ABSTRACT. On March 28, 2024, at the ALT OER 2024 conference in Cork Ireland, Catherine Cronin and Laura Czerniewicz gave a joint keynote entitled “The Future isn’t what it used to be: Open Education at a Crossroads” Their keynote situates open education at a crossroads and issues a call to action to move forward from that crossroads using a five part guiding framework.

This wild card proposal seeks to implement Laura and Catherine’s call for action. It proposes an activity for each of the five parts of their guiding framework. All activities are global, open to all, and multilingual. All activities take place asynchronously in advance of and concurrently in-person with the OEGlobal 2024 conference.

Activities:

1. Name & Analyse - troubles of OE Activity: Artwork Poem Pairing Create your own artwork or select an artwork from an openly licensed collection. Write or find a poem that associates in some way with the artwork and deals with the troubles or joys of OE. Publish artworks + poems online in OEGlobal conference website.
2. Challenge & Resist - hegemonies Activity: Crowdsource a music playlist of songs dealing with openness (protest & joy) Using a form submit 1-3 songs. Any song can be nominated - from any country, in any language, … Songs can be original or chosen from the corpus of all songs (do not have to be openly licensed). Generate an online playlist of all songs in OEGlobal conference website and use as background music at the OEGlobal conference in Brisbane.
3. Make Claims - for just, humane & globally sustainable OE Activity: Connect OE to other forms of openness eg. Digital Public Goods, Commons, Smart Cities, Open Cultural Works, Open Access, Open Science, Open Data, Open Source Software, Open Hardware, Open AI Models, Wikipedia … Make claims about what is made possible through this connection. Generate a phrase or sentence that conveys claim in memorable way. Post in OEGlobal 2024 conference website.
4. Courageously Imagine - & share fresh possibilities Activity: Imagine fresh possibilities using What if? questions. Ask participants to write down a What if? question as a means of imagining open futures. Distribute a What if? question to participants ensuring no one has their own question. Ask each person to answer the question starting with “Then…” Curate questions and answers online in OEGlobal conference website.
5. Make Positive Changes - here and now Activity: Reimagining Art Show & Personal Paths Curate art + poems, music, connections, claims and what ifs, into a Reimagining Open Art show done physically in Brisbane and online in OEGlobal conference website. Invite participants to use outputs to define personal paths forward from the crossroad. Plurality of paths are welcomed. Invite participants to share personal paths forward on OEGlobal conference website.

ABSTRACT. Whereas traditional definitions of open pedagogy have included writing textbooks or creating quiz banks, this lightning talk describes an innovative way of having students explore course concepts in Psychology courses: creating abstract art related to the concepts. The presenter will share examples from her classes and discuss the ways she has learned to scaffold students' production of art related to course concepts. She will also share student reflections on the projects.

ABSTRACT. In an academic institution, a strong policy is the foundation that guides operations, mirroring and harmonizing with the strategic direction of the university. At Queensland University of Technology (QUT), an Open Educational Resources (OER) policy was endorsed in 2016, making it one of the first OER policies implemented in an Australian university. Jointly developed by QUT’s Learning and Teaching Unit and the Library, the purpose of the policy is to provide clear direction to the University’s staff and students with relation to the adoption, adaptation, or creation of OERs.

The initial version of the policy supported the development of open educational resources, including some open textbooks. The Library and Learning and Teaching Unit were natural partners in this venture: the Library would support staff to find suitable resources; and the Learning and Teaching Unit would provide technical, curriculum and platform support, as well as strategic consideration. In Semester 2, 2020 the University launched the Open Textbooks with Pressbooks Pilot with the aim of understanding if the Pressbooks publishing platform was fit for purpose in supporting the adoption, adaptation and creation of open textbooks for positive academic and student outcomes.

This pilot, delivered by the Library and the Learning and Teaching Unit, was deemed successful and among the recommendations, Pressbooks is now the endorsed platform for OER creation and adaption at QUT; and the policy received further refinement and changes reflected in the wide range of perspectives and growing expertise.

A strong policy is often the linchpin that ensures consistency, fairness, and accountability in decision-making processes within an academic institution. The QUT OER policy serves as a roadmap, outlining clear expectations, responsibilities and standards for all stakeholders, including faculty, staff, and administrators.

While use and creation of OERs at QUT was slow at first, we appear to be beginning to turn the corner. Momentum is definitely growing at QUT to adopt, adapt, and create open textbooks. Cultural and organisational change can be a gradual process, even when supported by a strong policy. We have found that advocacy efforts and implementation strategies must be aligned to the requirements of teaching staff and the resources available for providing training and support within the institution. It's crucial to minimize barriers to facilitate smooth progress.

This lightning talk focuses on the importance of partnerships in supporting the development of a robust OER policy. In 2024, QUT’s OER policy will be updated again to reflect emerging global practices.

ABSTRACT. 317 words In March 2022, RMIT University, led by the Library, embarked on a two-year project to develop an Open Scholarship Policy. A significant aspect of the project was to establish principles that drew together both open research and open education (OE), reflecting the reality of our academics and higher degree by research candidates who engage in both teaching and research. Significantly, the Policy project team were determined to articulate RMIT’s ambitions about engaging with open educational practices, including open pedagogy and the use and creation of open educational resources such as open textbooks. The outcome of this project is a Policy that provides a framework for the entire RMIT community – students, academics and everyone who supports teaching, learning and research – to create and disseminate knowledge openly and collegially.

This lightning talk will focus on the key processes involved in successfully developing an institutional policy that promotes OE endeavors. A supplementary openly-licensed OE policy project management toolkit will be provided.

The structure of the talk will include a snapshot of the key stages of the project, accompanies by three slides:

Beginning: alignment with RMIT’s new Education Plan; defining open scholarship to include OE and open research; an environmental scan of open scholarship policies in Australia, New Zealand and internationally; and relationship building with OE allies and stakeholders. (4 minutes)

Middle: three core consultative initiatives to invite perspectives, expertise, and feedback from senior staff from university strategic areas including Indigenous Education, Commercialisation and IP, Legal and Strategic Operations, ITS and Procurement, Research and Innovation, Student Equity and Inclusion, and College and School leaders; and the co-design of Policy principles with members of this community. (4 minutes)

Implementation: socialisation of OE with RMIT’s academic, research, teaching and professional communities using University communication channels, outreach programs and targeted initiatives including open textbook publishing. (2 minutes)

Questions: This will include an invitation by the presenter to take questions to follow up at a later time. (5 minutes)

ABSTRACT. 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.

ABSTRACT. 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.

ABSTRACT. 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.

ABSTRACT. 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.

ABSTRACT. The Open for Antiracism Program (OFAR) supports faculty to leverage OER and Open Pedagogy to make their teaching antiracist. Participants learn to use existing OER, and improve upon it by adding underrepresented viewpoints and diverse and inclusive content to their classroom materials, in collaboration with their students.

While the setting of OFAR is US community colleges, we wish to use the setting of OEGlobal 24 in Brisbane to learn how our approach can (or cannot) be applied in other settings, for example addressing the challenges and benefits of utilizing OER and Open Pedagogies within indigenous and tribal colleges and communities.

To participate in OFAR, faculty teams of up to six instructors from a single college apply together. A letter of support from an administrator is requested to ensure that leadership at participating institutions are engaged and available for end-of-program feedback. Outcomes over multiple semesters for participating faculty are collected and analyzed to determine if implementing antiracist open pedagogy impacted student success, particularly for traditionally underserved students. Annual research on faculty and student experiences in the program document impact and improve program design. For example, after participating in the program, participants report significantly greater confidence in discussing topics of race and racism with their students.

