OEGlobal 2024

In an increasingly diverse and interconnected world, fostering intercultural and cross-cultural understandings within educational settings are essential for promoting social justice and equity is more crucial than ever. This presentation delves into strategies for building educator capacity in intercultural and cross-cultural understanding, emphasizing the importance of intersectional, anti-racist, and decolonizing approaches to education to effectively integrate into their teaching practices. By highlighting collaborative efforts with primary and tertiary educational sectors, this session offers examples and considerations necessary to navigate and address the complexities of inequity in their classrooms. The aim of this presentation is to develop and evaluate strategies for building educator capacity in intercultural and cross-cultural understanding, focusing on integrating social justice and anti-racist pedagogy to create inclusive and equitable learning environments. This session seeks to identify effective collaborative efforts and partnerships that enhance these educational practices.

Intercultural and Cross-Cultural Understanding in Social Justice Education

Intercultural and cross-cultural understanding are foundational to fostering inclusive educational environments. This section examines the theoretical underpinnings of intercultural competence and its significance in social justice education. We explore how educators can develop an ability to recognize, respect, and value diverse cultural perspectives, fostering an inclusive environment. Practical strategies, such as incorporating diverse literature, facilitating dialogues that draw on learner’s funds of knowledge, and promoting global citizenship education, are discussed to illustrate how educators can integrate these principles into their practice.

Intersectional, Anti-Racist, and Decolonizing Pedagogies

The principles of intersectionality, anti-racism, and decolonization are essential for addressing the multifaceted nature of inequity and injustice in education. This section focuses on how educators can apply these frameworks to create more equitable and just learning environments. By understanding the interconnectedness of race, gender, class, and other social categories, educators can develop more nuanced and effective teaching strategies. The presentation highlights key concepts of anti-racist pedagogy, including the examination of systemic biases and the promotion of critical consciousness. Additionally, we discuss decolonizing education practices, which involve challenging colonial narratives and centering Indigenous knowledge and perspectives in the curriculum.

Collaborative Efforts and Partnerships

Effective capacity building in social justice education requires collaboration among various stakeholders. This section showcases successful partnerships with educators and community members who have contributed to the development and implementation of anti-racist and decolonizing curricula. Insights from educators who have actively engaged in these collaborations provide practical examples of how these partnerships can enhance professional development initiatives and support educators in addressing racism and promoting equity.

Practical Strategies for Educators

Building on the theoretical and collaborative foundations, this section offers practical strategies for educators to implement in their courses. These strategies include designing inclusive curricula that reflect diverse cultural experiences, creating safer spaces for open dialogue and critical discussions, and employing culturally responsive practices. We also explore the role of reflective practice in helping educators to continuously examine and improve their own biases and teaching methods. By integrating these strategies, educators can create learning environments that not only acknowledge but also celebrate diversity and promote social justice.



Included in [Session 6E]: Anti-racism

Author Keywords
First Nations, Inclusion, Open educational practices, Social justice, Anti-racism

The open education (OE) movement and scholarly literature, including UNESCO's (2019) Recommendation on OER, make frequent reference to the importance of developing supportive policy environments to allow OER and other open practices to thrive. In the higher education (HE) context, much of the policy needs to be made at the institutional level, but is this happening?

This presentation will report findings from a doctoral study investigating the relationship between OE and related policies, at the institutional level in HE. The study aims to discover in what ways open educational practices (OEP) are understood, supported or enabled in institutional policy - therefore, the concepts of both OE and policy are considered in a wide sense. OE can be described as a wide umbrella term, which can potentially refer to many practices across formal, informal and non-formal education (Weller et al., 2018). ‘Institutional policy’ is considered to include documented policies, strategies, regulations or guidelines, but also, more informally, usual courses of action, presence of expertise, infrastructure, or funding to support relevant activities (Atenas et al, 2020).

This study is particularly focused on the intentions and effects of institutional policies, in higher education, on the following areas of practice in particular: · use, creation, sharing and adaptation of OER - for example, open textbooks, or other openly licensed and freely available content items such as documents, slides, videos, images, or datasets. · offering of free and/or lower-cost online courses - for example, MOOCs or microcredentials. · opening up of aspects of learning, teaching and assessment to external participants, partners and audiences - for example, open publication of student-generated content as OER. · participating in open professional development communities - for example, using blogs, podcasts or tweetchats for sharing and discussion of practices.

In order to investigate how policy, broadly defined, interacts with a similarly broadly understood range of practices, three research strands have been employed in order to investigate 1) the content of policy texts, 2) the views and experiences of staff members working in institutions, and finally, 3) the particular perspectives of a subgroup of staff who have had a role in developing relevant policy.

The first and second strands have uncovered wide variety in institutional approaches to OE, ranging from the very engaged to those which show little awareness. OER tends to be the aspect most discussed by policies and staff members, but institutions also evidence varying degrees of involvement with the other forms of practice. There is widespread evidence of more informal forms of policy support, but lower prevalence of documented OE policies. If documented policies can be taken as evidence of sustained institutional commitment to enable and support practices, then this low prevalence is perhaps cause for concern. This presentation will focus on findings from the third strand involving policymakers, and the emphasis they place on the specificity of the local, while situated within globalised and national policy contexts.



Included in [Session 6A]: Practice and Policy in OE

References

Atenas, J; Havemann, L; Neumann, J. and Stefanelli, C (2020). Open Education Policies: Guidelines for co-creation. London: Open Education Policy Lab. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4032993

Weller, M., Jordan, K., DeVries, I., & Rolfe, V. (2018). Mapping the open education landscape: citation network analysis of historical open and distance education research. Open Praxis, 10(2), 109–126. https://doi.org/10.5944/OPENPRAXIS.10.2.822

Author Keywords
open education policies, higher education institutions, institutional policies, open educational practices

There is a lack of research on how localized OER are created and used in low- and middle-income countries (Wolfenden and Adinolfi, 2019; Buckler, Perryman, Seal, and Musafir, 2014). This lack of understanding of how all educators use openness to meet the needs and goals of their students furthers epistemic injustice, for particular knowers are not valued as knowers (Pohlhaus, 2017). Valuing the knowledge of educators in low- and middle- income countries will expand the OER community and its understanding of OER’s capacity to support teachers in meeting the needs of students in different contexts.

This presentation will share how a grassroots nonprofit organization’s embrace of openness supported teachers and students in Lebanon. Lebanese Alternative Learning (LAL) is a nonprofit that collaborated with teachers to build Tabshoura, a digital learning platform that houses content aligned with the Lebanese curriculum for K-9 students. In partnership with LAL, this research design utilizes photovoice to center the teachers’ experiences with Tabshoura through the submission of a photo and caption in response to a prompt. Interviews and classroom observations are then used to expand understanding of the diverse experiences of teachers during an economic and refugee crisis in Lebanon.

This study expands the social inclusion model designed by Arinto, Hodgkinson-Williams, and Trotter (2017) to show how access to localized OER provides teachers with more opportunities to build and direct a responsive learning environment that supports and motivates students—and even parents—to take control of their own learning. Teachers in Lebanon are navigating decreasing stability in schools and navigating a student population with increasing gaps in their education. Through Tabshoura, teachers have a foundation of reliable resources connected to the classroom objectives, exciting tools for engaging students who have experienced trauma, and the flexibility to adapt resources and create an environment of learning for all their students. Teachers have incorporated their knowledge into Tabshoura to customize the learning experience:

• Personalized lesson plans based on students’ progress on Tabshoura
• Alternative schedules that support continued learning outside of school
• Student-centered pedagogical approaches that are exciting for students AND for teachers

The teachers in this project also highlighted that the individualized approach deepened their relationships with the students and their parents. Schooling is no longer limited to the building with students’ ability to use Tabshoura at home on mobile phones, so students can learn at their own pace and repeat lessons as needed. Parents are also more aware and connected to their children’s education that even their own learning was enhanced.

