Course Journals Supporting Social Justice: Developing Equitable Scholarly Communications Through In-class Publishing Projects

How can OJS and OMP be used in classes to engage students in discussions around social justice in scholarly publishing? This presentation will discuss examples of course journals and book projects at Simon Fraser University (SFU) and Kwantlen Polytechnic University (KPU) which attempt to involve students in anti-colonial, anti-racist, and anti-oppressive forms of scholarship. These projects aim to be inclusive in a variety of ways: in terms of accessibility, language, content formats, and sustainability strategies. The presenters discuss the ways that OJS and OMP can be used in the classroom to develop students’ awareness of, and ability to address, social justice concerns in traditional publishing. Finally, they will explore how lessons learned from these case studies can be implemented in other courses

Gas6 Downregulation Impaired Cytoplasmic Maturation and Pronuclear Formation Independent to the MPF Activity

Previously, we found that the growth arrest-specific gene 6 (Gas6) is more highly expressed in germinal vesicle (GV) oocytes than in metaphase II (MII) oocytes using annealing control primer (ACP)-PCR technology. The current study was undertaken to investigate the role of Gas6 in oocyte maturation and fertilization using RNA interference (RNAi). Interestingly, despite the specific and marked decrease in Gas6 mRNA and protein expression in GVs after Gas6 RNAi, nuclear maturation including spindle structures and chromosome segregation was not affected. The only discernible effect induced by Gas6 RNAi was a change in maturation promoting factor (MPF) activity. After parthenogenetic activation, Gas6 RNAi-treated oocytes at the MII stage had not developed further and arrested at MII (90.0%). After stimulation with Sr2+, Gas6-silenced MII oocytes had markedly reduced Ca2+ oscillation and exhibited no exocytosis of cortical granules. In these oocytes, sperm penetration occurred during fertilization but not pronucleus (PN) formation. By roscovitine and colcemid treatment, we found that the Gas6 knockdown affected cytoplasmic maturation directly, independent to the changed MPF activity. These results strongly suggest that 1) the Gas6 signaling itself is important to the cytoplasmic maturation, but not nuclear maturation, and 2) the decreased Gas6 expression and decreased MPF activity separately or mutually influence sperm head decondensation and PN formation