During this interactive session, you will learn about the changes that faculty make in creating antiracist classrooms and how their participation impacts their home institutions. We are particularly interested in understanding how the OFAR model of leveraging OER and Open Pedagogy can (or cannot) support teaching transformations beyond the US, and/or with First Nations peoples.

Program leadership from the Community College Consortium for OER (CCCOER) and College of the Canyons will ask attendees to share how their institutions are engaging in inclusive and antiracist teaching practices to improve student success particularly for traditionally marginalized and underserved students.

The interactive discussion will conclude with the question of how Open Education can more effectively engage with antiracist and inclusive pedagogy.

ABSTRACT. First Nations voices and perspectives are few and far between within open materials in Australasia. Canada and the United States of America have led the way in this space, with little progress being made in our local region. Charles Darwin University (CDU) in the Northern Territory is wishing to make a difference in this field with the publication in 2024 of two open texts;'Engineering on Country' and 'A Yolnu Philosophy Reader' led by First Nations authors. The rationale, purpose and audiences relating to the creation of these texts will be outlined as will the unique benefits and roadblocks experienced in creating open texts featuring First Nations knowledge and experiences.

Tara Burton, the Open Education Librarian at CDU will discuss the support provided to the authors of the two texts by CDU Library and professional staff. She will unpack practical strategies to employ in collaboration with authors throughout the publication process. This will allow participants to be able to better assist their academics wishing to create open texts featuring First Nations content. Participants will leave the session with some theoretical knowledge and a takeaway mini toolkit with templates, tips and resources to implement in their open practice.

This lightning talk will provide participants with a greater awareness of how to approach the creation and support of First Nations open texts from the perspective of a smaller, remote university which caters for TAFE, higher education and research sectors. The First Nations open texts at CDU are designed to be used across all sectors of the university and beyond, as the engineering and Yolnu content can be used within industry and business in the Northern Territory, as well as within Australia and in other countries. Crocodiles, cyclones, laksas, the build-up and humidity are not the only things we wish to be known for in the Northern Territory, with the emerging representation of our First Nations voices in open texts presenting an exciting addition to this wonderful place.

Charles Darwin University believes in ‘honouring Australian First Nations knowledges and cultures’ and ‘fostering a culture of inclusion and belonging and valuing our diversity’ (Charles Darwin University, 2021-2026) as outlined in the University’s Strategic Plan which lends itself well to the creation of open materials in this space and the Conference theme of 'Open Is Everyone’s Business'. 30% of the Northern Territory’s population are First Nations peoples with 13% of CDU’s commencing Higher Education students identifying as Indigenous which is higher than the national average Indigenous population of 3%. These statistics highlight both the need and opportunity for CDU to be at the forefront of creating open materials aimed at this student cohort and in bringing First Nations content to the international stage in an accessible way.

CDU is committed as an open educational practitioner, creators and supporters, to ensuring that Australia’s indigenous voices are more widely represented in our open materials. We encourage you to join us in making sure 'Open Is Everyone’s Business' and in closing this important gap in open education.

ABSTRACT. Since Open is everyone’s business, and Generative Artificial Intelligence is portrayed as a mechanism whereby to scale education for everyone everywhere, it is fundamentally problematic that large language models, which are utilised, amongst other functions, for the translation of texts, literally require a very large corpora of texts - on both sides - to function adequately. To demonstrate this, examples will be given of problematic translations from English into isiXhosa, which produce errors even at an elementary level of education.

Practitioners from the Global South realistically fear a widening of the divide as a result of the fact that many local, indigenous languages only have a small corpus of texts online. This could potentially lead to a data race, and concerns would be raised as to whether copyright may be violated in the uploading of texts. But the far more overarching concern is that of an increased dominance of already dominant languages, which could be read as a re-colonisation and negatively impact on local indigenous cultures and ways of knowing as well as impacting on the dissemination of indigenous knowledge systems.

The presentation will reflect on how Generative Artificial Intelligence functions, systematically cover issues of inclusion, diversity, equity, and access that arise as a result of using it when only a small corpus of texts is available, and then ask participants to reflect upon open education policies and strategies that arise as a result especially given potential negative impacts in relation to the Sustainable Development Goals. In particular, AI in this context not only relates to SDG 4, but also on 6 & 7 in terms of sustainability as AI consumes massive amounts of fossil fuels and also water, 9 in terms of the infrastructure required, 10 in terms of inequality and 12 in terms of responsible consumption and production.

The presentation will also refer to recent research indicating that while the power of the model has grown and grown with the size of the training datasets, that recent evidence is that these power curves are starting to level off and this has implications in terms of sustainability.

ABSTRACT. In the rapidly evolving landscape of education, Open Educational Resources (OER) have emerged as a pivotal tool in promoting accessibility, inclusivity, and innovation in learning. Recognising the potential difficulties of OER creation and the need for effective planning and preparation, we propose a comprehensive workshop designed to equip participants with the necessary skills and knowledge to create their own OER. Participants will be guided through the process of developing a project outline and plan for their next OER. This will include identifying learning objectives, selecting appropriate content formats, and considering the pedagogical implications of their resource. The workshop will foster a collaborative environment where participants can share their ideas and experiences, learn from their peers, and receive constructive feedback on their project plans.

This interactive approach will not only enhance the learning experience but also facilitate the exchange of innovative ideas and best practices in OER development. By the end of the workshop, participants will have a clear roadmap for their next OER project, equipped with the knowledge and confidence to navigate the complexities of OER development. They will be empowered to create high-quality, accessible, and impactful educational resources that can transform the learning experience for their students.

The necessity for OER development to address equity, accessibility, and affordability concerns in education cannot be overstated. OERs have the potential to democratize education by making high-quality educational resources available to all, regardless of their socio-economic status. They can help bridge the digital divide, provide access to education for learners in remote areas, and reduce the cost of education by eliminating the need for expensive textbooks and other learning materials. By equipping educators with the skills to create their own OERs, we can further enhance the reach and impact of these resources, contributing to a more equitable and inclusive educational landscape.

This workshop is a step towards realizing this vision. The workshop will be approximately 90 minutes long, providing a concise yet comprehensive overview of OER development. Participants are encouraged to bring their own devices and/or notebooks to create their own plan. This hands-on approach will allow participants to directly apply the knowledge and skills gained during the workshop. However, if needed, tools will be provided on the day to ensure that all participants have the necessary resources to fully participate in the workshop activities.

To ensure equitable accessibility, a basic form of excel spreadsheets will be used during the workshop. This choice of tool is based on its widespread use and familiarity among educators and content creators. However, the workshop will also promote numerous other tools that can be used for OER development, providing participants with a broad understanding of the various resources available to them. By empowering educators to plan and prepare their own resources, we can contribute to a more inclusive, accessible, and innovative educational landscape. We invite all educators and content creators to join us in this exciting journey of learning and discovery.

ABSTRACT. In this lightning talk, the Open Education Librarian from the University of Canterbury (UC) in New Zealand will outline some key milestones to date on the UC Library’s ongoing journey towards establishing an Open Educational Resources (OER) publication support service for academic staff. This narrative highlights the strategic steps, challenges, successes and progress so far in the journey toward an environment where OER adoption and creation thrive. By sharing experiences, the Open Education Librarian will provide insights and ideas for other institutions seeking to enhance their educational offerings through OER, who may be in the initial stages, or wondering where to start.

This session aims to spark ideas about possible ways to get started by sharing some of the steps UC took to get to their current position (currently around 2-3 on the OER maturity model https://pressbooks.com/news/maturity-model-for-open-education/) and their plans for the future. What will be covered:

• initial advocacy and outreach work
• open publishing via the university’s institutional repository
• working together with the University Press to publish open texts
• setting up a grant program to support authors to publish open texts
• establishing a dedicated OER librarian position
• participation in the CAUL collective and publishing via Pressbooks
• where UC are now, and what’s coming up

Alongside this, participants will also hear about an individual librarian’s learning journey into Open publishing, and the experience of building and developing knowledge and skills in an unfamiliar field and navigating a new role while advancing an Open text publishing support service.

