KIU, Western Campus – Assistant Lecturer in the department of Physical Sciences at the School of Engineering & Applied Sciences (SEAS), Abisha Meji has been honoured by Dutch Publisher Elsevier for two of her articles which were published in open-access journals of the Publisher.

Meji published two articles, the first one in 2020 titled, “Survey on general awareness, mental state, and academic difficulties among students due to COVID-19 outbreak in the western regions of Uganda,” which was published in a journal called Heliyon.

The second article, published in 2021 and featured in Data in Brief journal, was titled, “Data-set of academic difficulties among students in western Uganda during COVID-19 induced lockdown.”

Both her articles received a total of 19,303 downloads and they were linked to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 3. Sustainable Development Goal 3 is “Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages”

In a communication from Elsevier, the publisher wrote, “Dear Abisha Abisha Meji, as part of International Open Access Week 2022, we would like to celebrate the contribution you have made to open science.”

“At Elsevier, we believe that open science has the power to drive societal progress and advance the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Making knowledge freely accessible to anyone, anywhere can play a fundamental role in achieving a sustainable and equitable future,” it adds.  

According to Wikipedia, Open access is a set of principles and a range of practices through which research outputs are distributed online, free of access charges or other barriers. 

With open access strictly defined, or libre open access, barriers to copying or reuse are also reduced or removed by applying an open license for copyright.

We congratulate you upon this achievement Mrs. Abisha Meji!

Photo: kiu.ac.ug