OpenPraxisForum (OPF) is a platform created by and for students and early career researchers hosted on the Humanities Commons network; an open access and open source network made for building interdisciplinary connections and increasing the impact of one’s work. In line with these technical values, OPF is headed by a team of early career researchers and knowledge creators. This team prioritizes decolonial, reflexive, consensual, diverse, and caring knowledge creation practices.
As such, OPF was created out of a necessity to showcase early career-researchers’ work, and more importantly, to mobilize and amplify their work. Often, knowledge creators can feel isolated within academia and beyond due to publishing barriers, lack of encouragement, inability to access resources, or because they present their knowledge in different ways.
We are a group of University of Toronto students who, through our own research experiences, wondered what we can do to modify the seemingly exclusionary landscape of academia. We decided to create this space that is constructed by and for early-career researchers. For us, researchers include: students, social justice activists, artists, or anyone seeking to interrogate inequities and contribute to shaping a safe space for critical dialogue.
Our work involves collaborating with faculty to incorporate collaborative, creative, and reflexive practices in their courses, working with students to amplify their work, seeking researcher work submissions, and hosting interactive events to learn from and with one another. If you have any ideas, questions, feedback, or would like to get on board, please reach out through our contact us page!
Our mission is to create an accessible and inclusive space for knowledge creators to safely and collaboratively share their work and seek feedback from their colleagues and peers. We aim to consciously and critically integrate ethical and consensual research practices within our work. Additionally, we aim to promote transparency in the research process as well as holistic accessibility.
Our vision is that an online publication forum (i.e. the OPF website) which values early career researchers’ knowledge expressions will foster a sense of belonging and community that is shaped by and for early-career researchers. We want to highlight and celebrate learning experiences, failures, successes, and creativity. Moreover, we hope to inspire all early career researchers to continually ask themselves why they do the work they do and how they can benefit their communities through action-oriented work.
OPF is a project of the Knowledge Equity Lab: a research & practise hub based at the University of Toronto Scarborough which houses collaborative projects that investigate & challenges multiple forms of exclusion within the highly unequal structures of knowledge production & exchange. Check out our page on their website HERE!