OEGlobal 2024

This workshop will explore the potential of Open Educational Resources (OER) to promote and mainstream Global Education (GE). GE is an educational approach to create knowledge, skills, and awareness and to provide training for responsible global citizenship from a lifelong development perspective (Altun, 2017). In our increasingly interconnected and interdependent modern world, it is crucial to prioritise the development of global awareness among individuals, particularly those in the Global South, to equip them with the necessary skills and understanding to navigate and contribute positively to a complex, diverse, and rapidly changing world. By leveraging OER, GE can overcome existing obstacles and transcend geographical and socioeconomic barriers, enabling individuals to access and utilise GE content and acquire competencies and knowledge to navigate our contemporary interconnected world (Arinto, Hodgkinson-Williams & Trotter, 2017). Watson et al. (2023) argue that adopting Open Educational Resources (OER) can be an effective strategy for achieving equity, diversity, and inclusion, aligning closely with the GE concept and its principles.

Research indicates that OER can play a role in mainstreaming and promoting GE. For example, Hodgkinson-Williams & Arinto (2020) propose that the transformative potential of OER in democratising access to resources can develop and nurture global citizens to contribute to solution-finding to the global complexities of a highly globalised society and challenge existing structural inequalities that hamper the voices and knowledge of the global south. Recognising the importance and role OER can play, this workshop provides an opportunity for participants to explore how OER and open education, in general, can promote and mainstream GE through access, equity, and innovation of resources, particularly for populations, educators, and students in developing settings. In particular, participants will discuss practical strategies for identifying, adapting, and creating OER that incorporates global education themes such as cultural diversity, global issues, and intercultural competencies, as well as key considerations for ensuring accessibility, relevance, and ethical use of OER-GE-oriented resources in various contexts. Through five dynamic and active group sessions, participants will actively engage in a hands-on activity to brainstorm ideas, and strategies, and identify scenario-based design challenges for the real world of integrating GE within OER.

The itinerary for this workshop includes: 10 minutes: introduction to workshop objectives and overview of global education. 25 minutes: group work activities where each group focuses on a particular global challenge or issue. They will brainstorm ideas, and strategies, and identify OERs to address the issue. Through group work, they will also explore challenges of leveraging OER to address global issues. 20 minutes: Discussion of groups to present their outcomes and feedback from the groups. 5 minutes: Wrap up, a summary of key takeaways, and Q&A

Dr. Vi Truong and Mr. Abiud Bosire will facilitate the workshop. Abiud Bosire will provide an overview of GE and why it is important to provide and produce GE materials as OER. Dr. Truong and Mr. Bosire will, together with other participants, participate in group activities.



Included in [Session 2B]: Sustainability

References
Altun, M. (2017). What Global Education should focus on. International Journal of Social Sciences and Educational Studies, 4(1), 82-86. https://doi.org/10.23918/ijsses.v4i1p82

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). https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1043829

Gougou, S., & Paschal, M. (2023). Integrating Open Educational Resources to support transformative approach in English as a foreign language in Africa. Canadian Journal of Language and Literature Studies, 26-44.

Hodgkinson-Williams, C., & Arinto, P. (2020, April 1). Adoption and impact of OER in the Global South. OAPEN Home. https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/29431

Watson, E., Petrides, L., Karaglani, A., Burns, S., & Sebesta, J. (2023). Leveraging Open Educational Resources to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion: A guide for campus change agents. AAC&U. https://www.aacu.org/publication/leveraging-oer-to-advance-dei

William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. (2017). Open educational resources. http://www.hewlett.org/strategy/open-educational-resources/

Author Keywords
Open Educational Resources, Global Education, Low-resourced settings

The urgency of addressing climate change necessitates a transformation in legal education to ensure future lawyers are equipped to deliver legal services and promote climate justice to a wide range of clients in a climate transformed world. This presentation argues that it is “about time” we use this narrow window to promote climate-conscious pedagogy by integrating open educational resources (OER) into the law education curriculum. The innovative and strategic use of such technologies will enable the mastery of climate-conscious generalist and discipline-specific knowledges, as well as climate-conscious skills, attributes and capabilities in law graduates.

Climate conscious pedagogy will require challenging conventional boundaries and ways of doing things, including changing how we represent diverse communities impacted by climate change and delivering on the kind of recognition justice highlighted by Lambert & Fadel (2022). We outline why and how OER are uniquely crucial for equipping students to navigate a fast-paced and rapidly changing legal environment.

