme is Open Access: Redefining Impact.

According to OpenUCT their events will look at "what open access is, how our access to scholarly resources provided through UCT can differ to what individuals and organisations outside of the university environment experience and how open access could potentially help to bridge this gap."

UCT's Open Access Week starts with a few video screenings at Ulwazi explaining what open access is and ends with a discussion with among others Rape Crisis about the difficulty in accessing knowledge from outside the university environment.

Open access is the free, immediate, online access to the results of scholarly research, and the right to use and re-use those results as you need.

View more information on OpenUCT.

Story by Abigail Calata.