Openness means that educators in all regions and contexts can make the necessary choices to support their students. LAL demonstrates openness by incorporating teachers’ knowledge in the development of Tabshoura and in its continued support of teachers adapting and using Tabshoura as it best fits their students. LAL and the Lebanese teachers have demonstrated that openness is their business, too, and the OER community can benefit and expand from their example of supporting students through OER.



Included in [Session 6B]: Global Access and Equity

References
Arinto, P. B., Hodgkinson-Williams, C., & Trotter, H. (2017). OER and OEP in the Global South: implications and recommendations for social inclusion. In C. Hodgkinson- Williams & P. B. Arinto (Eds.), Adoption and impact of OER in the Global South (pp. 577-592). Cape Town: African Minds Publishers. Buckler, A., Perryman, L.-A., Seal, T., & Musafir, S. (2014). The role of OER localisation in building a knowledge partnership for development: Insights from the TESSA and TESS-India teacher education projects. Open Praxis, 6(3), 221–233. https://doi.org/10.5944/openpraxis.6.3.136 Pohlhaus Jr., G. (2017). Varieties of epistemic injustice. In I. Kidd, J. Medina, G. Pohlhaus Jr. (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of epistemic injustice (pp. 13-26). Routledge. Wolfenden, F. & Adinolfi, L. (2019). An exploration of agency in the localisation of open educational resources for teacher development. Learning, Media and Technology, 44(3), 327-344, DOI: 10.1080/17439884.2019.1628046after-public-schools-shut-their-doors

Author Keywords
Epistemic Justice, Social Inclusion, Grassroots Nonprofit Organization, Teacher Agency, Vulnerable Students, Lebanon

This talk describes a study into the use of open monographs in teaching and learning, specifically those in the OAPEN global open access book library or listed in the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB). The presenters will also share their methodology, which can be used by others to gather data with which to analyse their own context.

The study initially considered whether OAPEN books – which, by definition, are not textbooks – were being used for the purpose of teaching and learning in Australia and New Zealand. The work originally considered the types of data available to the research team to understand this question. Studying usage of open teaching material is challenging because of the variability of data sources and because organisations deliberately do not track users. The OAPEN and DOAB metadata can be ingested into university library catalogues, and ExLibris provides download data of usage out of the catalogue. OAPEN provides dashboard statistics for supporting libraries based on IP addresses and the physical location of the primary campus. Analysis of these two sets of data indicate that the ExLibris information represented approximately a tenth of the download information, which in itself speaks to where students and staff are sourcing their links.

Analysis of the Open Syllabus Analytics service identified that open resources are currently a small proportion of texts prescribed in syllabi (less than 5% overall). Within that proportion, the open resources originating from DOAB are almost equivalent to those originating from Open Textbook Library. This clearly answered the original question: open monographs *are* being used for the purposes of teaching and learning. However it does reinforce the broader question: what are we talking about when we talk about an open educational resource in an educational setting?

A closer analysis of the download data uncovered some interesting observations. In one research intensive institution, it became clear that a significant proportion of the top 25 downloads in 2023 were related in topic and likely all part of a single course. This laid open a secondary consideration which is now being pursued – how much can the uptake of OERs in an institution be attributed to individual practice as opposed to institutional policy?

This prompted a secondary research question: is it possible to detect a discernible difference in uptake of OERs in institutions? At the time of submission, this work is only beginning, but by the conference the research team will have some results to share. This study is intended to provide a method that is reproducible in other geographical settings, to allow comparisons. The team is eager to hear feedback on the approach, and any suggestions for data that could be shared with the community to further shed light on this topic.



Included in [Session 6C]: Repositories, Pedagogy, Practice and Policy in OE

Author Keywords
Open access monographs, Open educational practices, Open education policies

The “diamond” model of journal publishing rests on the premise that knowledge should be free for all to disseminate and free for all to read. Diamond Open Access therefore refers to a scholarly publication model in which journals and platforms do not charge fees to either authors or readers. Such an approach offers opportunities for diverse and inclusive participation, giving voice to communities and groups that are otherwise marginalised and underrepresented in mainstream scholarly communications. The diamond model is one where publishing costs can be facilitated not only by academic institutions, but also by community groups and organisations, nonprofits and governments. This potentially makes it possible for communities beyond the Academy to disseminate their ideas freely to all, for open to be everyone’s business.

Internationally, interest in the value of this publishing model is increasing with a number of new diamond publishing initiatives, including the DIAMAS and CRAFT-OA projects and the Plan for Diamond Open Access. In 2020 an international diamond OA journals survey was conducted by Science Europe and cOAlition S with a final report released in 2021 and in 2023, the inaugural Global Summit on Diamond OA brought together over 700 international delegates who presented a set of pledges for furthering the diamond model. Yet so far there have been no specific initiatives that comprehensively address diamond publishing in Australasia.

A report by Open Access Australasia into open access initiatives in Australasia, based on data collected at the end of 2022, evidenced significant uptake of the diamond open publishing model in the university sector where more than half of the institutions examined had some form of open publishing, though other sectors showed little involvement. We will present a brief overview of diamond open publishing in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand based on recent updates to this report.

We will then showcase examples of how diamond open access journals can allow diverse communities and underrepresented perspectives to be heard. From Australia, we will present examples from Queensland University of Technology’s Open Press, and from Aotearoa New Zealand we will look at the diverse groups represented on the Tuwhera open access platform hosted by Te Wānanga Aronui o Tāmaki Makau Rau/Auckland University of Technology.

We will conclude by describing the formation earlier this year of a vibrant diamond open access publishing community of practice, a forum where those interested in starting a diamond journal and those already involved in running one can interact to promote best practice and tackle challenges together. We discuss the priorities this CoP is focusing on in 2024 and why, and look at the applicability of the diamond publishing approach to the wider OE community.



Included in [Session 6C]: Repositories, Pedagogy, Practice and Policy in OE

References
Diamas (2023). Developing Institutional Open Access Publishing Models to Advance Scholarly Communication. https://diamasproject.eu/about/ CRAFT-OA (2023). CRAFT-OA (Creating a Robust Accessible Federated Technology for Open Access). https://www.craft-oa.eu/ Ancion, Z., Borrell-Damián, L., Mounier, P., Rooryck, J., Saenen, B. (2022). Action Plan for Diamond Open Access. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6282402 Catterall J, Barbour V. Open access initiatives by research active institutions in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand: a snapshot of the landscape in 2022. Zenodo. June 26, 2023. doi:10.5281/zenodo.8081166

Author Keywords
Inclusion diversity equity and access, Open access publishing, Open licencing, Open practitioners

This presentation argues that decolonising open education is everyone's business. We outline approaches we have learnt from our own experiences, focusing on a project where non-Indigenous and Indigenous staff at La Trobe University collaborated to reimagine an undergraduate open textbook used in the health sciences. We demonstrate how cultural safety reviews can transform open educational resources (OER) to be universally accessible for diverse learners and act as tangible modelling of culturally responsive teaching practices for students to follow from.

Our presentation is from the perspective of non-Indigenous practitioners – from both academic and library cultures - who evolved and learnt how to engage in culturally responsive processes. We describe how these practices support mitigating the onerous burden of labour placed on Indigenous practitioners. Our perspective is distinctive in highlighting how empowering Indigenous open practitioners can cultivate active practices for everyone, in contrast to disempowering and passive practices.