ABSTRACT. In 2022 the University of Newcastle Library joined CAUL’s OER Collective as a member institution. Members of our team participated in the OER Foundations training. We were ready to support our academic staff create open textbooks! 

While we had some interested academic staff, their content was either non-existent, or needed a lot of work which they had no resources to supply. Institutional workload and IP policies were also barriers. We were stuck. 

Our solution grew from activities already being undertaken within the Academic Engagement Team, and aligned with our Library Indigenous Strategic Plan. We would forge ahead and create our own open guide to Indigenising Teaching, Learning and the Student Experience. We knew that content existed or was being written. That content would align perfectly with the values of open educational resources – social justice, equity, continuous sharing of knowledge.  

We found that creators from across the university were keen to contribute. One aspect they really appreciated was that they didn’t have to contribute an entire chapter. We asked for case studies and examples of the use of Indigenous pedagogies within classes and courses. We also asked students to describe their experiences engaging with Western and Indigenous pedagogies.

Library staff supported academic authors and created content about the work the library has done to implement yarning circles within an international student program, the creation of a guide to the Voice Referendum in 2023, Indigenised spaces (digital and physical) within the library, introducing services such as yarning kits for loan, and more. 

Contributors were excited to learn about the OER Collective’s use of Pressbooks, an open platform which protects their authorship but allows redistribution, remixing and reuse of content. They wanted their content to be published, not just to share but to adapt and contextualise to specific situations while protected by Creative Commons licensing. By thinking beyond the traditional idea of a textbook, we were able to gather high-quality content to fulfill our commitment to publish six chapters of the guide. As with all open textbooks, the guide is open to feedback and evaluation. As far as the project team is aware, this is the first Australian guide to Indigenising teaching, learning and the student experience in higher education. 

The contributors and project team hope that this guide will inform the Indigenisation of curricula across higher education in Australia providing a template for introducing different pedagogical methods to improve engagement and retention of a larger, more diverse cohort of students, while improving the cultural capability of institutions for their students and staff. 

We are also using the guide as a pilot to demonstrate the value and impact of open textbooks, to encourage our teaching community to develop their own.

ABSTRACT. Open Educational Resources (OER) have emerged as a promising strategy for addressing several critical challenges facing higher education today—completion rates, student learning, and affordability—and this proposed presentation explores the potential of OER as a high-impact practice (HIP). While OER advocates have long touted the cost-saving and accessibility benefits of OER, empirical evidence supporting the impact on student success metrics is limited and conflicted.

Currently, some evidence suggests that underserved populations in higher education do benefit from the use of OER (Colvard et al., 2018); however, while research on OER’s impact on student success (e.g., grades, GPA, course completion) in general exists, the results have only definitively shown that OER do not adversely affect students, as they perform the same or better when OER are implemented. These limitations in existing research complicate OER advocacy efforts, as faculty and administrators are hesitant to adopt practices and fund initiatives without compelling support.

In response, a team of AAC&U researchers is engaged in a large-scale study, funded by the Hewlett Foundation, to expand the OER conversation on student success. We are investigating the impact of OER on measures of student success at 17 U.S.-based institutions representing all six primary higher education institution categories officially recognized in the United States. The participating institutions enroll an array of students reflective of a diverse nation and include HBCUs (Historically Black Colleges and Universities), Tribal Colleges and Universities, and HSIs (Hispanic-Serving Institutions). A key aim of this work is to frame and disseminate a robust, data- and assessment-based argument for OER as a HIP. Through the selection of 17 diverse institutions representative of the U.S. higher-education landscape, we are framing a broad-sweeping argument that is not only representative of our students but also closely examines and deepens the conversation around OER significantly benefiting historically underserved students, as befits any practice deemed “high-impact.”

In addition to examining student success metrics, we also aim to operationalize and assess the notion of “high-quality” OER implementation within courses by delving into educator and institutional practices that lead to the most positive impact on students. We aspire to create a framework for assessing OER practices that instructors can use to evaluate and improve their own OER implementation practices. Through this work, we aim to construct a compelling case that OER are, indeed, a high-impact practice.

ABSTRACT. As human beings, we have always had a shared destiny with technology, yet now and then, a technology emerges that profoundly alters (and shapes) the ways we live, work, and relate with one another. GenAI is one such example. The recent surge in scale, complexity, and prevalence of this technological system is unprecedented, blurring the lines between physical, biological, and digital realms.

Amidst this dynamic landscape of human-technological encounters, the FutureFocus GenAI Program is a response to the need to slow down and think deeply about the kinds of societies and individuals we are becoming, particularly in the world of work. This presentation unpacks how Deakin University's FutureFocus GenAI Program is designed to navigate the speed and velocity of this evolving terrain, especially the demand for novel collaborations between academia and industry.

Functioning as an instantiation of Open Educational Practice, this program follows a multidisciplinary community of inquiry comprising academics and professionals. These collaborations operate in the liminal space between higher education and industry by adopting a practice-led and process-oriented approach. A deeply reflexive positioning that aims to produce recommendations and provide evidence-based insights crucial for shaping the future education and training of professionals across a variety of fields. This is a speculative project that privileges a multidimensional view of the rapid proliferation of GenAI tools, techniques, and interactions to inform the design of authentic educational experiences for the graduates of today, tomorrow and the future.

ABSTRACT. Access to education and educational materials is a global issue. Intellectual property (IP) law and policy govern the way educational materials can be accessed and used. The restrictions that are imposed by strong IP governance can play a ‘critical role’ in the way humans are afforded opportunities to live full lives. According to human development theory, removing barriers that impose restrictions on a person’s freedom can assist in human development and growth.

There is a clear and deep connection between a person’s freedom and the possibility of social development— an individual’s ability to progress and achieve is significantly influenced by the opportunities and access they have to certain freedoms such as financial stability, political liberty, social choice, basic education, access to medicine, and support and encouragement for their development. If individuals are provided ‘adequate social opportunities’, such as the ability to access and engage with education and educational materials, they ‘…can effectively shape their own destiny and help each other’.

By attempting to address some of the problems associated with access to educational materials, aspects of the educational experience may be improved for those in higher education. By drawing on human development theory to better understand the governance of knowledge within the context of higher education, I explore the social problems encountered within publishing, and in Open Education Resources (OER). Specifically, the social dilemmas relating to access, flow of information, collective action, and the intersection of formal IP laws and the non-formal rules and practices of the communities who create, disseminate, and consume the knowledge resources. Lastly, I consider how open publishing in higher education provides an avenue to highlight significant issues such as those contained in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

The use of open publishing in education, including the publishing of open textbooks, has the potential to help us develop more equity in higher education by providing avenues for individuals to access information and knowledge without the strict IP governance that is associated with traditional educational materials. Such a holistic approach to education publishing aligns with many of the goals of human development as it supports freedom and provides greater social opportunities for individuals to flourish.

In the absence of change to the IP framework, open publishing provides an alternative which has the tools and capacities to support the goals of human development. A more grounded, holistic approach to publishing for education offers a framework to better support and consider social justice issues relating to access and the use of IP such as diversity, equity, and inclusion as well as avenues to highlight issues related to sustainable development.

ABSTRACT. The rise of generative AI has called into question many cornerstones of teaching, including the need for textbooks. Students increasingly use AI tools to efficiently find and collate information in lieu of both traditional and open textbooks. One argument for responding to this has been to embed AI within open educational resources (OER) or train AI using OER (Bozkurt, 2023).

