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

For OEGlobal 2024 I've been facilitating a series of asynchronous online Reimagining Open At The Crossroads activities in the OEGlobal 2024 Interaction Zone. Activities kicked off October 14, 2024 with an Introduction and an activity called Reimagining Open At The Crossroads Through Music followed by three other weekly activities. All activities have been asynchronous and open to everyone to participate in whether attending the OEGlobal 2024 conference in-person or not. 

These activities carry forward the work of Catherine Cronin and Laura Czerniewicz who gave a joint keynote entitled “The Future isn’t what it used to be: Open Education at a Crossroads” at the March ALT OER 2024 conference in Ireland. Their keynote situated open education at a crossroads in a polycrisis world and issued a call for the open education community to take action to move forward from that crossroads. It’s a bit unusual to carry forward a call to action from one conference to another and I gratefully acknowledge Catherine and Laura’s permission and encouragement for me to do so. 

In Brisbane I'm facilitating in-person the fourth Reimagining Open at the Crossroads activity called Pathways and Connections.

This activity invites you to create a visual representation of your personal open education path forward from this crossroads in time. Plurality of paths are welcome. A template using the Brisbane River in Australia will be provided for you to imagine your open education path as a river with tributaries. 

This activity invites you to:

• identify your main pathway and places along it. Your main path can be based on your current open education work or on a reimagining of open education you've been contemplating. 

• create tributaries that connect with and feed into your main path. Tributaries represent other practices you believe can enhance your main pathway. Tributaries could be emergent trends affecting open education such as AI, open pedagogy, and the notion of digital public goods. Tributaries could connect other forms of open to your open education path e.g. open science, open access, open infrastructure, open data, open culture. Tributaries could be people or events that will inform your path going forward.

• Explore and integrate music, What if?, and Make Claims outputs from Reimagining Open At The Crossroads activities 1, 2, and 3 into your pathway.

The activity concludes with opportunities to share and discuss pathways along with finding others pursuing similar pathways you can connect with. This in person sharing intentionally aims to braid your work with others.

Come and invent your future in open education.


Included in [Session 2D]: Practice and Policy in OE

References
Cronin C., Czerniewicz L. ALT OER 2024 https://altc.alt.ac.uk/blog/2024/03/oer24-the-future-isnt-what-it-used-to-be/

Author Keywords
reimagining open, call to action, music, what if?, make claims, personal pathways

This session examines the trajectory of Canadian federal OER advocacy over the past several years. Since 2001, Canadian OER advocates have developed a more systematic approach to national OER advocacy. This presentation reviews the developments with an aim to inform other attendees of approaches to advocacy and to share insights on how the Canadian situation has developed. Despite a history of work in open education, Canada’s lack of a national department of education creates a major barrier to federal involvement in OER.

Recognizing these challenges, successive steps have been taken to develop a coordinated approach to advocacy among national stakeholders in the Canadian context. The session begins with an examination of who these stakeholders are. The session then covers the work of the Canadian Association of Research Libraries to develop the Open Educational Resources (OER) National Strategy – Stratégie nationale en matière de ressources éducatives libres (REL) group. The presentation explores how advocacy priorities were identified by the National Advocacy Framework for Open Educational Resources in Canada (McNally & Ludbrook, 2023).

The Framework identified 27 advocacy proposals on six themes that were narrowed down to focus on three key areas - Indigenous OER, Francophone OER and OER infrastructure and policy. Building on the work of the Framework strategy document, the session then explores the three focused summits that were held on each key priority area - the OER Infrastructure and Policy Summit in Toronto 2022, the Francophone OER Summit in Ottawa 2023, and the Indigenous Knowledges and OER Summit: Exploring Indigenous Knowledges and Open Educational Resources in Vancouver 2024. Each of these summits, attended by different delegates, produced a series of different outcomes - from formal advocacy positions to problematizing entire areas of future OER advocacy in Canada.

The presentation concludes by examining how national advocacy has evolved since being informed by the summits. We will also report on each stage of the priorities, in terms of advocacy, outline some plans for future work and the focus on how we are strengthening the work needed. The presentation provides an important viewpoint into the interplay between stakeholders, a coordinating strategy document, and focused advocacy summits to develop and refine advocacy strategies. It also provides an update on this work to date in Canada.