These practices contribute to a paradigm shift that supports the conditions for culturally safe education. The broader significance of this shift is that it:

• Empowers Indigenous people to lead the agenda
• steps towards a holistic approach to incorporate Indigenous knowledges in normalising ways
• reduces the likelihood of tokenism
• values process as equally important to (and constitutive of) product
• embodies Indigenous methodologies into process, underpinned by centring Indigenous ways of knowing, being, and doing (Brodie et al, 2023)
• transforms non-Indigenous collaborators into accomplices through becoming culturally responsive (Finlay, 2020)
• carves out Third Spaces for generating culturally responsive ways of working that cultivate mutually beneficial two-way learning (Dudgeon & Fielder, 2006)
• enables advocacy to widen these ways of working to challenge to deeply rooted conventional ways of working

Our presentation will describe key challenges we encountered:

• Understanding the limitations of an “additive” approach that reduces Indigenous knowledges to inessential, extracurricular content
• Identifying how cultural safety is different to both cultural responsiveness and cultural awareness
• Distinguishing between Indigenisation and Decolonisation
• Recognising how power relations operate between non-Indigenous and Indigenous staff

We recommend emergent principles from our experience that can guide open education practitioners to widen culturally responsive practices for supporting knowledge Decolonisation projects. These include:

• Accepting the possibility of unintentionally “doing the wrong thing” as an active alternative to guilt-based paralysis
• "doing the work” independently without making reckless assumptions about one’s own knowledge of Indigenous knowledges
• thoughtfully approaching Indigenous collaborators – how, when, why, and what the “ask” is
• The meaning of yarns and how they cultivate open and respectful relationships between diverse groups

We will showcase the end product of these ways of working, highlight the culturally safe features of our open textbook, and explain how this benefits the health sciences curriculum. We conclude this presentation by outlining our next steps and posing key questions arising from our continuing learning for the community to discuss.



Included in [Session 6E]: Anti-racism

References
Brodie, T., Howard, N. J., Pearson, O., Canuto, K., Brown, A., & Advisory Group (2023). Enhancement of scoping review methodology to reflect Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander ways of knowing, being and doing. Australian and New Zealand journal of public health, 47(6), 100096. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anzjph.2023.100096 Dudgeon, P., & Fielder, J. (2006). Third spaces within tertiary places: Indigenous Australian studies. Journal of community & applied social psychology, 16(5), 396-409. Finlay, S. (2020). Where do you fit? Tokenistic, ally—or accomplice. Croakey Health Media. Retrieved December, 9, 2022.

Author Keywords
Cultural safety, Culturally responsive practices, Open educational practices, Indigenous, First Nations, Open textbooks, Health sciences

The challenges facing the world are mirrored in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). Globally there is deepening inequality, wars and countries in conflict and the crisis we all face through climate change. All these wicked problems require action from all citizens of the globe to recognise and take responsibility to find solutions. HEIs must tackle inequality in education, raise awareness and knowledge of wars and climate change. There is inequality not only in access to education but also in the varying degrees of quality of education and aspect that needs to be address to achieve SDG 4. These challenges are complex and require multiple strategies. These challenges are ‘everyone’s business’ and open education is the glue that can bind them all.

The University of Cape Town (UCT) has implemented open education projects and research since 2007. More recently, since 2018, the Digital Open Textbooks for Development (DOT4D) initiative that has explored the role of open textbooks for social justice at UCT. This work was driven by an imperative to remedy economic, cultural and political injustices in Higher Education through addressing issues related to access, cultural recognition and representation of marginalized voices in textbooks and other teaching materials.

In an effort to form a community of South African open educators a symposium, ‘Future of open education in higher education in South Africa’ was hosted at UCT and included key contributions from UNESCO Chairs in Open Education in South Africa (June 2024). The symposium also included short inputs from UNESCO Chairs (France, Tunisia & Lebanon), members of the newly formed UNITWIN Network on Open Education (UNOE). A crucial part of day’s events was a ‘Futures workshop’ facilitated by a UNESCO chair in Futures thinking from the University of Stellenbosch.

In addition, the DOT4D initiative launched a ‘student fellowship’ program to include students in the organisation, participation and development of outputs from the event (Funded by the Hewlett foundation and GOGN). Students were encouraged to reflect individually and in focus groups on their different roles in the co-creation of this event.

Drawing on the results of the futures planning workshop and reflections of students from the symposium event this presentation will discuss aspirations for the future of open education is South Africa and it will explore ways through which student-staff partnerships can address injustice in the classroom and injustice in learning materials. It also addresses institutional realities and provides recommendations for student, staff and higher education institutions wanting to engage in or support of open education.



Included in [Session 6B]: Global Access and Equity

Author Keywords
Student partnerships, Social justice, Futures planning, Community

Open pedagogy has become a topic of burgeoning interest in higher education for its potential to enhance students’ learning, broaden their awareness of their participation in information and knowledge creation, and promote affordability of course content. Open pedagogy challenges the norms of traditional educational settings and the assumptive roles of the instructor and the students. What happens, though, when students come to the classroom with expectations about how the course will be structured?

The didactic contract is a construct used in mathematics education that describes tacit classroom norms. It includes the set of behaviors expected by the students for their instructor, as well as the instructor’s expectations of their students. In a traditional didactic contract, the implicit role of the instructor is to facilitate the knowledge transfer of the content to the student; however, open pedagogy views students as co-creators of knowledge, which can complicate students’ expectations of their roles as learners. Much of the literature has focused on the success of open pedagogy in increasing student engagement, but is there a possibility that the shift in the didactic contract, or the expected norms of a course, can disrupt student engagement?

In this presentation, I will discuss how the didactic contract is a useful construct for open pedagogy, and how we can use it to inform best practices around student agency and empower students to become active participants in their learning. We will explore how the terms of the didactic contact can be negotiated to mitigate student resistance by helping them understand the impact of open publishing for their work.



Included in [Session 6D]: Open Pedagogy, Repositories

Author Keywords
open educational practices, open pedagogy, open practitioners, open education policies and strategies

The ability to create engaging learning experiences is key to the effective delivery of education and the development of lifelong learners. Globally, we are seeing the growth of learning design practices, which are influencing and enhancing traditional teaching and education practices. Yet adoption is hampered by the lack of a system of design practices, language and shared approaches. Is there space for more open systems and practices to help share experiences and practices? Are there ways that we can create bespoke experiences that suit specific learners, locations and situations rather than embrace the restrictions of a templated approach? This presentation will introduce an approach based on the concepts of ‘learning patterns’ that sets the groundwork for an open approach to creating a learning design system that can be adopted across sectors, languages, technologies and systems. While still very much in development, this system has already been used in South America and Europe. It has the potential to form a foundation for open practices around learning experience design.

Laurillard (2002, 2012) introduced a set of learning types in her work around a Conversational Framework. Using this formed the basis for our system, and the initial work was on converting the types of learning to adjectives and expanding some of the ideas and explanations to apply more broadly. This process also led us to move away from being framed around the teacher's conversation to a model that was focused on the learner and their actions. Through this process, the team developed a set of seven Learning Types: Assimilative, Investigative, Formative, Discursive, Productive, Evaluative and Social.

The Learning Types help define the overall learning experience, but they become less useful as you begin to develop individual lessons and activities. A missing piece was required to aid the development of a sequence of learning, so the idea of 'Learning Patterns' was introduced. Based on the concept of a Pattern Language (Alexander, 1977), Learning Patterns are a reusable scaffold to aid the design of a learning experience. They provide a superstructure or way of thinking that can be reused and recombined to suit different contexts and topics. The Patterns developed (Klapdor, 2022) act like Lego, simple shapes that fit together to create unique student experiences. Their usefulness comes from the fact that sequences can be adapted to suit the lesson's purpose and scaffolding provided to help author that aspect of the course.

This system has been used across several programs at the University of Adelaide and in various other institutions to help support their learning design efforts. This presentation aims to introduce these concepts and test the appetite for such a system on a more global scale by going open and developing shared resources and practices across a broader community.