Drawing on a survey of subject coordinators and teachers from across all Australian law schools, this presentation will shine a light on the extent to which climate change is currently being incorporated into the teaching of both compulsory law subjects and electives. While the majority of law school academics emphasised their support for incorporating of climate change considerations into teaching practices, this presentation will delve into individual and institutional factors that limit current capacities, including: perceived knowledge gaps about climate change and climate law, uncertainties about how best to integrate climate change into the existing curriculum, and the lack of space and time in the curriculum to add additional material.

With this background, the presentation will identify opportunities for developing responsive and accessible pedagogical materials and teaching practices to prepare students for their professional lives in light of the global challenge of climate change. To this end, this presentation will introduce the forthcoming open-access textbook, Becoming a Climate Conscious Lawyer: Climate Change and the Australian Legal System. This textbook aims to be an open and zero-cost resource allow students and teachers alike to stay up-to-date with rapid advancements in law related to climate change.



Included in [Session 2B]: Sustainability

References
Lambert, S. R., & Fadel, H. (2022). Open textbooks and social justice: a national scoping study. Perth, Australia, available at: https://www.acses.edu.au/research-policies/15394-2-2/

Author Keywords
Open education resources, Climate change, Legal education, Open access textbook

Kwantlen Polytechnic University has a world-wide reputation for being a leader in Open Education. KPU is often seen as an early adopter of new initiatives and as a place where institutional supports make work in Open Ed easier. Colleagues from around the world often come to us with questions about our programs and processes.

However, like in any institution KPU’s Open Education journey has had its challenges, its ups and downs, as well as victories and celebrations. We have had to work together to come up with solutions to new problems as our programs grew, and deal with all the other normal challenges that institutions have to deal with. This lightning talk will discuss KPU’s open education journey, its successes and struggles, how the resilience of our team has helped us pull through and adapt, and provides a glimpse into our future plans.

We will touch on the beginnings of Open Education at KPU, when most work was done in specific departments by faculty champions as well as in the library by passionate librarians, and eventually in an open education working group. This was followed by a period of formalization, with the creation of the position of special advisor to the provost on open education and the creation of the open education office. The library set up a more formal open publishing program, with dedicated staff. Eventually KPU created a higher administrative position for Open Education, and the hiring of open education strategists meant that work was further formalized and expanded. The work on our Zero Textbook Cost programs expanded exponentially, our Open education grants evolved and expanded in several ways, and our publishing program grew.

Both challenges and opportunities arose as Open was further integrated in the wider KPU system. The AVP Open Education position ceased to exist, and the Open Education office was terminated and rolled in the Teaching and Learning Commons. This ensured that it had an integral place in the university but also gave it a smaller presence overall. We lost one of our open education strategist positions but gained more focus from the Director of Learning Technologies & Educational Development, as well as more support for administrative tasks. The library team saw several retirements, leaves, and key persons stepping away from Open Education work, positions that were not backfilled. The Open Education Working Group was disbanded and replaced by a grant adjudication committee with a narrower scope.

These changes have also brought opportunities, as our resilient team sought collaborations with other groups, such as students, deans, and liaison librarians, and worked to further streamline and integrate our processes with those of the wider university. The creativity of the KPU community means that we are confident in the sustainability of Open Ed at our institutions and hopeful about its future.



Included in [Session 2B]: Sustainability

Author Keywords
sustainability, open education policies and strategies, open practitioners

Learning in communities aligns with the concept of continuous learning which is relevant for the Dutch defense organization. A concept of openness supports, in-company communities of practice co-creating online modules and learning materials accessible and (re)usable to any employee in the organization via an online platform called The Open Defence Academy. Although from a traditional point of view learning begins when professionals are able to engage with modules and learning materials, this participative action research has its focus on learning in communities through collaborative design processes and expressed in terms of value.

Both communities of practice and social learning spaces are valuable theoretical concepts that help with building the framework for this research. They offer a lens to describe and research learning through participation in social practices. It allows a unique perspective on work-related processes as being perceived as learning processes. Collaborations in design groups for open modules and learning materials offer insights into the dynamics of these groups, their formation and processes that lead to learning, or can even undermine learning.

The theoretical concepts of communities of practice and social learning spaces are positioned in a context of openness. A contemporary perspective on openness in education offers opportunities for community involvement in design- and dissemination activities of learning materials. Due to perspectives on openness, the dichotomy between formal, nonformal and informal learning becomes permeable which offers opportunities to rephrase learning into terms of value. The development of value in collaborative module design groups appears through a continuous process of participation which implies learning. Value is a product of this participatory process and is developed due to the existence of agency among participants and their ability to negotiate meaning. It is expressed in terms of immediate-, potential-, applied- and realized value.

