Congratulations to Dr Lena Nyahodza

Lena Nyahodza

Thesis Title: A critical analysis of the participation of the University of Cape Town community in the advancement of open scholarship: towards a strategy for the promotion of open scholarship

Lena Nyahodza completed her BA with Education in 2002 at Solusi University in Zimbabwe. She also graduated with  a Postgraduate diploma in Library and Information Science in 2012,  and with a Master’s  in Library and Information Science in 2016 at UCT. 

Lena Nyahodza’s thesis, located in a transformative paradigm and using a critical epistemological lens,    inquires into the University of Cape Town research community’s participation in open scholarship with a special focus on UCT academics and researchers’ engagement in knowledge sharing through open access, open educational resources and open data to contribute to the openness movement as a social good, and to UCT’s social justice agenda of sharing scholarship to support development on the African continent.  The thesis critically engages open practices and publishing culture of UCT academics and researchers  who participated in the study, factors motivating participation at UCT, available resources  to support openness practices and challenges being encountered during participation in open scholarship. Based on the main findings of this study, a strategy that could be adapted  by research communities with similar experiences to those of UCT academics and researchers to enhance open scholarship,  is presented.

Supervisor: Professor Jaya Raju (Department of Knowledge and Information Stewardship)