Included in [Session 6C]: Repositories, Pedagogy, Practice and Policy in OE

References
Alexander, Ishikawa, S., & Silverstein, M. (1977). A pattern language : towns, buildings, construction. Oxford University Press. Klapdor, T. (2022) Learning Patterns Library, retrieved from https://learning-patterns.com/ July 2023 Laurillard, D. (2002). Rethinking university teaching: a conversational framework for the effective use of learning technologies (2nd ed.). London: RoutledgeFalmer. Laurillard, D. (2012). Teaching as a design science: building pedagogical patterns for learning and technology. London: Routledge.

Author Keywords
learning design, design system, design for learning

Injustice within education shuts out critical voices and creates an environment that encourages false or biased narratives. This is seen through the phenomenon of colonization of education. The growing commercialization of education is part of this puzzle, but financial barriers are only one piece of the problem. Further aspects of colonization in education include an overemphasis on rule-following and punishments, overextended faculty, BIPOC faculty leaving at high rates, and performative diversity and inclusion efforts (Lehman, 2020).

Many working in education have seen at least one of these common afflictions within the workplace. Other processes include higher education institutions giving recognition to faculty only when publishing with traditional publishers, many institutions still acting under an authoritative system that ignores the voices of students, staff, and faculty, and short-term hiring of staff or educators that prevents long-term mentoring of students. Injustice within education allows these harmful practices and others to reinforce biased historical narratives and research, limiting the success and impact of many students and faculty, especially those who are not white, male, and heterosexual individuals. In addition, colonized education causes the most harm on Indigenous and Black students, consequences can include a loss of identity, a limited sense of the past, as well as disassociation with heritage (Nwanosike & Onyije, 2011).

International Open Access Week has chosen the theme “Community over Commercialization” for the past two years, matching one of the crucial goals of decolonization in education. Open educational practices can help break down many current barriers including financial, diversity of materials and authors, as well as the prioritization of community. But while a step in the right direction, open educational practices alone are not enough to create scholarly equity. Crissinger (2015), Meagher (2021), Dutta, et al. (2021), and Berger (2021) have all highlighted the areas where open educational practices fail to move past colonization systems.

This presentation will discuss recent literature on decolonizing education as well as the literature that discusses how open educational practices are also in need of decolonization. Open educational practices are at an important moment in history where education is undergoing turbulent times. For open practices to advance and become more widespread, they must first divorce from colonization practices which prevent scholarly equity. Educators cannot work on decolonizing education and then be introduced to practices that must go through the process again. As open advocates, we must have these discussions and chart the path to decolonization.



Included in [Session 6B]: Global Access and Equity

References
Asher, N. (2009). Chapter 5: Decolonization and education: Locating pedagogy and self at the interstices in global times. Counterpoints, 369, 67-77. Berger, M. (2021). Bibliodiversity at the Centre: Decolonizing open access. Development and Change, 52(2), 383-404. Crissinger, S. (2015, October 21). A critical take on OER practices: Interrogating commercialization, colonialism, and content. In the Library with the Lead Pipe. https://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2015/a-critical-take-on-oer-practices-interrogating-commercialization-colonialism-and-content/ Dutta, M., Ramasubramanian, S., Barrett, M., Elers, C., Sarwatay, D., Raghunath, P., ... & Zapata, D. (2021). Decolonizing open science: Southern interventions. Journal of communication, 71(5), 803-826. Farrow, R., Coughlan, T., Goshtasbpour, F., & Pitt, B. (2023). Supported Open Learning and Decoloniality: Critical Reflections on Three Case Studies. Education Sciences, 13(11), 1115. Lehman, R. (2020, June 26). Ten ways to identify colonized education practices. Academe Blog. https://academeblog.org/2020/06/26/ten-ways-to-identify-colonized-education-practices/ Meagher, K. (2021). Introduction: the politics of open access—decolonizing research or corporate capture?. Development and Change, 52(2), 340-358. Melanie Reyes & Elizabeth A Segal (2019) Globalization or Colonization in Online Education: Opportunity or Oppression?, Journal of Teaching in Social Work, 39:4-5, 374-386, DOI: 10.1080/08841233.2019.1637991 Nikki Luke & Nik Heynen (2021) Abolishing the frontier: (De)colonizing ‘public’ education, Social & Cultural Geography, 22:3, 403-424, DOI: 10.1080/14649365.2019.1593492 Nwanosike, O. F., & Onyije, L. E. (2011). Colonialism and education. Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences, 2(4), 41-47.

Author Keywords
Education injustices, colonization, open commercialization

With the establishment of a Truth-telling and Healing Inquiry in Queensland under recently enacted the Path to Treaty Act 2023, government agencies, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and the broader community will embark on an unprecedented journey of discovery and reflection as they deepen their understanding of the impacts and effects of colonisation on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and their communities and culture.

Meaningful truth-telling and healing is built on this understanding of Queensland’s shared history and a transparent assessment of the impacts and effects of colonisation. Historical records will play an important role in revealing the truth about the impacts of past legislation, and government policy and practices, on the lives of First Nations peoples and their communities and culture.

As the custodian of the largest documentary heritage collection about Queensland, Queensland State Archives recognises that many of the records contained within the collection provide vital evidence of this past and is committed to uncover the untold and unrecognised history of Queensland.

Since the arrival of Europeans in Queensland, colonial systems have been forced upon Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. The colonial records that document this contain highly sensitive personal and/or cultural information, and access to these records has often been restricted by the relevant government agencies. These restrictions can remain in place for a very long time, limiting access to these records and the information contained within them. Consequently, it is more difficult for the Inquiry, First Nations individuals and communities, and the respective government agencies to understand what these records reveal about our colonial past – it is more difficult to make this open and everyone’s business.

This presents a significant challenge for Queensland State Archives and the government agencies involved in administering access to these records. How do we facilitate access to these records while still respecting the personal information contained within them? How do we facilitate access to these records while honouring and respecting the culturally sensitive information contained within them? How do we open access while working within the constraints of existing legislation? How do we support the aspirations of the Truth-telling and Healing Inquiry in understanding our shared history and documenting the impacts of colonisation on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples when access to these records is restricted? How do we partner with our stakeholders to help us provide access to this information?

In this presentation, Queensland State Archives will explore some of the strategies being implemented to make this information more discoverable and support a more transparent approach to accessing these records so that Queensland’s colonial past and its impact on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples is better understood



Included in [Session 6E]: Anti-racism

Author Keywords
Data sovereignty, First Nations Perspectives, Open access publishing

( In Vietnam, Open Educational Resources (OER) initiatives at universities, especially institutional OER repositories (IOER), are largely spontaneous, and few have been successfully developed. This leads to ambiguity in the development process of IOERs and the roles of campus stakeholders involved, resulting in a lack of confidence and unwillingness among higher education communities to engage with OER and IOER development.

Considering the development of IOER as an educational change at higher education organisations (HEOs) in Vietnam, this study utilises Michael Fullan's theory of Educational Change (2007) as a theoretical framework to ascertain the development of IOERs and clarify the roles of stakeholders in the process. In particular, two out of the three phases (Initiation, Implementation, and Institutionalisation) of the educational change process (Fullan, 2007) were adopted. Since only a few IOERs have been developed in Vietnam to date, it was not possible to investigate the Institutionalisation Phase of the change in this research.

Using a qualitative approach, this study involves twenty-one semi-structured interviews with OER champions, university leaders, faculty members, and library leaders and staff from various HEOs in Vietnam. Collected data were then analysed employing a directed content analysis approach (Hsieh and Shannon 2005). Participants in this study believe that the development process of IOERs aligns well with the first two phases of the educational change process, as proposed by Fullan. The initiation phase is not believed to require a high level of intricacy to progress, yet thorough preparation is significant for the project's approval. The implementation phase, on the other hand, is more complex and includes several steps, such as IOER management, OER awareness-raising, OER use, and IOER content creation.