Our presentation, by contrast, presents evidence of major advantages that OER have over both traditional textbooks and AI-centric retrieval and collation of information. This is based on our experiences of generating Third Spaces (Whitchurch, 2012) to co-create open textbooks through collaborative projects between STEM academics, the La Trobe eBureau (open publisher), and more recently students themselves.

Our open pedagogy journey led us from OER development towards open educational practices (OEP) that cultivate authentic assessment, peer-assisted learning, and enhanced teacher presence. We started by developing two open textbooks targeted at early undergraduate students of biology and/or biomedical science: • Foundations of Biomedical Science: Quantitative Literacy • Threshold Concepts in Biochemistry

The initial aim of these resources was to improve quantitative literacy and focus on key threshold concepts in biochemistry to support La Trobe students. A key challenge was navigating the tension between a resource useful for a broad audience but also serving specific cohort needs. However, in doing so we have surpassed our initial focus by enabling new practices that are uniquely possible through OER and have implications for the future design of OEP and open pedagogy.

It is widely understood that engagement in the learning experience requires more than just acquisition of new knowledge, full engagement is facilitated by connection with both peers and instructors (Stone and Springer, 2019). This teacher presence supports student engagement, increased retention, and learning outcomes using content developed by their face-to-face instructors and in which the instructor themselves is present (Mandernach et al., 2018). The modular nature of our texts coupled with permissive open licensing allows local personalisation and reuse to expand this teacher presence.

We will demonstrate how OER include both educators and learners as active agents, making open everyone’s business. A large body of work emphasises the importance of peer assisted learning in higher education, particularly for learning key skills (Stigmar et al. 2016). Embedding student created content in our open educational text has improved engagement and the quality of work while decoupling accreditation from being the sole motivating factor and also allowing us to showcase students as role models.

Finally, we have extended the content and increased its relevance to students by building in aspects of professional identity and representation which is known to influence retention and influences career trajectories (Huffmyer et al., 2022). To this end we have embedded videos of professionals representing a range of career aspirations of students demonstrating how the content is relevant to their work and offering authentic advice to study. We were also able to specifically showcase Australian and New Zealand contributions as well as the contribution of women to modern biology.

ABSTRACT. Open education invites communities to envision a future in which access to educational opportunities is open, inclusive, and transformative. This vision requires intentional consideration of issues related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). In the United States, some states have passed legislation which prohibit public institutions of higher education from using federal funds to support initiatives exploring DEI, going so far as to prevent participation in conferences, committees, and publications with a named emphasis on these topics. The weaponization of language has led universities across the country to rebrand departments and titles involving DEI- even in states without anti-DEI legislation to preemptively safeguard this important work.

With DEI under attack, is the solution to change the language, to redefine the acronym that has become a politicized buzzword? Some believe that if the language is updated to covertly allow practitioners to continue, this will lead to benefits. But with this ‘optimized’ language, we run the risk of having a false impression of benefit and doing actual harm.

Participants in this session will engage in discussion to consider how the purpose and outcome of the work can be accomplished by integrating DEI into practice in ways that reflect understanding of the core meaning and bypassing now prohibited language.

ABSTRACT. Integrating place-based learning into Open Educational Resources (OER) represents a dynamic approach to engaging students within the Natural Sciences. Our initiative spans across various disciplines, including botany, agriculture, biology, zoology, and marine biology, weaving local content into the fabric of our curriculum. Place-based learning (Sobel, 2004) is a well known concept that incorporates the local environment and cultural aspects of place into the curriculum.

In Hawai‘i, this framework is also called ʻĀina-based pedagogy (Ledward, 2013; Maunakea, 2021). ʻĀina is the Hawaiian word for “land,” which means that which feeds (Goodyear-Ka'ōpua, 2009). ʻĀina-based education is grounded in teaching and learning through a Hawaiian worldview, which actively incorporates the land, ocean, air, and all living things into the learning process. By embracing ʻāina-centered methodologies, individuals develop a meaningful relationship with the Hawaiʻi landscape, foster community ties, and develop critical skills in the sciences.

Traditional textbooks for natural sciences often lack information that can ground students in learning through ‘āina, as they typically offer generic examples of concepts found in other places. Therefore, developing and integrating materials that are localized has been the center of our work. Our pedagogical approach lies in open collaboration, empowering students as they actively shape content and enrich both local and global communities. Additionally, collaborating with librarians to develop libguides and curate other types of research support materials has enhanced student research. By engaging with these methodologies, students can learn about the place, culture, history, and language while building critical skills in the natural sciences.

In this presentation, we delve into examples showcasing our commitment to open pedagogy. From harnessing the power of conducting original research and leveraging digital platforms such as websites, libguides, and Wiki Edu, we illuminate diverse avenues for content creation that honors inclusion and diversity. Moreover, we explore our innovative class structures, designed to immerse students in experiential learning through semester-long projects. This teaching and learning environment through open pedagogy is highly reliant on the unique expertise of our Hawai’i-Pacific Resource Librarian and other indigenous faculty on campus. These collaborations are critical to teach through a cultural lens and empower students to learn through local resources.

Together, these strategies not only cultivate a deeper connection to ‘āina but also nurture a sense of stewardship and curiosity essential for lifelong learning and connection to cultural practices. Participants in this session can expect to gain a comprehensive understanding of how place-based learning and OER can be integrated into the Natural Sciences curriculum from faculty and librarian perspectives.

ABSTRACT. Given the broad reach of open educational resources (OER), efforts to design materials in an inclusive manner required the consideration of the diverse backgrounds of those accessing them. Public health research has revealed that one in five adults have been exposed to a potentially traumatic event. Given that reminders of these events can spur stress reactions that interfere with learning, those who develop OER can benefit from learning about trauma-informed practices to avoid such adverse experiences amongst students.

This presentation will introduce the strategies for instructional design that are aligned with the US Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administrations (SAMSHA) six key principles of a trauma-informed approach: safety; trustworthiness and transparency; peer support; collaboration and mutuality; empowerment, voice and choice; and cultural, historical and gender issues. Examples will be shared from OER resources by the authors - including texts, toolkits, podcasts and online courses.

The presentation will highlight the utility of OER for educators in higher education for teaching, research and service.

ABSTRACT. Open Educational Resources (OER) have the potential to democratize education and make knowledge accessible to all. However, without conscious efforts to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion, OER materials may inadvertently perpetuate biases and marginalize certain groups. DOERS (Driving OER Sustainability for Student Success), a collaborative of 37 public U.S. and Canadian higher education systems and statewide/province-wide organizations, developed The Equity Through OER Rubric, a framework to define, unpack, and explain the multiple dimensions of equity and foreground the role of OER in closing equity gaps.

The Equity Through OER Blueprint is composed of three sections: an overview with the theoretical frameworks and research foundation used to develop the rubric, the rubric itself, and case studies. The case studies showcase how the Equity Through OER Rubric can be utilized in diverse institutional and system contexts.

This session will introduce participants to the Equity Through OER Rubric, which covers various aspects of equity, including representation, cultural relevance, accessibility, and language. The rubric offers a structured approach for assessing an institution/system’s capacity for adopting and scaling OER efforts through an equity lens and identifying areas that may need improvement to better serve diverse learners. The session will highlight a real-world example of how the rubric has been applied to an established OER initiative, showcasing the process of identifying and addressing areas of strength and opportunities for improvement.

ABSTRACT. The possibilities for using AI in education are exploding. AI is already widely used in education, and with the recent emergence of generative AI, the possibilities are being more actively explored. However, ethical concerns about the use of AI continue to arise. In particular, teachers, who take the lead in education, need to be empowered with ethical competencies that consider the impact of AI and digital technologies while using AI.

