Two Higher Degree by Research candidates from James Cook University (JCU) in Singapore — Pamela Arumynathan and Hina Sheel — each received the “Highly Commended” award for their entries to the 2021 edition of JCU’s annual HDR Open Access Advocate competition.

The competition was held to commemorate Open Access Week 2021 (25–31 October 2021). The theme for this year's Open Access Week was: "It Matters How We Open Knowledge: Building Structural Equity". Participants in the competition were tasked with creating the best short communication (from short essay to tweet to haiku to multimedia video) that answers the question, “How do you benefit from open knowledge and why?”.

Pamela’s entry comprised a sharply-designed PDF document in which she advocates Open Access for equity: “Open Access is beneficial because the world is steadily moving towards giving all races, genders and people of diverse backgrounds, the same opportunity that would normally be afforded to the affluent.”

She adds, “It was great fun being part of the Open Access competition. It also allowed me the opportunity to reflect on why open access to research is important. The widely applied concept of the 3Rs: ‘Reduce, Reuse and Recycle’ can even be applied to openly sharing knowledge and capturing the essential components of prior studies so that nothing goes to waste. Thank you to SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) and the committee at JCU for their unwavering support in this fine fight for Open Access!”

Meanwhile, Hina’s entry approached the competition using a different format. “My entry to the competition was a compact and precise video that anybody could digest in less than a minute. The presentation aimed to explore the current problems faced by Higher Degree by Research (HDR) candidates and how open knowledge will benefit both the community and the researcher,” she says. Hina was previously also the winner of the 2020 3MT Competition at James Cook University, Singapore in the Higher Degree by Research and People’s Choice categories.

Some of these benefits outlined in her video include how creating a wider exchange of ideas can pave the way for more impactful and creative research that responds to challenges faced by the community, as well as being able to avoid duplication of effort through greater access and citation to research.

Ultimately, a greater availability of academic research increases innovation and efficiency for both researchers and the wider community outside of academia. This promotes the sharing of ideas that can advance knowledge and lead to new research collaborations.

Find out more about our Higher Degrees by Research courses at James Cook University in Singapore.

Contacts

Associate Professor Denise Dillon [email protected]
Media: Edwin Teo [email protected]