Last week was Open Access week, which aims to inspire global momentum toward more widespread open sharing of knowledge. There’s no need to limit our celebration of open education to just one week! Especially at EKU. The world-wide impact of open materials created and published by EKU students and faculty in our Encompass digital repository is astounding.
In September 2024, Encompass had 40,257 full-text downloads and 9 new submissions were posted, bringing the total works in the repository to 8,986. Eastern Kentucky University scholarship was read by 2,256 institutions across 179 countries.
The following papers were accessed the most frequently in September:
1,233 downloads: Hannah Tanner’s (‘21) Undergraduate Honors Thesis, Diagnosing a Princess: How Portrayals of Mental Illness in Disney Princesses May Influence Children (mentored by Dr. Krista Kimmel).
1212 downloads: The Commons: Tools for Reading, Writing, and Rhetoric, an openly available textbook edited by Drs Jill Parrott and Dominic Ashby and EKU alum Jonathon Collins
760 downloads: The February 18, 1999 edition of the Eastern Progress
The top performing publication series were the Undergraduate Honors Theses (8,630 downloads), Graduate Theses and Dissertations (5,890 downloads), and the Journal of Occupational Therapy Education (6,962 downloads), edited by Dr. Dana Howell.
We reached out to Hannah Tanner to let her know about the impact her thesis has made. “It is exciting to hear that my thesis has had such a positive reception among so many people,” she wrote, “I honestly didn’t know it had been viewed so many times until I was contacted for this article! Doing the research and writing my thesis was one of my favorite projects I completed at EKU and I am glad to be able to share that with others. Furthering the understanding of mental health is something I am deeply passionate about and I believe that this field will only continue to grow. “
Congratulations to all EKU Scholars (and faculty mentors) on your impressive and impactful research!
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