Included in [Session 3B]: First Nations

References
McNally, M., Ludbrook, A., et al. (2023) A National Advocacy Framework for Open Educational Resources in Canada. https://www.carl-abrc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/A-National-Advocacy-Framework-for-Open-Educational-Resources-in-Canada.pdf

Author Keywords
Open education policies and strategies, Sustainability, Inclusion, diversity, equity, access, First Nations perspectives, Local Indigenous cultures and ways of knowing, Canada, open education

At OE Global 2023, Indigenous ways of knowing and being were a fundamental component of the conference design and organization. Indigenous and non-Indigenous organizers established a collaborative governance approach to foster partnership and mutual guidance throughout the planning and execution stages.

In this session, the four conference program co-chairs will perform métissage to recount the design and implementation of, and personal experiences with, a conference program that reflected the concept of two-eyed seeing, navigating Indigenous and non-Indigenous worldviews. We will explore the incompatibility and compatibility of Indigenous ways of knowing with the ontological and epistemological assumptions embedded into open education. A fundamental question we examine is how the braiding of conference stories can unearth the interplay of Indigenous (nêhiyawîhcikêwin Plains Cree) ways of knowing with the values and practices of open education.

As a storytelling research method, métissage provides an opportunity to use an arts-based approach to evoke, provoke, and possibly unsettle the privileged notions of knowledge and knowledge sharing embedded into open education. Métissage draws from life writing, storytelling, theater, and figuratively, from the art of braiding (Chambers et al, 2008). This research performance will use the metaphor of braiding to weave together the conference program co-chairs' short narratives as they respond to specific prompts:

1. Why did the metaphor of braiding matter to the conference experience?

2. How did you experience relationality or what did you think it was and what do you think it is now?

3. Why does braiding open education with Indigenous ways of knowing matter?

4. How can the richness of Indigenous knowledge face the challenge of, and domination of western knowledge systems and practices?).

Through this narrative and arts approach, truths and awareness of the self and knowledge of others may be conveyed; self/other knowledge is a hallmark of arts-based research (Gerber et al, 2012 as cited by Leavey, 2017).

This session draws upon open education practices (Cronin, 2017) and explores their relation to the Seven Sacred Teachings (Norquest, 2017). The seven sacred teachings cannot be swiftly summarized. The areas they cover include Peyak: Respect, Nîso: Courage, Nisto: Truth, Newo: Honesty, Nîyânan: Wisdom, Nikotwâsik: Love, and Tepakohp: Humility.

There are significant differences between the axiological, ontological, and epistemological characteristics of Indigenous Ways of Knowing and open education but there are also areas of overlap. “The Cree natural law concept of wahkôhtowin shows us that there is no ‘us and them.’ All human beings are part of the same family; we are all interconnected.” (Norquest, 2017, p. 10). It is this interconnection among the two framings that underlies this research project and our methodological approach of métissage. Through the metaphor of braiding, stories reflective of the seven sacred teachings and of open education practices will work individually and collectively to reveal the interconnections, the gaps, and the need to listen closely to these braided stories.



Included in [Session 3B]: First Nations

References
Bishop, K., Etmanski, C., Beth Page, M., Dominguez, B. & Heykoop, C. (2019). Narrative métissage as an innovative engagement practice. Engage Scholar Journal, 5(2), 1-17.

Cronin, C. (2017). Openness and praxis: Exploring the use of open educational practices in higher education. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 18(5). https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v18i5.3096

Leavey, P. (2017). Research design: quantitative, qualitative, mixed methods, arts-based, and community-based participatory research approaches. Guilford.

Norquest College. (2017). Wahkôhtowin we are all related: Norquest College Indigenization strategy 2017. https://www.norquest.ca/NorquestCollege/media/pdf/about/publications-and-reports/norquest-college-indigenization-strategy.pdf

Author Keywords
First Nations perspectives, métissage, Local Indigenous cultures and ways of knowing, Open educational practices, Inclusion diversity equity and access

In 2021-2024, The European Network of Open Education Librarians (ENOEL) developed, enhanced and maintained the OE Benefits Toolkit to help advocate for OE, consistently with Action Area 1 of the UNESCO OER Recommendation. The ENOEL Toolkit was initially designed to assist educational professionals in articulating the tangible benefits of Open Education—ranging from increased access to educational resources and improved learning outcomes to fostering a culture of co-creation and shared knowledge.