These steps involve participation and collaboration among different campus stakeholders. In this collaborative process, the roles of libraries are significant as the implementers of IOER development projects. Although the indispensable roles of libraries are well-highlighted by the participants in this study, and VanScoy (2019) also indicates that libraries can potentially play the role of IOER policymakers, their roles in general are still underestimated due to the ingrained social prejudice regarding the peripheral role of libraries as merely book storage facilities in Vietnam. This perspective was mentioned by some participants and other researchers in Vietnam, such as Do et al. (2017).

By providing a picture of the current state of IOERs in Vietnam, this study helps clarify the IOERs development process and the campus stakeholders involved. It also highlights the significant roles of academic libraries in embracing the OER movement. Considering the findings, highly authorised stakeholders in Vietnam, such as the government or leaders of HEOs, can support and empower libraries to propose policies that effectively accelerate the OER movement in Vietnam, further facilitating open education for everyone.



Included in [Session 6D]: Open Pedagogy, Repositories

References
Fullan, M. (2007). The new meaning of educational change (4th ed.). Teachers College Press. Hsieh, H. F., & Shannon, S. E. (2005). Three approaches to qualitative content analysis. Qualitative Health Research, 15(9), 1277-1288. https://doi.org/10.1177/1049732305276687 VanScoy, A. (2019). Bridging the chasm: Faculty support roles for academic librarians in the adoption of open educational resources. College & Research Libraries, 80(4), 426. DOI:10.5860/crl.80.4.426 Do, V. H., Kieu, T. N., Bui, T. T., & Pham, T. K. (2017). Vai trò của thư viện trong việc thực hiện các mục tiêu phát triển bền vững của Liên Hợp Quốc [The role of libraries in the implementation of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals]. Tạp chí Thư viện Việt Nam [Vietnam Library Journal], 4, 3-12. https://bit.ly/3ATdK5n

Author Keywords
Open Educational Resources, OER, institutional OER repositories, Vietnam, Library, Development process

James Cook University (JCU) Library serves a vast geographic area in regional and remote North and Far North Queensland, Australia. This area includes the main Townsville and Cairns campuses, six satellite study centres and external staff and students. A JCU strategic priority is transformative education, with an aim of widening participation in higher education for regional, remote, Indigenous, and first-in-family students. However, financial pressures pose a significant challenge for these students, affecting their enrolment, retention, and successful completion of university studies (Devlin & McKay, 2017; Zając & Tomaszewski, 2023). A desire to respond to the financial difficulties faced by many JCU students underpins the University’s strong commitment to open education and textbook affordability.

Academic libraries working to improve student textbook affordability is not new. North American efforts are growing in maturity, leading to an increasing number of courses publicly marked as open and affordable for students (Johnson et al., 2023). The University of South Australia Library provides recent inspiration for textbook affordability projects within the Australian higher education landscape (Gillespie, 2023). At JCU, the Library recognises that ‘open is everyone’s business’, and that subject textbook costs can be reduced. Accordingly, the Library has launched a Textbook Affordability Project (TAP), 2024-2025, targeting student-paid prescribed textbooks in first-year core subjects.

The need for TAP is apparent given 2023 Library data estimates that first-year students could have paid approximately $2,194,238 for their prescribed textbooks for core subjects. As a result, the initiative has the support of JCU’s Education Division and the Academy. The Library has invited collaboration from academic stakeholders to identify and implement free-for-student paid textbook alternatives. While the project is ongoing, interim analysis has identified several factors that have contributed to project success so far:

• JCU Library leadership has invested considerable time and demonstrated strong support for the project.
• Higher Education Participation and Partnerships Program (HEPPP) grant funding was secured for:
  
  
  • two short-term staff positions to ensure successful project coordination 
  • CU internal grants targeting academic stakeholders to maximise ongoing benefits for the JCU community.
• The whole-of-Library project status means the team can draw upon expertise from all Library staff.
• The core project team is drawn from four geographic locations bringing together complementary skills to meet differing facets of project requirements.
• A subscription to Airtable, a cloud-based relational database tool, facilitates management of the project’s complex relationships, data analysis and reporting.
• The TAP team has been able to leverage results from the highly successful JCU Open eBooks program.

At the end of the project, the aim is for this work to be business as usual for the Library and academic stakeholders, with an ongoing commitment to provide JCU students with as many zero textbook cost (ZTC) study options as possible.



Included in [Session 6B]: Global Access and Equity

References
Devlin, M., & McKay, J. (2017). Facilitating success for students from low socioeconomic status backgrounds at regional universities. Australian Centre for Student Equity and Success. https://www.ncsehe.edu.au/project/facilitating-success-students-low-socioeconomic-status-backgrounds-regional-universities-2/ Gillespie, K. (2023). Minimising ‘cost to student’ course materials project final report. University of South Australia Library. https://www.library.unisa.edu.au/siteassets/files/memoreportassqctextbookminimisationfeb2023.pdf Johnson, G., Parks, J., Many, A., and Diaz, L. (2023). Findings of the OER course marking landscape analysis survey. Midwestern Higher Education Compact. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED645370.pdf Zając, T. & Tomaszewski, W. (2023). Relative influence of different markers of socioeconomic status on university participation. In Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (Ed.), Australia’s welfare 2023: Data insights. (pp. 193-214). https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/australias-welfare/australias-welfare-2023-data-insights/contents/uni-participation

Author Keywords
equity, social justice, textbook affordability, regional and remote students, project management

One missing piece to the conversation around the impact of OER on student success metrics is a discussion about implementation quality. Are instructors just substituting an OER textbook for an expensive, commercial text, or are they going through a faculty fellowship, supported by their institution that includes conversations around pedagogy? OER implementation spans a continuum with one-to-one replacement of textbooks with OER textbooks at one end and thoughtful integration of OER in ways that enhance pedagogy at the other end. We believe these differences in OER implementation quality are a primary reason for the “muddy waters” surrounding OER and student success.

Furthermore, the potential differences in the support, training, and incentives instructors receive when implementing OER in their classrooms may impact the quality of that implementation. If instructors are not provided with adequate resources and guidance on best practices for adapting, remixing, and aligning OER with learning objectives, they may struggle to implement OER into their courses in a meaningful way. Lack of incentives, such as compensation or recognition for the time and effort required to implement OER, can also be a barrier to quality implementation. Understanding effective ways in which institutions can provide support for instructors implementing OER is crucial to advancing OER initiatives.

AAC&U is embarking on a large-scale study on OER and student success to advance the conversation on the effectiveness and impact of OER beyond affordability. Our multi-institutional study brings together 17 U.S. colleges and universities spanning all six primary higher education institution categories officially recognized in the United States, and features key minority-serving designations including Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Tribal Colleges, and Hispanic-Serving Institutions. From these institutions, we are collecting historical data on student success in courses that implemented OER within the past 10 years. As part of this study, we will be conducting focus groups with faculty from these institutions about their OER implementation and what characteristics indicate higher quality OER implementation. These results will allow us to understand and codify quality, leading to the creation of a framework outlining quality OER implementations.

In this session, we will present the findings from our focus group research and share the implementation quality framework we are developing. We will discuss the process of developing the framework; characteristics that indicate quality and the impact that support, training, and incentives (or lack thereof) have on OER implementation quality; and how we intend to share this framework to enhance OER implementation quality on a broader scale. Finally, we will reveal the next stage of this research—our incorporation of this framework into an instructor survey that will be disseminated to additional faculty at each of our partner campuses. The purpose of the instructor survey is two-fold: first, to determine if higher quality is positively associated with student success and second, to examine the extent to which OER implementation differs within and across institutions. These additional pieces of the study will further extend the conversation around the impact of OER on student success.