With a mixed methods approach learning through collaborative design in groups of stakeholders is explored and mapped supported by the value creation framework. These methods are mainly qualitative and involve interviews, focus group sessions, visual representations created on MIRO boards and notes from the researcher’s reflexive journal. The focus group questions and interview questions are developed and inspired on the critical incident technique. Expansion of learning in the wider communities is explored using a questionnaire send to those in the communities who got involved in (online) activities regarding the design process, for example discussions, brainstorm sessions or script writing. At the time of this conference, it is expected that the first data is analyzed. A more detailed set up of this research and the preliminary results will be shared.



Included in [Session 2B]: Sustainability

Author Keywords
Open Educational Practices, Workplace learning, Lifelong and informal learning

This panel presentation is an expansion to the research presentation (under review), “Toward a more sustainable open education community: Breaking through barriers to bridge primary, secondary, and tertiary open practices”. We suggest that even though Open Educational Practices (OEP) are supported and implemented differently across these sectors, working together as boundary spanners (Walz & Farley, 2023) can be a productive contribution to OEP sustainability. Addressing this gap is important to providing equitable quality education to all which is a UN Sustainable Development Goal. The panelists in this presentation were strategically selected to represent diverse perspectives across educational sectors (primary/secondary teacher librarian, tertiary/Higher Education librarians, Teacher Education faculty, Professional Staff, and state-level Government Leader). They will discuss commonalities and differences in their OEP work, perceived barriers, and opportunities, and share concrete examples where bridging the gap has positively impacted OEP implementation and advancement in their communities.

Some of the barriers that challenge boundary spanning include a lack of OEP and OER awareness (at all levels), including not understanding the need for OEP and OER in the first place. Copyright fears and gatekeeping around ownership and sharing materials prohibit engagement and, in some regions, primary and secondary teachers are required to obtain permission to openly license and publicly share their work. Where OEP does bridge primary, secondary, and tertiary sectors, inequities persist regarding how a contributor is compensated for their work, putting at risk the sustainability of these partnerships. From a governance perspective, stakeholder turnover at the state or provincial level is challenging to move this work forward. Widespread uncertainty regarding budget availability also threatens the sustainability of this work.

This panel, however, is optimistic that by working together, we can impact the sustainability of OEP by empowering multi-level awareness and engagement. Panelists agree that the first step is to work towards policy that permits teachers, especially K-12 teachers, to engage in OEP. Furthermore, understanding and valuing one another's contributions is key; one potential solution is through common language about OEP that honors and recognizes this work, especially at primary and secondary levels. Panelists will also share their observations regarding the “Teacherpreneuer” mindset, where teachers could work as educational leaders and policymakers to incentivize and grow OEP engagement instead of commodifying teaching resources. Where copyright fears and debates around ownership keep educators from engaging, Creative Commons licenses provide a “third space” by shifting the focus from ownership to one of access, equity, and impact. Finally, panelists will discuss opportunities to bridge OEP across sectors through adopting and adapting open curricula and by collaborating in projects that require multi-level engagement.



Included in [Session 4B]: Sustainability

References
Walz, A., & Farley, J. (2023). Making Open Educational Resources with and for PreK12: A Collaboration Toolkit for Higher Education. Virginia Tech Libraries. Retrieved May 1, 2024 from https://doi.org/10.21061/OER_PreK12_highered

Author Keywords
Open educational practices across diverse levels, Policy and governance, Enabling transferability of knowledge and practice, Primary and secondary education policy, Sustainability, Overcoming barriers

Open Educational Practices (OEP) are supported and implemented differently in the primary and secondary sectors compared to the tertiary sector. This is observable in the types of OER they prefer (ancillary materials compared to textbooks, respectively; Blomgren 2018) and the incentives that have evolved to make open education count (McKinney, 2024). The latest Bayview Analytics Reports (Seaman & Seaman, 2023) also reveal disparities in OER awareness and use; preK12 is becoming more aware but only a third of the population knows they exist compared to two-thirds of higher education faculty. Moreover, differences in governance and funding mechanisms fundamentally impact how materials are adopted and how instructors make choices about the materials they use in their classrooms. These differences complicate how institutions at all levels support and reward instructors who want to engage in OEP and keep these sectors siloed and isolated. However, by continuing to be siloed in practice rather than working together as boundary spanners (Walz & Farley, 2023), the OEP community is missing its greatest potential contributor to pedagogical innovation and creativity. The mutual isolation of these two sectors is a major threat to the sustainability of OEP. Addressing this gap is also important in providing equitable quality education which is a UN Sustainable Development Goal. This presentation will explore and compare the distinctive characteristics of open education at different educational levels in North America. We identify factors that generate or influence these structural barriers and suggest practices and models that can solve the siloing of these two communities. This presentation suggests a framework for how to move forward and is relevant to a variety of stakeholders (education, government, and non-profit) who can act on these recommendations. We end with a brief overview of several projects across these sectors doing critical work as boundary spanners who bridge these gaps in meaningful ways.