Accordingly, this study aims to develop a framework for teachers' ethical competencies in AI and its sub competencies and behavioral indicators. To this end, an initial competency framework and behavioral indicators were developed through a systematic literature review. At the same time, in-depth interviews were conducted with 10 in-service teachers and implications were derived according to Braun and Clarke's (2006) thematic analysis procedure.

The findings of the study, based on the synthesis of the literature review and the interview results, revealed a set of AI ethics competencies for teachers consisting of awareness, judgment, and practice, with corresponding sub-competencies and behavioral indicators. This study has significance in that it systematically presents the ethical competencies of teachers for coexistence with AI amid the ongoing development of AI from a post-humanistic perspective.

ABSTRACT. The European Union introduced 'open schooling' in 2015 alongside the UN’s Agenda 2030 to foster authentic education with STEM skills for sustainability. This approach involves real-life problem-solving, engaging schools, families, and scientists. This study, "AI-Enhanced Knowledge Mapping for Sustainability in Education," explores the application and impact of mapping tools combined with CARE-KNOW-DO resources in open schooling contexts, focusing on real-life sustainability issues in both formal and informal learning settings.

Our objectives are:

1. Identify how mapping tools, in conjunction with CARE-KNOW-DO resources, are utilized in open schooling to address sustainability issues.
2. Explore some activities and mapping techniques, including AI tools and assistant apps, used by teachers, students, and community members part of the EU funded project CONNECT.
3. Discuss potential benefits and challenges, and reflect on how these approaches can transform teaching, research, and learning practices supported by critical and creative use of AI tools.

This presentation invites educational researchers, sustainable development practitioners, sustainability curriculum developers, and policymakers to explore scenarios from the CONNECT project, which demonstrates various sustainability issues, techniques, and tools within the CARE-KNOW-DO framework for sustainability education. School educators have been using a range of open schooling resources related to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These resources suggest participatory methods for problem-solving or decision-making aligned with curriculum objectives and available time, from short activities like family discussions and school debates to moderate activities such as citizen consultations, school projects, and community deliberations. The CONNECT team and teachers have proposed or created mapping techniques incorporating AI.

A key challenge explored in this multi-case study is whether a set of mapping techniques can help students develop problem-solving skills and become aware of AI's benefits and limitations. The study employed qualitative and quantitative evaluation instruments, templates, and protocols approved by the CONNECT project’s ethics committee. Using a participatory approach with observation notes, activity descriptions, and semi-structured self-reported questionnaires, participants—learners and educators from formal, non-formal, and informal settings—documented their learning outcomes, challenges, and perceived gains. The scenarios highlighted the application of Human-Centred AI (HCAI) principles within the CARE-KNOW-DO framework. CARE emphasizes collaborative learning with real-life issues involving uncertainties and requiring ethical oversight; KNOW promotes critical discussions on concepts, principles, and ethical implications; and DO supports reflection on actions enhanced by continuous feedback, aligning AI applications with educational goals and ethical standards.

This comprehensive approach aims to transform educational practices by integrating AI-enhanced knowledge mapping to foster a deeper understanding of sustainability and ethical AI use among students. Through participatory methods and the incorporation of AI tools, the study seeks to enhance problem-solving skills and ethical awareness, ultimately contributing to more effective and sustainable education practices.

Reference

Okada, Alexandra (2024). Knowledge Cartography for Young Thinkers: Sustainability Issues, Mapping Techniques and AI Tools. Advanced Information and Knowledge Processing, 1 (1). Switzerland: Springer (In Press).Open Book - Springer: https://link.springer.com/book/9783031546761

ABSTRACT. In response to growing demand from academics requiring resources on Artificial Intelligence (AI) for their students, Charles Sturt Librarians developed an Open Education Resource (OER) titled Using AI tools at university. This resource aims to equip university students and researchers with the knowledge and skills necessary to utilise AI tools productively, ethically and responsibly. Our project, undertaken collaboratively by Charles Sturt Librarians, seeks to democratise access to AI literacy.

Generative AI technologies and AI tools for research are increasingly prevalent in academic settings, yet students and researchers often lack guidance on the responsible and ethical use and how they can be used productively. Our OER addresses this gap by providing comprehensive information on AI tools, their applications, and ethical considerations. The resource emphasises the importance of understanding AI biases, data privacy, and the ethical implications of AI-driven decisions.

The benefits of OER for students are extensive. Research indicates that using OER enhances student learning (Cheung, 2019) and serves as an effective learning intervention by providing equal access to educational resources for all students (Grimaldi et al., 2019). Open textbooks can be continuously and easily updated to remain relevant, which is especially crucial given the rapid advancements in AI. Considering the importance of equitable access to information for our students and the challenges posed by traditional publishing models, such as high costs and restrictive licensing, OER offers valuable resources that ensure equitable access for all students.

The Pressbooks platform was used and incorporated interactive media and active learning through H5P. It seamlessly embedded in the learning management system plus allowed direct linking to specific chapters, when students had assessment requirements requiring specific AI literate information and evaluation. The project not only provided specific resources at the request of academics needing information on AI use for their students assessment tasks but was expanded to provide a complete AI literacy resource that can be used by all undertaking research. It covers algorithmic literacy (Ridley & Pawlick-Potts, 2021), understanding bias, developing competency in critical ignoring (Kozyreva et al., 2023), detecting hallucinations and communicating with AI through effective prompt engineering (Lo, 2023).

The project also had a secondary objective to familarise Librarians with developing content for an OER with then having a locally produced OER to demonstrate to academics. This initiative aligns with the broader movement towards open education and the sharing of knowledge across institutions.

Our OER, Using AI tools at university, empowers students from diverse backgrounds to engage actively with AI tools. By breaking down complex concepts into understandable modules, we foster responsible AI use and encourage student contributions to AI development. Moving forward, we aim to expand this resource and integrate it into existing digital literacy modules across disciplines. This integration will support the development of critical thinking and digital literacy skills, preparing students for the evolving digital landscape.

ABSTRACT. Over the last three decades, open educational practices have emerged as a field of both practice and research. In the language of this year’s theme, Open is Everyone’s Business, and business is booming. This boom has spurred institutionalization through myriad published papers, specialized journals, even dedicated classes and courses of study. But this institutionalization raises many questions, especially in regards to course offerings: are there regular courses offered in open educational practices, and if so, where are they taught and what do they include? Are courses on open education the purview of dedicated departments or centres, into transdisciplinary programs like Digital Humanities, or housed under the umbrella of education departments? To what extent are courses in open education inclusive of diverse perspectives and ways of knowing? Are courses on open educational practices taught using open educational practices? To answer these questions, I’ll conduct bibliographic and curricular analyses. I’ll construct a database (that will be shared openly) of courses by searching college catalogs, starting with those listed in Boston College’s Worldwide Higher Education Inventory (“Worldwide Higher Education Inventory), and US News’ list of top education programs in the US (“Best Universities”) as well as the English-speaking institutions on US News’ list of global universities (“Top Education”) and open universities such as the UK’s Open University and Canada’s Athabasca University. To cast the widest possible net, I will add the institutions of leading scholars (drawn from those who have keynoted open education conferences and/or publish frequently in open education journals) and emerging scholars (drawn from the members of the Global OER Graduate Network). Finally, I will email the initial database to multiple list-servs that focus on open education to request information on any institutions and courses of which their members are aware.

Once the list is assembled, I will search each institutions’ course catalogs to find any courses that have the search terms “open education,” “open educational resources,” “OER,” “open pedagogy,” and/or “open educational practices” in the title or course description to find out which institutions are offering courses, in what departments, as part of which degrees, and whether the courses are regular course offerings or special topics courses. Course syllabi and degree maps/courses of study that focus on open education will be requested from the instructors of the identified courses for content analysis to identify what topics are covered, what readings/materials are assigned, and what these courses say about the current state of the field of open education. Mapping where and how courses in open education are offered as well as what topics and readings these courses include, will provide insight as to what the field of research in open education truly is at this moment in time.