Members of the ENOEL invite participants to a collaborative wildcard activity aimed at discussing how to further promote the widespread adoption and understanding of Open Education (OE) by identifying and discussing the benefits for librarians in particular and above all the lessons learnt to date: discussing its applications and advocacy experiences that underscore the critical role of different stakeholders, especially librarians, in the OE movement.

Exploring the Benefits of OE on cards, participants will engage in structured discussions to identify and elaborate on specific benefits, fostering a deeper understanding of how these can be articulated in advocacy efforts, in line with the findings of SPARC Europe’s Report “Open Education in European Libraries of Higher Education 2023”. Attendees will examine and expand the evidence base supporting OE benefits by integrating both research and personal anecdotes, utilising tools and templates to document these insights. Participants are encouraged to share their own experiences and challenges in advocating for OER, discussing how the identified benefits can address existing barriers and enhance their advocacy strategies.

The ENOEL-designed Toolkit can become an essential resource for effectively communicating the value of Open Education. By outlining the diverse benefits for key stakeholders—including students, teachers, librarians, institutions, and citizens at large, —it provides a foundation for robust advocacy efforts. For the participants in this session, the Toolkit highlights their unique role in advocating for and advancing OE through its benefits.

This session offers the opportunity to share practical strategies for overcoming common challenges in the field and champion OE within their institutions and beyond, advocating for policies and practices that support OE. ENOEL members invite participants to collaboratively discuss the benefits collected in the toolkit, drawing from both evidence-based research and anecdotal experiences, to focus on a diverse range of contributions and take this opportunity to learn from peers coming from different geographical, historical, and social backgrounds. Participants will engage with the recently enriched list of benefits, evidence-based references, and templates for capturing anecdotal evidence. More specifically, attendees will review existing benefits, choose those that fit their context and discuss their implications. Using the Rolfe et al. reflective model, participants will be invited to articulate and record anecdotal benefits, enriching the evidence base with personal insights. Participants will also choose in parallel those benefits that they would see fit their context but are not there yet, and discuss with peers how to make them part of it, starting from their experiences.

This activity will use a dynamic, card-based discussion format to stimulate thought and facilitate the exchange of ideas.



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

References
European Network of Open Education Librarians (2024), An ENOEL Toolkit: Open Education Benefits. Version 4. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5568482
Rolfe, G., Freshwater, D., Jasper, M. (2001). Critical reflection in nursing and the helping professions: a user’s guide. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Treadway, J., Corti, P., & Proudman, V. (2024). Open Education in European Libraries of Higher Education 2023. Zenodo. https://zenodo.org/records/10889503

Author Keywords
Benefits of Open Education, Enhanced OE Toolkit resources, Lifelong and informal learning, Open educational practices, Open practitioners

“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You're on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who'll decide where to go...” - Dr. Seuss, Oh the Places You’ll Go

Embark on a journey through the world of Open Education (OE) where your viewpoint shapes your path. This interactive session invites participants to walk a mile in the shoes of OE stakeholders and navigate through a series of scenarios, challenges, and plot twists. Through role-play and collaborative problem-solving, participants will gain insights into the diverse perspectives within the OE community and explore the impact of their roles on the collective journey. Each participant will be assigned a character and presented with a scenario that reflects real-world challenges and opportunities in the OE ecosystem including faculty/instructors, librarians, administrators, and more.

Through guided prompts and discussions, participants will reflect on the implications of their actions, both individually and collectively, and gain a deeper understanding of the complexities inherent in the adoption and implementation of Open Educational Practices.

Learning Outcomes:

• Explore different viewpoints within the OE community and understand the complexity faced by stakeholders.
• Identify strategies for overcoming challenges and fostering collaboration in OE initiatives.
• Reflect on personal biases towards OE stakeholders to be better equipped to navigate challenges and build partnerships.

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

Author Keywords
Stakeholders, Viewpoints, Role-play, Collaborative Gameplay

Research concentrating on open education often focuses on the processes of production and storage for open educational resources (OER), methods of learning design and instruction (open-enabled pedagogies), barriers and enablers to practice, or the resulting outcomes for students such as cost savings or achievement. Practitioner-focused research tends toward narrow scope and circumstance and is usually concerned with bounded activities that do not holistically capture the practitioner-in-environment, or explore the localised effects of environment on practice. Engagement with open educational practices (OEP) is predicated on a complex web of inter-connected, and inter-dependant factors and situating the practitioner in an environment of practice – henceforth the Ecology of Open Practice – provides an opportunity to deeply explore the influences (both positive and negative) that affect individual and institutional manifestations of OEP.