Finally, this presentation sets the groundwork for a panel session (also under review) whereby a diverse group of leaders across sectors (primary, secondary, tertiary, government) discuss their work in OEP and propose opportunities in which they could work as boundary spanners to address the sustainability of OEP in collaboration with other educational sectors and partners.



Included in [Session 11B]: Sustainability

References
Blomgren, C. (2018). OER Awareness and Use: The Affinity Between Higher Education and K-12. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 19, 55-70. https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v19i2.3431 McKinney, A. (Ed.). (2024). Valuing OER in the tenure, promotion, and reappointment process. CUNY Academic Works. Retrieved from https://pressbooks.cuny.edu/tenureandpromotioncasestudies Seaman, J.E. & Seaman, J. (2023). Curricula of Many Sources Educational Resources in U.S. K-12 Education, 2023. Bay View Analytics. Walz, A., & Farley, J. (2023). Making Open Educational Resources with and for PreK12: A Collaboration Toolkit for Higher Education. Virginia Tech Libraries. Retrieved May 1, 2024 from https://doi.org/10.21061/OER_PreK12_highered

Author Keywords
open educational practices, barriers and incentives, bridging educational sectors, boundary spanners

The Driving OER Sustainability for Student Success (DOERS) Collaborative was an organization that began in 2018 through a partnership of three higher education systems. The organization’s original goals included facilitation of partnerships among system, state, and consortial open education programs. As of 2024, the DOERS collaborative has built out conversations and deliverables which build organizational excellence through sustainability and infrastructure, advance open education impact through advocacy and demonstrating value, and enhance member capacity through sharing, collaboration, and leadership. Each of these strategic goals help strengthen collaboration and quality education by supporting open as everyone’s business.

This presentation will share the perspectives and experiences of a panel of the 2024 DOERS steering committee as they continue to build on the work accomplished since 2018. Participants will have the opportunity to explore the OER Equity Blueprint, discover how institutions of higher education in the US and Canada have incorporated open practice into retention, promotion and tenure process, and hear how the growing organization has collaboratively enacted strategic planning sessions to build bylaws and enhance organizational structure.

This session will also share out a call for proposals for the DOERS open education research case study collection, describe how DOERS is supporting student success through open practices and microcredentials, and relate how the organization plans to build the leadership capacity of its representatives.



Included in [Session 11B]: Sustainability

Author Keywords
Access, Community Impact, Micro-credentialing, Open education policies and strategies, Sustainability

In September 2023 (another) high school opened with an explicit goal to teach with, produce and learn with Open Educational Resources. The Itz’at STEAM Academy (ISA) in Belize opened to its first form (grade) of students in September 2023 as an OER focused high school. The development of ISA benefitted from over two decades of history and experience from leaders in the open education movement.

ISA’s development is led by three organizations, the school, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports and Technology (Belize) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Massachusetts, USA). MIT is well known internationally for its leadership in OER (MIT Open CourseWare) and a strong focus on STEAM education. MIT worked with Mountain Heights Academy (MHA, Utah, USA) to build a(nother) OER high school. MHA, originally the Open High School of Utah, was founded with a focus on the use and production of OER. Founded in 2009, MHA serves U.S. grades 7-12, has award winning teachers and is a leader in digital education and utilizing OER.

This session will describe the path from the launch of MIT OpenCourseWare through the founding of Mountain Heights Academy to the development and launch of Itz’at STEAM Academy. The session will describe how the growth of and experiences of MHA (Tonks et al. 2013; Tonks 2022) set the foundation for the OER policies at ISA (Itz’at STEAM Academy 2022), how the OER policies of ISA are contextualized for its success and the initial use of and development of OER at ISA. And it will describe the potential of OER at ISA to serve as a model for project based and transdisciplinary learning in secondary education in Belize.



Included in [Session 11B]: Sustainability

References
Tonks, D., Weston, S., Wiley, D., & Barbour, M. (2013). “Opening” a new kind of school: The story of the Open High School of Utah. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning. (14)1, 255-271. Tonks, D. (2022). La evolución del primer bachillerato con un currículum de recursos abiertos. Revista Mexicana De Bachillerato A Distancia, 14(27). Itz’at STEAM Academy. (2022). Open Educational Resources Policy.

Author Keywords
Open Educational Resources, OER, K-12, High School, OER Policy