This proposal overlaps several of the possible proposal areas: *Open practitioners, identity, and space in education *Open data *Open educational practices, including open assessment *Inclusion, diversity, equity, and access to Open Education Resources (OER) and Open Education Practices (OEP)

ABSTRACT. As higher education continues to adapt and adjust to the disruption that generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) is bringing to all facets of our work, Open Educational Practice (OEP) is one field facing particularly vexing challenges. For example, unrestricted open licencing makes that content fair game for AI companies training their models which, while morally objectionable to many in the open space, may make important contributions to reducing biases in those models.

Some may be conflicted about the use of their open content by businesses with questionable ethics for example, while others in the same space are non-profits creating and sharing their models openly, and still others are for-profit companies who are also releasing their models openly. If, as recognised in the conference theme, our goal as open practitioners is “creating a society where free and open access to knowledge is practised, normalised, and valued” and we are now faced with increasingly pervasive technologies that can both facilitate and hinder those goals, should we engage actively and attempt to guide the developmental direction of these technologies at large, or should we focus on the local context within our institutions as places where we hope we can make safer, more ethical choices? Should we be more cautious and restrictive in our use of open licences now, or should we be as open as possible to ensure balanced perspectives and reliable information are at least available to those developing generative AI models?

Similarly, open practitioners are likely to find themselves torn between the practical value of generative AI tools in creating or adapting open content, or using OEPs that incorporate generative AI in their teaching, and questions about the potential for harm that these tools bring. For example, how do we balance concepts of sustainability with scalability of education when generative AI tools may support the latter while negatively impacting the former with their ever-increasing energy and mineral demands?

This session introduces a work in progress that adapts Bali et al.’s (2020) model of process-focused open educational practices (OEP) from a social justice perspective, to apply it to OEP and use of generative Artificial Intelligence. The goal is to develop a practical working model of the relationship between AI and OEP, and a rubric for evaluating potential uses of AI from an open practice perspective that can help inform pedagogical decisions. The potential outcomes of incorporating AI in OEPs range from negative or harmful to transformative, and are influenced by a wide range of factors including model choice, model transparency, cost, access, disciplinary norms, and scale of activity. This project aims to provide practitioners with some practical guidance to help them navigate these challenges.

ABSTRACT. This study explores the integration of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) into robotics programming education to enrich inquiry-based science learning, particularly in the STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics) domains, with a focus on its impact on elementary science education. Through hands-on STEAM activities, students enhance problem-solving skills, collaboration, and develop a strong interest in science learning. Utilizing Scratch, a free and open programming language, students not only learn programming basics but also deepen their understanding and application of scientific concepts. The research targets elementary school students, incorporating technology, mathematics, and physical education into a series of STEAM education experiments. Results underscore the importance of open educational resources in supporting STEAM education, enhancing scientific learning, fostering creativity, and teamwork, thereby positively influencing educational equity and quality. The example of a baseball robot illustrates the potential benefits and challenges of utilizing open educational resources.

Inquiry-based science learning encourages questioning, investigation, and knowledge construction through exploration and experimentation. Recent advancements in Artificial Intelligence, especially Generative AI (GenAI), offer novel tools to enhance this educational approach. This paper examines how integrating GenAI can enrich the learning experience, focusing on a STEAM project involving the design and implementation of a baseball robot.

Utilizing the 6E experiential learning model, GenAI assumes multiple roles across the learning stages. Initially, in the Engage phase, GenAI acts as a catalyst, captivating student interest through Scratch, thereby igniting curiosity. In the subsequent Explore phase, GenAI transitions into a mentor, providing tailored learning pathways and resources, facilitating guided exploration. As the learning progresses into the Explain phase, GenAI transforms into an instructor, simplifying intricate concepts and theories through textual content. During the Engineer phase, GenAI serves as a design assistant, assisting students in utilizing tools like LEGO SPIKE for project development. Moving forward to the Enrich phase, GenAI becomes an inspiration, expanding students' knowledge and fostering interdisciplinary integration and innovative thinking. Finally, in the Evaluate phase, GenAI transitions into an assessor, delivering real-time feedback and assessments to aid students and teachers in reviewing and reflecting on learning outcomes. GenAI plays a crucial role in scientific inquiry activities, offering expertise, guidance, and support throughout the project phases, thereby enriching students' learning experiences and fostering knowledge exchange in STEAM fields.

The combination of GenAI and Open Educational Resources (OER) in STEAM education enhances learning by personalizing pathways, improving accessibility, and ensuring quality education for all. This model fosters students' passion for science and technology, enhances problem-solving skills, and cultivates future innovators. It demonstrates the potential of Generative AI in modern education, emphasizing the importance of open education in global learning initiatives.

ABSTRACT. 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.

ABSTRACT. This presentation will share the results of an assessment of the capacity to support open educational practices (OEP) of the colleges, universities, and Indigenous institutes in Ontario, Canada.

This system-wide survey is the first application of the ISAT 2, an institutional self-assessment tool to assess capacity to support OEP in higher education. This multidimensional instrument builds on earlier research in British Columbia (Morgan et al., 2021) and the Netherlands (van Rossum & Schuwer, 2022) and assesses capacity and maturity related to: vision and implementation; partnerships, policies, and incentives; professional development; institutional supports; leadership and advocacy; and culture change. The ISAT2 is openly licensed and available in English and French.

This tool aids institutions in evaluating their current support for OEP and provides actionable strategies to enhance pedagogical practices and resources. By offering insights from our survey of public universities, colleges, and Indigenous institutes in Ontario, we will highlight how ISAT2 can support institutions in leveraging OEP to widen equitable access and democratize the learning process in service of societal transformation.

ABSTRACT. 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.

ABSTRACT. Open Educational Resources (OERs) are poised to transform education by offering high-quality materials freely. However, their uptake and dissemination among academic circles encounter substantial challenges. This presentation evaluates and prioritises these barriers among Saudi academics: personal, institutional, legal, technical, and curricular impediments. While all impede OERs' use, personal, institutional, and legal barriers notably hinder open sharing of teaching materials.

Personal hurdles stand out as the foremost obstacles for both OERs users and non-users. Resource limitations often lead to heavier workloads for teachers, reducing their time to access OERs (Huang et al., 2020; Covey et al., 2021; Oelfke et al., 2021; Nagashima and Hrach, 2021). Moreover, doubts about work quality or uniqueness discourage academics from openly publishing their materials (Baas et al., 2019). Concerns about potential criticism further deter sharing (Mubofu and Kainkwa, 2023). Some academics also display 'academic overconfidence,' believing their standards exceed OERs', hindering their use and sharing (Mishra, 2017). Additionally, the absence of financial incentives dissuades both users and non-users from creating and sharing teaching materials (Annand and Jensen, 2017; Mishra, 2017; Nagashima and Hrach, 2021).

Institutional barriers rank as the second most significant challenges. Academics often cite insufficient recognition and a lack of incentives as major deterrents (Akosile and Olatokun, 2020; Ngimwa and Kinuthia, 2021). Despite these, rewarding staff for material development is not seen as a significant motivator (Alkhasawneh, 2020). This may stem from the view among Saudi academics that sharing is a form of charity (Zakat) and part of their academic duty. Other institutional barriers include inadequate courses and ineffective policies supporting OERs adoption (Jhangiani et al., 2016; Torto, 2019). Limited autonomy to modify materials is also noted as a barrier (Watson and Borowske, 2021).

Technical barriers rank third as significant obstacles to OERs adoption, encompassing security issues, insufficient support, slow assistance, and low bandwidth (Mwinyimbegu, 2019; Mullens and Hoffman, 2023).