Included in [Session 6A]: Practice and Policy in OE

Author Keywords
OER Implementation Quality, Focus Groups, Instructor perceptions

Maskwacis Cultural Colege’s vision statement is  “Center for excellence in Academics and Cree culture.” A case study of the use of open pedagogy in teaching and learning at the local First Nations College will be presented.

Two eyed seeing approach was used in SOCI 1500 online class by braiding western and Indigenous ways of teaching by a racialized settler instructor working with an on reserve First Nations college. 400 minutes of Open Educational Resources (OER) videos were created by collaborating with Subject Matter Experts. Production of the OER syllabics book was based on Three kittens' open book from Norway's Children's Digital library.

The success and challenges of using open education practices will be illustrated. Openness is embedded in Nehiyaw plains Cree ways of knowing by using concepts of Newaykomakanak, Wahkotowin, Kiyam and Pastahowin.



Included in [Session 6E]: Anti-racism

Author Keywords
First Nations perspectives, Local Indigenous cultures and ways of knowing, Open educational practices

Open educational resources (OER) can be valuable tools for enhancing regular courses. There are some ways to integrate OER into the curriculum, for example: (1) Full course replacement: Consider using a complete OER textbook or curriculum if it aligns with your course learning objectives. This can significantly reduce student costs. (2) Supplementary materials: OERs can be excellent resources to supplement existing course materials. Look for articles, simulations, interactive exercises, or multimedia resources that enrich specific topics. (3) Curated collections: Create your own curated collections of OERs tailored to specific learning objectives or units within your course. (4) Student exploration activities: Provide students with OERs as a starting point for research projects or independent learning activities.

Thus, here in Taipei Medical University, we've tried to build undergraduate courses by adopting our MOOCs as OERs. The core of instruction design of these courses are to curate progressive learning content. We divide the course content into different modules, each with clear learning objectives. You can provide an overview at the beginning of each module and a summary at the end of each module. Then, we design diverse learning activities. We combine a variety of learning activities to help learners better understand and master the course content. For example, we use lecture videos, readings, discussions and quizzes of the MOOCs we choose. We require students to submit a progress report of their learning. We use a variety of assessment methods to evaluate the learning outcomes of learners. The learner need to finish the peer review of these progress reports.

The courses were open for enrollment across the aliened universities. Because of the nature of the MOOCs, these courses are in asychronized format. There were more than 200 students enrolled in each course. Most students are looking forward to taking more courses operate in the same way.



Included in [Session 7A]: Pedagogy. Advocacy - (workshops and talk)

Author Keywords
micro-credential, MOOCs, Open Education Resources, Instruction Design

In southwest Arkansas lies UA Cossatot, a small community college whose inspiring story resonates with themes of determination, collaboration, innovation, and the transformative power of open educational resources (OER). Cossatot Community College has four campuses with an average enrollment of about 1,300 and is a part of the University of Arkansas System. We lead the state in OER usage, but we didn’t get there overnight. We faced some challenges along the way to becoming the state leader in OER adoption, but commitment to our students and collective determination fueled our journey.

In 2015, UA Cossatot addressed the financial hardships textbook expenses created for its diverse student population. As the sole Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) in a state with a 17% poverty rate, the nation’s seventh highest poverty rate, the imperative to remove financial barriers to higher education assumed paramount importance. In our initial research, it became clear that establishing an OER initiative was not only a viable economic alternative, but also the right thing to do for students.

With a mission statement emphasizing our commitment to improving the lives of those in our region by providing quality education and outstanding services while embracing diversity, it was obvious that the belief in equal educational opportunities for all demanded that we build an internal textbook rental and OER program, so we did.

Despite initial hesitations among faculty members apprehensive about departing from traditional textbooks and widespread sentiment that what we were attempting to do was impossible, UA Cossatot persisted, understanding that OER embodies a collective responsibility to nurture student achievement. The college diligently sought inclusive pathways for all stakeholders, ensuring that proponents of conventional textbooks could seamlessly transition to affordable alternatives. The collaborative effort between college administration, faculty, and staff underscores that OER is not merely about finances but a shared moral responsibility to ensure student welfare and academic success.

Open education is crucial to the future of education and addresses the challenges and needs of contemporary and future learning environments. For community colleges transitioning to OER, it doesn’t matter how big or small the college is, higher education leaders can step up to eliminate some of the financial barriers that students face. Recognizing that we can value traditional culture while embracing modern ways of thinking teaches us to respect both perspectives and know that we’re not bound by either. At UA Cossatot, we’ve learned a lot about open resources and Creative Commons and we’re eager to share that experience. UA Cossatot’s journey from OER novices to leading Arkansas with 76 percent of our courses using open resources exemplifies our commitment to the changing landscape that is education and illustrates a balanced approach to tradition and innovation within the future of learning in a constantly evolving educational landscape.



Included in [Session 7E]: Practice and Policy in OE (workshops)

Author Keywords
Inclusion diversity equity and access, Open educational practices, Open education policies and strategies, Open textbooks

How do we make Open everyone’s business even before gaining formal institutional support or resourcing, such as a dedicated open education team or role? How do we conduct open education activities on a shoestring?

We ask our friends, we try things, we take notes, and we learn.

And, crucially, we share.

Sharing back into the Open ecosystem has enabled the University of South Australia (UniSA) to continue learning from our colleagues to build an Open culture of our own, where open education is embedded in our everyday workflows, becoming a natural part of everyone’s business.

In this session, Ash and Sarah discuss: the evolution of Open at UniSA and our involvement in the Council of Australian University Librarians (CAUL) OER Collective; our Textbook Minimisation project and subsequent Open Education Down UndOER case study; and the sustainable advocacy strategies we use that have led to OER adoption and creation, supporting inclusive and equitable access to education.

Throughout the discussion, we present specific examples of tools and techniques we’ve learned and successfully implemented from the Open ecosystem which have helped us embed open education into our business as usual everyday practices. Some of these include: -Post-oppositional approach to OER advocacy: an approach we’ve known by many names from various Open practitioners; however, this phrase we learned from the extraordinary Jasmine Roberts-Crews who crystalised the idea in an unforgettable keynote speech about the alignment of open education and antiracist pedagogy. -Check for Textbook Availability form: a workflow game-changer adapted from Cheryl Casey’s University of Arizona Library Check for eBook Availability form which endeavours to capture and replace potentially problematic textbooks before they’ve been prescribed to a course. -Airtable open education project tracker: a free project management and reporting tool all rolled into one, very generously shared and demonstrated by Gabrielle Hernandez from University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. -Open Pipeline: a concept visualised as kanban and shared by Ross McKerlich from BCcampus as a method for tracking and advancing how far along individuals and entities are on the Open spectrum, from non-Open to fully Open, recognising OER adoption numbers do not give the full story. -Open Education Maturity Model: a tool from Pressbooks to measure the current state of open education in an institution as well as understand the key steps to grow to the next level.

We share these examples to assist other Open practitioners operating on a shoestring to quickly identify some tools worth trying, rather than wading unguided through the ocean of available resources.

After discussing our own experiences of sharing and reusing Open practitioner tools and strategies for sustainable practice, we invite participants to engage with us through a collaborative online document, sharing their own tips and resources they have either created or reused which may help other practitioners with low resourcing to undertake everyday open education activities. This living document will be openly licensed, empowering participants to immediately make use of the content and continue to add and reuse the ideas, celebrating and sustaining the Open ecosystem.



Included in [Session 7B]: OE Practice in the GLAM sector

Author Keywords
Open educational resources (OER), Open education, Advocacy, Sustainable practices

Most Australian universities are in the nascent stages of developing open educational practices (OEP). A wave of progress has been made in recent years due to a national push to develop the foundations for open educational resource (OER) publishing. It has been useful for Australian open advocates to draw initial lessons from the U.S. and Canada who have made significant advances. However, as OEP takes root in Australia, it is becoming increasingly urgent to consolidate the insights gained from our region to support locally specific strategies and solutions.

