AS lecturer receives ATLAS Elsevier Award for COVID-inspired article
Lecturer in the University of Guyana’s Department of Curriculum and Instruction, Faculty of Education and Humanities, Mrs. Temitayo Deborah Oyedotun.
Kaieteur News – Mrs. Temitayo Deborah Oyedotun, a lecturer attached to the University of Guyana (AS), has emerged among 1,000 other individuals, winning the Elsevier ATLAS award for her article ‘A sharp change in pedagogy in COVID-driven education -19 and evaluation of a developing country. ‘Elsevier is a Dutch-based analytics and information company that also specializes in scientific, technical and medical content.
Her article sought to highlight the teaching approaches made as a result of COVID-19, with the views of Guyana, a developing country. Oyedotun, who lectures in the AS Department of Curriculum and Instruction, Faculty of Education and Humanities, is the second person in South America, and the first person in Guyana, to win the award since its inception in 2015.
In a press release issued by AS, the lecturer was quoted as saying, “I am happy to have been considered for this award. I only thought about documenting what I noticed, and I’m happy that the University addressed most of what I wrote as challenges when we were migrating online. ”
She went on to say that, in writing the article, she hoped that Guyana’s experience as documented and acknowledged would serve as a guide for other developing countries. The press release further noted that in December 2020, Oyedotun’s article had been nominated among the 10 shortlisted and subsequently selected as the prize winner. Her victory was decided by an external Advisory Board made up of individuals from international not-for-profit organizations (NGOs). These organizations include the Ban Ki-Moon Global Citizens Center; Bioversity International, Epicenter (MSF); Health and Global Policy Institute; International Training and Outreach Center in Africa (ITOCA); University of California, Berkeley (Center for Effective Global Action) and the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP).
The NGOs selected one ATLAS article based on one of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals from published research of Elsevier’s 3,800 journals on “ScienceDirect.” The panelists reviewed the article’s contribution to science and society and analyzed the social effects. Oyedotun’s article was chosen around “Sustainable Development Goal 4,” Quality Education.
Atlas Publisher and Program Manager, V. Prade congratulated Lypez Oyedotun and thanked her for her contribution to education. He also revealed that Elsevier would like to hold a virtual ceremony of the award in the near future instead of the usual personal ceremony due to the limitations of COVID-19. Elsevier has also commissioned a journalist to interview the lecturer and explain the article to wider audiences.
AS’s statement stated that the Oyedotun and Lucy Goodchild van Hilten interview had recently been conducted and will be published in Elsevier ATLAS shortly.
“This is a great achievement, not only for Mrs. Temitayo Oyedotun, but also to the Faculty of Education and Humanities, University of Guyana and the University leadership who took proactive steps that quickly ensured the successful transition from traditional teaching to virtual classroom engagement, ”AS noted in his release.
AS further noted that the article documents the sudden change that came in COVID-19, the steps taken by the University, the challenges of the change as well as the benefits derived from that transformation.
The AS Vice-Chancellor, Professor Paloma Mohamed, and the senior administration have also congratulated the lecturer and encouraged her to continue her academic writing excellence among her faculty.