Curricular and pedagogical barriers rank fourth, highlighted by the absence of Arabic content, lack of quality materials, and insufficient OERs in specific fields (Alkhasawneh, 2020; Alshomrani, 2021; Reimers et al., 2020; Mubofu and Kainkwa, 2023).

Legal barriers, though least significant, pose notable challenges such as intellectual property rights awareness, plagiarism fears, and the need for content ownership (Baas et al., 2019; Nobes and Harris, 2023). Addressing these concerns through workshops on Creative Commons licensing could alleviate barriers.

In conclusion, this study identifies five barriers to OERs adoption and sharing in the Saudi context. While removing these barriers may not ensure increased OERs' use, it can foster a more conducive environment. Providing training on OERs, copyright, and licensing is crucial, considering many Saudi academics view sharing as a professional obligation linked to the concept of Zakat.

ABSTRACT. The focus of our presentation will be on the interdepartmental collaboration in creating an Open Educational Resource (textbook) for business students at IBS University (Papua New Guinea), and the stages of the design, development and publishing process. Background context: SCU and IBSU have been in educational partnership for over 20 years. SCU’s move to the Southern Cross model of delivery (the shorter, more focused unit structure, delivered over six weeks) necessitated redesign of the existing, co-delivered, business units for IBSU students. Whereas open educational resources have been present in education for over four decades, it is over the last 10 years that they have gained momentum in the tertiary sector as “a powerful tool for reducing inequalities of educational opportunity and promoting innovative strategies to improve educational problems” (Bliss and Smith, 2017, pp. 9-10). This point of view informed our decision to design and develop an Open Educational Resource (textbook) for SCU/IBSU students in Port Moresby. In December 2023, Library Services, Centre for Teaching and Learning, and Business School academics (from Australia and Papua New Guinea) started a working group with the goal to design and develop an OER textbook for the unit Introduction to the Business Law of Papua New Guinea. The group had regular meetings every fortnight, and responsibilities were: academics were responsible for writing the content, Centre for Teaching and Learning for educational/learning design, and Library Services for administrative and publishing process. We made every attempt in the design stage to place the focus on the Papua New Guinea students’ point of view; our design was informed by the teaching experiences of academics from SCU/IBSU, the students’ feedback on their learning experiences in previous deliveries of the unit, and our visit ISB University. This was achieved through regular (fortnightly) discussions on specificities of the educational environment in PNG and collaborative analysis of students’ feedback form. All decisions in this stage were guided by student-centred design and the Universal Design principles to maximise usability for a wide variety of individuals. In the writing stage, academics produced the content and suggested the corresponding activities. Activities were designed and collectively evaluated for their usefulness and friendliness of use (with student engagement in mind). The development stage included bringing in the digital design expert to consult on story lines (for proposed animations) and a colleague from PNG to advise on images and interpretation of the visuals. The end result is an OER textbook that is easy to use by students, easily scalable, and enhances the unit content and increases student engagement and interaction with the learning material. NB: We expect to have the textbook ‘published’ in July, so we will be able to show it to the audience.

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ABSTRACT. The educational landscape is shaped by dominant epistemologies and pedagogies that often marginalize non-privileged learners. This workshop aims to equip educators with the tools and understanding necessary to redress these epistemic and social injustices. We will explore how our educational systems privilege certain knowledge paradigms while devaluing the testimonial credibility of marginalized communities. Through a critical examination of these dynamics, we seek to foster a more inclusive and equitable educational environment.

Workshop Objectives:

1. Identify Privileged Epistemologies and Pedagogies: Participants will engage in discussions to identify the dominant knowledge systems and teaching methods that are often prioritized in educational settings. We will explore how these systems can perpetuate inequalities and marginalize non-dominant perspectives.
2. Understand Epistemic Injustice: The workshop will delve into the concept of epistemic injustice, focusing on how the credibility of marginalized individuals and groups is often undermined. We will discuss testimonial injustice (wherein a speaker is unfairly discredited) and hermeneutical injustice (wherein a group's experiences are misunderstood or overlooked due to gaps in collective interpretive resources).
3. Develop Inclusive Educational Practices: Participants will learn how to create and implement educational practices that empower non-privileged learners. This involves developing curricula and pedagogies that reflect diverse perspectives and recognize the value of marginalized voices.
4. Empower Marginalized Narratives: A key goal of the workshop is to bifurcate the neo-colonial saviour narrative prevalent in many educational contexts. We aim to allow voices, perspectives, and narratives of marginalized others to be seen and heard, thereby fostering a more inclusive educational discourse.
5. Co-Creation of Open Resources: The workshop will provide hands-on sessions where participants can develop research, educational practices, and materials that are specifically designed for the benefit and empowerment of under-represented learners. These materials will be tailored to address the unique needs and contexts of these learners, ensuring they are both relevant and effective. Ideas generated, with permission, will be shared on a open pedagogy notebook, developed by the presenter.

Workshop Structure:

The workshop will be divided into several sessions, each focusing on different aspects of redressing epistemic and social injustices. We will start with a theoretical foundation, exploring key concepts and frameworks. This will be followed by interactive sessions where participants can engage in discussions, group activities, and case studies. Finally, we will have practical workshops where participants can develop and share their own materials and strategies.

Key Questions Addressed

• How can we construct activities that mitigate epistemic vices?
• What design choices can educators make to increase epistemic virtues?
• What do effective social justice interventions look like in a learner-centric environment?
• How can open pedagogy be leveraged to create more inclusive and equitable educational experiences?

ABSTRACT. Although open education is embraced within the international higher education sector, it is still an emerging practice in Australia. Over the last decade, a growing number of studies have started to explore open education in Australia. However, many of these studies are limited either by their focus on a specific institutional context or on open educational resources which represent only one part of open educational practice (OEP) more broadly. Australia’s higher education sector currently has a limited evidence base to inform the adoption of OEP. This has serious implications for how well Australian higher education – in which the nation invests $116.4 billion in public funds per year – can achieve the Australian Government’s commitment for quality, accessibility, affordability and sustainability for the nation’s higher education sector as articulated in the University Accord.

This presentation outlines preliminary findings from a phenomenographic study aimed at exploring Australian academics experiences of OEP. Phenomenography is a qualitative, interpretive and descriptive approach to research that explores the different ways in which people experience various phenomena and situations in the world around them. In this study, academics employed in Australian universities were invited to participate in a semi-structured interview. The academics interviewed came from various disciplines, universities, and academic levels. They had differing years of experience as academics, and varying levels of familiarity with OEP.

This research can enhance open educational culture and practice in Australian higher education. By revealing varying levels of adoption and challenges, the study informs policy development, professional programs, and promotes equity and collaboration. Ultimately, these insights can improve teaching practices and student outcomes. Addressing the conference theme "Open is Everyone’s Business," the study highlights diverse educator engagement with OEP, showing that fostering a culture of openness requires collective effort and benefits the entire academic community.

ABSTRACT. It is increasingly necessary to look for new ways to continue to support and promote the open education movement in educational institutions. It is in that search that at UNED Costa Rica, specifically from the REA Node and the Fabrication Lab, spaces and initiatives declared open, Design Thinking has been used to create, devise, think, co-create and build these new possibilities. The first stage of the project: Open and offline digital resources as an option for the student body in the face of the lack of connectivity (Project RACHEL), is an example of what can be done to generate new strategies and institutional policies that allow us to be more open and effective entities in the search for inclusion and equity, and of course, openness. Design Thinking is definitely a huge support that we should consider.