Accordingly, our presentation provides a longer term retrospective from the rearview mirror. We share insights from La Trobe University’s mature open education model that can be applied to further advance the whole Australasian OEP community, recognising that open is everyone’s business. We focus on ‘big picture’ lessons from our early adopter investment into OER initiatives a decade ago (Salisbury, Julien & Loch, 2023). We discuss strategies for resolving “Gordian Knot” challenges (seemingly unsolvable problems) faced by all institutions establishing the foundations for OEP in Australia.

We propose that these ‘wicked problems’ and our evolving solutions for them are best understood through five interrelated themes:

1) Open education poses a uniquely amorphous challenge precisely because of its essential feature: openness. The fuzzy nature of open is its greatest strength, but it creates problems like staff burnout, lack of sustainable funding, conceptual confusion, and nebulous project boundaries. We illustrate how clear vision can minimise these problems, and how it is best gained *through* OEP rather than ahead of it.

2) The Australasian open education movement faces a paradox. We need to quickly develop more localised OER to build a strong and relevant resource base to drive adoption. However, if we do this hastily, we risk normalising a mechanistic ‘factory line’ approach to generating OER as objects abstracted from practice. This would deprive us of the rich OEP that are key to unlocking the power of OER in the first place. We argue that resolving this paradox requires us to strongly prioritise ‘process as pedagogy’ and reflexive open practices, drawing from both our experiences and the 8 Aboriginal Ways of Learning (Kalantzis & Cope, 2006).

3) These reflexive open practices are embodied by educators who see themselves as active open practitioners. We argue that making this sustainable means enabling practitioners via purposeful institutional support, such as integrated academic capability development programs that scaffold reflexive practices in a foundational way.

4) Open practitioners, when they engage in reflexive open education, generate open artefacts that support academic reward and recognition.

5) The Australian higher education environment disincentivises open educational practices through many barriers. However, the combination of #3 (developing open reflexive practitioners in a scaffolded way) and #4 (practice-based generation of open artefacts) creates a powerful force that realigns OEP with academic incentive systems.

We conclude by integrating these five themes into actionable recommendations for institutions and teams relevant to all countries and situations where ‘wicked’ barriers exist to advancing OEP.



Included in [Session 7C]: Open Publishing - the Australian Experience

References
Kalantzis, M., Cope, Bill, & Cambridge books online. (120AD). Literacies. Port Melbourne, Vic.: Cambridge University Press. Salisbury, F., Julien, B., Loch, B., Chang, S., & Lexis, L. (2023). From Knowledge Curator to Knowledge Creator: Academic Libraries and Open Access Textbook Publishing. Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication, 11(1). Whitchurch, C. (2012). Reconstructing Identities in Higher Education: The rise of 'Third Space' professionals (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203098301

Author Keywords
Open access publishing, Open educational practices, Open education policies and strategies, Open textbooks, Open practitioners, Culturally responsive OEP, Scholarship of learning and teaching, Academic reward and recognition, Third Spaces and Third Space professionals, OEP sustainability

This presentation will showcase how a multi-year international baking competition between two university libraries special collections units sparked efforts to increase engagement and open knowledge production around archival recipe books and manuscripts. This unique annual event prioritizes welcoming both University-connected individuals and communities as well as the general public to explore and engage with digitized and openly licensed collections held by two large Universities. As a result of the widespread participation, both Universities are actively seeking to expand their recipe collections and are committed to identifying ways the public and their students can continue to make significant contributions to knowledge sharing around food, social networks, and gender participation in the kitchen.

The Great Rare Books Bake Off invites students, faculty, staff, alumni, and the public to engage with recipe books at both Monash University and Penn State University by baking selected recipes from them and posting the results to social media. Since 2020, this annual competition has engaged hundreds of participants and led to the expansion of recipe collections at each university, propelled digitization projects around these unique items, enabled open knowledge production through transcription, and inspired both in-person and virtual events. By engaging library colleagues, university students, and the public as partners in the embodied creation, digitization, and transcription of these unique primary sources, the project opened up barriers to archival access and scholarly participation.

Rather than merely consuming knowledge, participants became creators, scholars, and public disseminators putting the tenets of open education into practice. Their authentic research experiences culminated in social media engagement around the historical recipes, the planning of public events that brought the recipe books’ culinary heritages into the present, and a published digital transcription made openly available with students credited as creators.

The presentation will detail the pedagogical strategies that positioned participants, particularly students, as developing experts throughout the process. Additionally, it will share the digital outputs and impacts that demonstrate how increasing access to primary sources can facilitate meaningful community connections. In surfacing the experiences, ingredients, and social networks captured in handwritten recipe books, community cookbooks, and commercially published cultural recipe collections, this project empowered participants as open knowledge producers exploring and enriching our shared cultural record. This presentation will encourage attendees to consider how initiatives like this can advance open pedagogy while fostering research skills. It will also highlight how partnerships with special collections and university libraries across institutions can create powerful, public-facing educational opportunities both inside and outside the traditional classroom.



Included in [Session 7B]: OE Practice in the GLAM sector

Author Keywords
Open pedagogy, Open educational resources, Recipe books

As academic librarians we recognise that open is everyone’s business. Academic librarians are essentially open education practitioners, well positioned to represent staff and students in their academic journeys and mindful of the cruciality of equable access to knowledge.

As members of educational organisations and academia we are not the only consumers of educational research and outcomes. Open education ensures that those outside our institutions, including those responsible for policy and information provision, have access to timely research. It also supports collaborative research without restrictions on a global scale.

In 2024 Queensland University of Technology (QUT) Library launched its new Open Press. QUT Open Press offers support and guidance to QUT staff and students to publish open textbooks, open journals and other open educational resources. This initiative brings together the diverse knowledge and skills QUT librarians and research staff offer to improve access to educational resources. We posit open scholarship and open access in terms of maximising the sharing of knowledge across the entire research lifecycle, encompassing open access to research publications, open data, open educational resources, sharing of code, protocols, and other relevant research outputs.

But how did we get here? QUT has operated comprehensively in the open access space for several decades now. An institutional open access policy, believed to be the earliest university-wide open access policy in the world, was endorsed in 2003. QUT’s institutional open repository (QUT ePrints) was launched in the same year mandating the provision of author accepted manuscript versions for all peer reviewed articles published by staff. In 2004 QUT committed to the Creative Commons Project and in 2010 utilised open-source publishing software to host a number of open access academic journals. In 2016 the first institutional OER policy was approved. QUT Library continues to support a range of national and international open access advocacy activities with active membership in national organisations like Open Access Australasia and Confederation of Open Access Repositories (COAR). QUT also supports a range of other open access initiatives including a research data and software repository and a suite of OER. Most recently, in 2023, QUT’s open access policy was updated to incorporate a ‘Rights Retention’ element based on the Plan-S initiative.

QUT Open Press represents more than a shop front for Library services in relation to open scholarship and open education. It is representative and inclusive of a long-term and broader body of activity, practice and advocacy developed with whole-of-institution support. QUT Open Press is open for business.



Included in [Session 7C]: Open Publishing - the Australian Experience

References
Open Access for QUT Research Outputs (Including Theses) Policy / Document / MOPP. (n.d.). Retrieved May 16, 2024, from https://mopp.qut.edu.au/document/view.php?id=177

Open Educational Resources Policy / Document / MOPP. (n.d.). Retrieved May 16, 2024, from https://mopp.qut.edu.au/document/view.php?id=148

Author Keywords
open access publishing, open repositories, open textbooks, open scholarship, open access

Open Education and Open Educational Resources (OERs) have garnered a burgeoning interest amongst higher education and library professionals in tertiary institutions across Southeast Asia. In an effort to meet this interest, an idea was sparked and conversations initiated to inaugurate an open education group specifically for the ASEAN higher education community. Herein began the OER-SIG: ‘Open Educational Regional – Special Interest Group’.

