Webinar: Open Science & the Decolonization of Knowledge: Africa
Mon, October 26, 2020
3:00 PM – 5:00 PM GMT
Speakers:
Dr. George Openjuru (Gulu University, Uganda)
Ms. Ama Serwah Nerguaye-Tetteh (Ghana National Commission for UNESCO)
Dr. Budd Hall (UNESCO Chair in Community Based Research and Social Responsibility in Higher Education)
Dr. Catherine Odora Hoppers (Gulu University, Uganda)
Dr. Obadele Kambon (University of Ghana)
Dr. Ada Peter (Covenant University, Nigeria)
The Canadian Commission for UNESCO and the UNESCO Chair in Community-Based Research and Social Responsibility in Higher Education are collaborating in supporting an international webinar series in support of the UNESCO consultations on the creation of a Recommendation on Open Science, an international normative document to be adopted by the UNESCO General Conference in November of 2021. The webinar series is based on a brief prepared by Florence Piron (Laval U), Leslie Chan (U Toronto), Lorna Williams (U Victoria, Lil’wat First Nation), Rajesh Tandon (PRIA India) and Budd Hall (U Victoria). The title of the brief is “Open Science Beyond Open Access: For and With Communities A Step Towards the Decolonization of Knowledge”. Available here: https://zenodo.org/record/3946773#.X2uYDWhKiUk
Register here
Event Link
Call for chapters: 'Academic Staff development: Disruptions, Complexities, Change (Envisioning new Futures)'
30 October 2020: Deadline for submission of abstracts
Excerpt from call:
"The need to manage the crisis in higher education learning and teaching has resulted in a ‘centering’ of academic staff development, which in the main had previously occupied peripheral positions at universities (Green & Little, 2012). Academic staff development has played crucial roles as universities pivoted to online modalities, bringing to the fore disciplinary knowledge building, curricula planning and redesign, and an exploration of alternative pedagogies.
However, the disruption of COVID-19 is but one moment in the history of higher education, which has unarguably always been a site for contestation and struggles. In most countries (especially those in the Global South), higher education is deeply embedded in a history of subjugation, inequities and social injustices. This social reality is perpetuated by a culture of performativity and managerialism amidst the calls for social and epistemic justice, freedom and transformation of all sectors of education and society (Teferra & Altbach, 2004; Maistry, 2012; Rensburg, 2020). This is compounded in a still-fragile democracy, like South Africa. Covid-19 has magnified and made visible the existing challenges and complexities confronting higher education, highlighting the gross inequities inherent in our systems. We remain cognisant that many of these existing challenges of higher education are marginalised by the current moments and discourse of educational technologies (Fataar, 2020) and need to be foregrounded and interrogated."
Interested contributors are requested to submit their abstracts to the book editors Nalini Chitanand (nalinic@dut.ac.za) and Shoba Rathilal (shobar@dut.ac.za).
Call for Papers: Special Issue for Educational Review entitled: 'World in Motion: Exploring the Impact of Covid-19 on Global Higher Education'
Editor: Jason Arday
Abstract deadline: 30th November 2020, with selected contributors notified by 31st December 2020.
Extract:
In many countries, the higher education landscape has already begun to change dramatically due to the spread of the coronavirus and the containment and mitigation strategies adopted by national governments and higher education providers. Travel restrictions, social distancing measures, isolation and quarantine procedures, campus closures and border closures have radically altered the nature of academic study and academic work for students and faculty around the globe, in ways that are expected to persist for some time. The financial operating models of many providers and the financial viability of some will be severely tested by the economic repercussions of the pandemic, which may mean a substantial contraction of public and private spending on higher education in the years ahead.
The consequences of post-pandemic changes to the nature of academic study and students’ experiences of higher education are beginning to be felt by new and returning cohorts, and by higher education faculty who must adapt their professional and academic labour in line with institutional responses to the crisis—including adaptations that have or threaten to heighten pre-existing exclusionary institutional practices. Governments globally remain under intense pressure to mitigate such consequences, balancing commitment to equitable access to HE against considerations of the future of public/private funding for national HE sectors. The current HE landscape therefore reflects the immediate, complex negotiations of power and priorities for individuals, institutions, National governments and international networks in the face of an unprecedented global pandemic.
Jason writes "For this Special Issue, I am keen to receive abstracts from a wide range of people at different career stages particularly early-career researchers..... Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions or queries about potential abstract submissions". Jason's details are hyperlinked in the 'Contributors' section of this site.
Call for Papers links: https://think.taylorandfrancis.com/special_issues/early-reflections-impact-covid-19-global-higher-education/?utm_source=TFO&utm_medium=cms&utm_campaign=JPG15743
Call for chapters: 'Being in shadow and light:
Academics in Conflict and Post-Conflict Higher Education'
Editors: Dina Zoe Belluigi & Tom Parkinson
14 December 2020 Chapter proposal deadline to be uploaded here
Excerpt from the concept note (download from above):
The complexities of academic identity and practice extend well beyond what is visible in our daily professional practice and that which is at the forefront of mainstream research. For higher education to play a significant role in reducing conflict and in promoting peace, justice and humanitarian action within post-conflict reconstruction and development, more knowledge is required about how academics have negotiated the complexity of such transitions. Central questions guiding the curated anthology are:
What are the conditions and trajectories that constitute academic identities and practices when academic and state authority is displaced, in contestation and transition?
What is left unsaid, off the record, outside the room, in whispers about being an academic while negotiating such conditions?
What are the traces, legacies and intergenerational impacts of such differences in influence and orientation for academic cultures?
This book aims to curate eclectic scholarship that draws from varied forms of knowledge and knowing, including diverse knowledge systems, methodologies and modes of presentation. It is anticipated that the text will have a reflective ethos, which will self-critically consider what is being or was learnt, while not ignoring what is lost and what is at stake. We will seek open access options.
See more on section themes, working timeline, review process here.
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