In the spirit of Indonesia’s Independence Day, modern rihlah can be understood not simply as travelling, but as a journey of learning, reflection, and contribution to the nation. For lecturers and researchers, every journey, whether visiting a new place, attending a conference, conducting fieldwork, engaging with another academic community, or experiencing another culture, can become an opportunity to observe, learn, reflect, and return with something valuable for students, academia, and society.
One meaningful way for lecturers and researchers to celebrate independence is therefore to publish one open access knowledge resource as an Independence Day contribution to Indonesia. This could be a research brief, policy note, teaching material, open dataset, case study, legal insight, evidence based guide, lecture resource, or other scholarly resource that is freely accessible and useful to others.
The journey can be simple:
Travel → Observe → Learn → Reflect → Share → Benefit Society
For lecturers, this means transforming academic journeys into knowledge that returns to the classroom. A conference should not end when the lecturer returns home. A field visit can become a case study. An international academic experience can enrich teaching. A research finding can become accessible knowledge for students and the wider public.
Rather than celebrating independence only through ceremonies and festivities, lecturers and researchers can celebrate it by exercising one of the most valuable forms of freedom: the freedom to learn, create, share, and disseminate knowledge for the public good.
> Modern Rihlah: Freedom to Learn, Freedom to Share, Freedom to Create Impact.
Thus, 17 August becomes not only a celebration of Indonesia’s past, but also a commitment to creating knowledge for Indonesia’s future, turning one journey into one meaningful knowledge contribution and transforming experience into knowledge and knowledge into public welfare.
Open Access Knowledge Resource
https://www.cecepmustafa.my.id/japanese-mediation
Cecep Mustafa is a postgraduate lecturer at Ibn Chaldun University (Universitas Ibn Chaldun), Jakarta, Indonesia.
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0037-497X?hl=id-ID