The OER-SIG proposal was launched at the 17th AUNILO Meeting, to gain association support of AUNILO (formerly ASEAN University Network Inter-Library Online) and to generate a broader reach. Whilst communities of practice such as interest groups are plentiful in the areas of open education, this group specifically aims to build awareness and discussion on open education issues and trends contextually relevant to the ASEAN region. Such issues include OER in Asian languages; awareness of local resource-sharing platforms; and diverse OER formats inclusive of rural Southeast Asian contexts, such as print formats.

Presently Co-Chaired by Singapore Management University (Singapore) and Mahidol University (Thailand), the interest group meets quarterly online for activities encompassing small-group sharing or discussion sessions; casual presentations from members or guests; as well as occasional planned larger-scale webinars with an invited speaker which are open to a broader audience, as after all 'Open is Everyone’s Business'! The interest group has successfully welcomed diverse members from across countries including Singapore, Cambodia, Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia, amongst others.

One year on and after the conclusion of the SIG’s very first full-year, this presentation will cover the rationale, purpose and objectives for setting up the interest group, along with the full journey from the initial inception of the idea to the earliest conversations for developing cross-border partnerships to garner support for establishing the SIG. Activities and outcomes from the first year will also be briefly shared.

Building a regional interest from the ground up is not without its challenges and learnings, including maintaining in-between meeting communication and sustaining group momentum with limited resources. The SIG is still very much in its early stages, with more potential to learn and grow over time with maturity.

Through the OER Special Interest Group for ASEAN, it is hoped that the group as a community of practice will continue to encourage the sharing of best practices and experiences with OERs amongst higher education and library professionals, as well as ignite discussion on open education issues and trends directly relevant to Southeast Asia to promote impact in the region and beyond.



Included in [Session 7B]: OE Practice in the GLAM sector

Author Keywords
Open educational practices, Open practitioners, Communities of Practice

The CAUL Open Educational Resources (OER) Collective, an initiative led by the Council of Australian University Librarians (CAUL), has been leveraging the power of networks within university libraries in Australia and Aotearoa / New Zealand to advance open publishing and open educational practices at a regional level. The goals of the CAUL OER Collective are three-fold, with the aim of building capacity and capability across the network:

1. Build infrastructure, capacity and achieve tangible outcomes to move the OER agenda forward at a national level.
2. Facilitate collaborative authoring and publishing of open textbooks in targeted priority disciplines, with a preference for the inclusion of local and/or Indigenous content.
3. Allow Member institutions to publish their own textbooks in disciplines of their choosing.

A central driver behind this capacity and capability building is the annual grants program which has awarded close to $100,000 to support the development of open textbooks in member institutions. The textbooks cover a diverse range of disciplines, including psychology, law, Indigenous studies, and health – telemedicine, pharmacy, nursing and midwifery.

As the peak leadership organisation for university libraries in Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand, CAUL recognises that institutional members are at various stages of maturity in their capacity to support OER. CAUL is uniquely positioned to bolster the variety of service models in practice, to adapt the communities of practice, the development of guides and events and the focus of the grants program to provide a strong basis for broader advocacy efforts.

This presentation will reveal the results of three years’ worth of grants programming, drawing on qualitative and quantitative data and interviews with academic authors and supporting library staff. We will share our own successes and challenges and practical strategies to sustainably continue the work of the CAUL OER Collective as a service to our members. We will provide a collective model others may benefit from, as we have learned from the maturing open communities around the globe, in and outside of the tertiary education sector. Open is everyone’s business. 



Included in [Session 7C]: Open Publishing - the Australian Experience

Author Keywords
Open access publishing, Open educational practices, Open textbooks

In Spring 2018, KPU embarked on a groundbreaking mission: to eliminate textbook costs for students. With support from BCcampus, KPU pioneered Canada's first ZTC Initiative, introducing 75 ZTC sections and a flexible 1-year Certificate in Arts credential. Since then, the initiative has flourished, transforming the educational landscape. Now, just six years later, KPU offers an impressive average of 22% course section offerings with ZTC, along with eight known ZTC credentials, including two four-year Baccalaureate degrees. This commitment to accessible education remains unwavering. Today, KPU boasts a diverse ZTC landscape, spanning multiple disciplines and degree levels. The commitment to accessible education remains at the forefront. But the journey hasn't been without challenges, and in this presentation, we will share a recent project KPU underwent in order to overcome one of our challenges and to move our ZTC Initiative forward in a strategic way.

While individual course tracking has improved through integration into the registration system, a critical challenge persists: identifying potential ZTC pathways at the credential level. Historically, KPU relied on manual cross-referencing between degree frameworks and lists of ZTC course data. However, this process was time-consuming and lacked comprehensive insights.

In 2024, KPU embarked on a transformative project: digitizing the ZTC credential mapping process. The goal was to create a systematic approach that would facilitate strategic planning and provide comprehensive analysis.

Phase 1 of this project involved importing 177 degree frameworks from the KPU Academic Calendar website into MS Excel. These frameworks were organized into separate files for each Faculty. Next, each framework was cross-referenced against a list of historic ZTC courses extracted from the registration system. The initial data analysis yielded valuable insights, revealing the percentage of ZTC courses within each degree. This information allowed KPU to pinpoint degrees that were close to offering ZTC pathways.

Building on Phase 1, KPU dug deeper into the data in Phase 2. Which specific courses could strategically enhance ZTC pathways? Which ones were missing? The team identified key courses that, if converted to ZTC, would significantly expand the number of ZTC degree options available to students. To communicate these findings effectively, KPU developed data visualizations and a user-friendly dashboard using Power BI.

Armed with a clearer picture of ZTC opportunities, KPU Open is now poised for strategic growth. The "OER Advancement Grant" was created specifically to fund the conversion of courses to ZTC and offer more ZTC credentials. By focusing on degrees or programs that are on the cusp of ZTC readiness, KPU aims to increase student access to affordable education.



Included in [Session 7E]: Practice and Policy in OE (workshops)

Author Keywords
open education research, zero textbook cost, open education policies and strategies

As a strategy to introduce open educational practices at an institution, a grant program can provide a vehicle for organizational awareness raising and practice development. At Deakin University, an Open Educational Resources (OER) grant program was introduced in 2021 to foster the development of Open practice. Over 3 rounds of grants, the program has iterated from a fixed level of grants to a tiered structure and as an internally recognized program, it contributes to establishing and fostering open practice at the university.

This presentation aims to summarize 3 years of practice learnings from an OER grant program from the initial establishment through to the current program progressing towards institutional maturity. Over this time, the infrastructure to publish resources has been developed, processes to support open educational practices have been established and channels for communication created. The presentation will discuss the challenges of commencing a program at an institution where open educational practice was not organizationally prevalent. From a point of institutional immaturity in open education, library processes, expertise, and infrastructure has developed alongside the open practice of the grant recipients as needs occurred. As the grant projects develop a range of OER from textbooks to videos and other learning object types and formats, a range of solutions and practices needed to be established adding complexity to the program challenges.

Additional to the challenges, this presentation will also cover the wins and positive outcomes of implementing a grant program to strategically increase open practice. Supporting the projects requires collaboration across areas of the university including the library, learning designers and academics from across the faculties. These interactions between staff from different divisions make open the business of everyone right across the institutional environment. From establishing touchpoint of contact to managing relationships with contacts, the library coordinates the program to achieve strategic goals. Over time, not only has the grant program developed but also the aims of the program are moving towards a maturity of practice: from learning about OER towards Open Educational Practice, renewable assessment and creative, interactive OER development.



Included in [Session 7C]: Open Publishing - the Australian Experience

Author Keywords
OER programs, Open educational practice, OER publishing, Open education strategies