This presentation reports on research using a mixed methods approach, administering a quantitative survey and applying initial analysis to qualitative semi-structured interviews with key staff at three case study sites. The resulting thick description from active practitioners, coupled with institutional history, policy, and procedure documentation, learning and teaching practices, and partnerships provides a case site narrative through which the Ecology of Open Educational Practice emerges. The resulting ecological framework provides a rationale for localised practice, and identifies both opportunities and challenges for each site.

Commonality emerged across the case sites, particularly relating to practitioner values as underpinning practice, the degree to which practitioners exhibited open fluency, the mediating effects of support for OEP, the role of policy, and the state of the national higher education landscape as it affects local learning and teaching. The major themes were mapped against Bronfenbrenner’s Ecology of Human Development (1979) to provide a framework for each site.

The approach employed by this research is a transferable framework for understanding OEP, and its strength lies in unearthing contextual factors. The research is situated in the Australia higher education context, yet nothing impedes implementation in other settings or countries. Bronfenbrenner’s work has not previously been applied to OEP, but the outcomes of this research articulate and illustrate its use as a framework for deep inquiry.

Arising from this research is a reinforcement of the inter-connectedness of institutional and national influences on OEP, and the limitations of siloed, isolated initiatives to support OEP. Policy implementation without communication or embedded support, institutional strategy that causes values-based dissonance for practitioners, learning and teaching support mechanisms demarcated – and disconnected - by organisational unit lines, and government-mandated performance-based funding models inconsistent with the values of higher education all emerged as influences present at the institution, yet ineffective and inefficient due to a lack of coherency across institutional teams and stakeholders. Open educational practices – situated within the Ecology – require an acknowledgement of a wider stakeholder base as the effects, support for, and outcomes of OEP permeate the institution.

Ultimately, this research takes the stance that OEP in higher education is ‘everyone’s business’, and provides a framework for authentic engagement with long-term activities to build flourishing ecologies of open practice.



Included in [Session 11D]: OEP in Higher Education (Workshops)

References
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human development: Experiments by nature and design. Harvard University Press.

Author Keywords
Open educational practices, Higher education, Ecological model

Building on the success of North American open practitioners, Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand are rapidly developing their understanding and capacity for open educational practices as key to empowering equitable access to education and enhancing the student learning experience.

A significant outcome of this growth is the development of the open text, Open Education Down UndOER: Australasian Case Studies. The text promotes inclusivity, accessibility, diversity, and equity in open education with an emphasis on sustainability. This session marks the official launch of this critical text, showcasing the open educational practices of academics, information professionals and learning and teaching teams, inspiring educators and institutions to embrace open practices through practical, succinct case studies. In addition, it fosters an open education learning network which will be extended to encompass the audience during this interactive session, as “Open is Everyone’s Business.”

Leveraging a key advantage of OER as an iterative tool, the presenters will prompt, survey and analyse participants’ navigation of the text, eliciting pathfinding patterns, refining keyword tags, and crowdsourcing topics for future case study inclusions. Using a citizen science framework, participants will discuss and reflect on identified case studies drawn from Open Education Down UndOER: Australasian Case Studies as the central learning tool.

The presenters look forward to engaging with the audience and sharing the official interactive launch of Open Education Down UndOER: Australasian Case Studies.

About Open Education Down UndOER: Australasian Case Studies

This text is the result of a strong partnership between two groups: • Australasian Open Educational Practice Special Interest Group (OEP SIG), a community-driven group leading the open education movement in Australasia, and • Open Educational Resources Collective, an initiative led by the Council of Australian University Librarians (CAUL), leveraging the strength of networks within university libraries in Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand.

The text is published on the shared open publishing platform (Pressbooks) managed by CAUL, the peak industry body for university libraries in Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand. One facet of CAUL’s leadership strategy is to build infrastructure and capacity to move the open education agenda forward at a national and regional level through active communities of practice, evolving guides, events, and an annual open textbook grant program. 



Included in [Session 11D]: OEP in Higher Education (Workshops)

Author Keywords
Inclusion, diversity, equity, access, Open access publishing, Open educational practices, Open practitioners, Open textbooks