Hello,

I am Aisha, a final-year medical student and a young researcher at Jordan University of Science and Technology. My research interests include: 1) medical education and how to improve it, 2) the physiological basis of muscles and nerves and their regeneration and, to a lesser extent, other various topics such as the biochemical basis of psychiatric disorders and improving the post-operative outcomes of surgical procedures.

I have been an active volunteer at the International Federation of Medical Students' Associations (IFMSA) since July 2011 in SCOME and SCORE (the standing committees on medical education and research exchange, respectively), and through IFMSA I was introduced to the open culture in 2013.

Through IFMSA I was introduced as well to the journal I work currently at, the International Journal of Medical Students (IJMS), which is an online open-access peer-reviewed scientific journal (www.ijms.info).

As a young researcher from the Middle East, I prefer taking slow but steady and efficient steps in my plan to raise awareness about open access, open education resources and open data (OA, OER and OD). Education and research are two particularly weak fields in my region, the Middle East, yet the rise of their cost is not much different from developed countries, which necessitates tremendous amounts of effort to achieve the goals of open culture advocates.

My preparations for the OA week this year are humble. I am preparing for lectures in the two major cities of Jordan and in which most of the scholars reside and / or work. Those lectures are supposed to introduce the audience to the open culture, why it is important, its opponents opinions and why they are wrong and finally opening the discussion to find practical ways to foster a culture of open access. Research publication is a pedagogical exercise and a way of teaching others, not a process of repeating what is already known nor it is a luxury. Creating a directory for OA, OER and OD in each library will be proposed.

After attending OpenCon 2014, I hope to be able to invest my new knowledge and connections to instill the open culture in my country and region. Sharing the open educational resources with professors and students and encouraging their use is crucial. Making a full list of open-access journals for the use of researchers is another good step. Workshops on OA, OER and OD will be proposed in the IFMSA-Jordan's national general assembly in September 2015 (targeting undergraduate medical students from all universities of Jordan) and at the conference of the Jordan Society for Scientific Research in November 2015, as this conference is the biggest assembly for Jordanian researchers and it includes some international researchers. As an editor at the IJMS, I will propose an editorial to explain OA, OER and OD to the journal's audience (medical students, young investigators as well as healthcare researchers). Creating and disseminating information about OA, OER and OD in Arabic language will be focused on as this is expected to encourage the engagement of a bigger percent of scholars.

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