ABSTRACT. As OER are increasingly in use across higher education, access to formal publications and research focused on OER and OEP become imperative. Beyond the critical importance of backing our educational choices with evidence, asking imperative questions about the benefits of OER to aid decision-makers is key to furthering the cause across education internationally. During this session, we will explore an open-access web-based archive of publications specifically developed to support practitioners, decision-makers, and researchers alike as they implement, investigate, and learn more about open resources and pedagogies in education. This work is rooted in a large-scale research study focused on advancing the conversation on OER beyond affordability, and having OER literature collected in (and easily accessible through) an online database has allowed us to discover the bigger picture behind OER scholarship, and how trends have shifted over time.

This session will take you on the journey of OER as told through trends in the literature, from an engaging demo where participants will be some of the first to explore the database to defining what we seem to actually know (and don’t know) about OER to–perhaps the most critical piece of all–asking what we can do to keep this important focus on open resources and practices moving forward in education internationally.

In this archive of OER/OEP-focused publications, we have collected and cited over a thousand formal publications whose main focus is OER or OEP, and further coded themes and categories illustrating the landscape of literature . The database includes a variety of publication types, from peer-reviewed journal articles to books and book chapters to reports from relevant organizations. All publications were qualitatively coded by a team of researchers and organized into main categories (OER, OEP), key subgroups detailing the type of information included in the publication (from descriptive to several types of empirical research), and inherent themes across the categories and subgroups highlighting areas of interest within the literature as well as clear gaps in what we know about open practices and resources in education (e.g., student outcomes, student perceptions, faculty perceptions, affordability, policy). This coding scheme also aids users in seeking out exactly what they need from hundreds of publications.We will share the trends we unearthed, data visualizations, and key examples of OER/OEP publications in this presentation. Participants will also have the opportunity to offer feedback on this emerging tool via an anonymous survey as we continue to expand and develop this work. Overall, we seek to support practitioners, researchers, and decision-makers as they identify and use scholarly literature when implementing and arguing for the use of OER at their institutions, thus practicing the science of teaching and learning.

ABSTRACT. In 2021 California made the largest public investment in history in OER and Zero Textbook Cost degrees with a $115M grant program. Beginning in 2022, all California Community Colleges received funds to develop and implement ZTC pathways. As of 2024, colleges are developing hundreds of ZTC pathways to transform the student experience in the United States’ largest system of higher education, serving 2M+ students.

In this session, hear from leaders who are coordinating and supporting colleges in this historic work. What supports are provided to colleges? How are diversity, equity, and inclusion woven into support for colleges? What role do Open Pedagogy and Generative AI play? What is the sustainability plan for this massive undertaking? We will also consider how California got here and what it will mean when all colleges offer ZTC pathways.

The unique audience of OEGlobal presents an opportunity to consider how the ZTC movement in California can impact higher education in general. 

ABSTRACT. Open Educational Resources (OER) have been discussed in Sweden as early as 2008 (Westman & Paulsson). Unfortunately, their adoption is still very limited due to a lack of understanding about their nature, how they can be used, and the opportunities they present (National Library of Sweden, 2022). In light of the UNESCO recommendation on OERs, the National Library of Sweden was tasked with developing national guidelines for open science by the Swedish Government. These were recently presented and include the use of OER (National Library of Sweden, 2024).

The national library's work on national guidelines was companied by The Association of Swedish Higher Education Institutions (SUHF) working group on OERs. SUHFs aim is to promote the sector interests to external actors and at strengthening internal cooperation. The task of the working group is to develop proposals for recommendations on what national OER coordination could look like and how educational institutions could create a long-term structure for the work. The OER working group reports first and foremost to the working group on open science, which put forward a roadmap for open science as early as 2021.

In line with the national recommendations for open science, SUHF updated their roadmap in the beginning of the year (SUHF, 2024) and includes now a section about OERs. The roadmap defines the responsibility of Swedish Higher Education institution to "actively work towards creating a sharing culture regarding educational resources by encouraging and promoting the creation, sharing, and use of open educational resources". In this presentation, a member of the OER working group presents the roadmap and its' accompanying guideline for the OER section, which tries to ensure that OERs are finally everybody's business in the Swedish Higher Education system.

ABSTRACT. The goal of this presentation is to share the experience of librarians across Europe in co-designing and co-facilitating a series of workshops open to anyone to build basic open education skills.

The workshop series "Embrace the Open" is designed to catalyse a transformative movement within the field of librarianship and broader educational communities by promoting Open Education and the co-creation of Open Educational Resources (OER). Hosted by ENOEL—European Network of Open Education Librarians—this initiative is pivotal in introducing practitioners to the essentials of open educational practices and facilitating the development of a robust, interconnected community. The “Embrace the Open” series of interactive workshops aims at empowering librarians and educators through multiple strategic approaches.

Firstly, the series champions self-education and community-led learning, enabling participants to cultivate a sustainable learning environment within their institutions. By leveraging the collective expertise and experiences of the community, the workshops facilitate a rich exchange of knowledge, effectively capitalising on peer-to-peer learning modalities. A critical component of the series is its crowdsourcing strategy, which aims to bridge the existing gaps within individual and institutional practices across different countries. By collecting and disseminating best practices, collaboration tools, and processes from across the continent, the workshops intend to create a repository of accessible and practical resources.

This initiative not only addresses the immediate needs of the community but also ensures a continuous improvement and adaptation of educational practices. Moreover, the series places a significant emphasis on recognising and rewarding librarian practitioners, many of whom lack such acknowledgement within their home institutions. By spotlighting these individuals and providing them with opportunities to enhance their professional portfolios, the workshops serve a dual purpose of reward and recognition, thereby enhancing motivation and fostering a sense of achievement among practitioners.

The scalability of "Embrace the Open" is a key feature, designed to extend its reach and impact beyond the immediate ENOEL circles to a broader audience. This open and inclusive approach ensures that the benefits of the workshops are not confined to a limited group but are accessible to a wider community, thus maximising the potential for widespread adoption and adaptation of open educational practices. In our presentation, we will employ an "expectations vs. reality" narrative to offer an authentic view of the processes, challenges, and rewards associated with this initiative.

We will discuss both the expected outcomes and the unforeseen gains and difficulties encountered, providing insights into the practical aspects of initiating and scaling such a series. The narrative will also highlight how certain low-hanging fruits were utilised to kickstart the series effectively, ensuring immediate benefits while setting the stage for long-term success.

ABSTRACT. Since 2012, KPU has enjoyed significant and growing interest and support for Open Education and KPU’s commitment to Open Education has flourished. The university now offers an array of grants, learning opportunities, and support for faculty to actively participate in Open Educational Resources (OER) creation and Open Pedagogy. However, our current methods for gauging faculty engagement in Open Education—such as ZTC course tracking, grant applications, workshop attendance, and consultations—rely on faculty self-initiation. These approaches may not capture the full spectrum of open education practices, as not all ZTC pathways necessitate faculty involvement in Open Education.

In 2024, KPU Open embarked on a research endeavor to gain deeper insights into the open education practices adopted by KPU faculty, their modes of engagement, and their support requirements. This presentation aims to share our findings and methodologies used to assess the level of faculty engagement with open education related practices at KPU. By understanding how faculty are practicing Open Education, we can tailor our support mechanisms to align with faculty needs, enhance our processes, and foster opportunities for faculty development and engagement.

The initial phase of our study aimed to identify the specific open education practices that KPU faculty are currently engaged in and explore the nuances of their involvement. Additionally, we sought to determine the distribution of Open Education practitioners across different faculties. This was done through a survey which employed Likert scales to gauge faculty agreement with key statements, beliefs, and approaches related to open education, and multiple-choice questions to explore how faculty engage in open education practices. The survey framework followed the AIDA (Attention, Interest, Design, Action) model, ensuring a comprehensive assessment.

The second part of our study involved evaluating the effectiveness of the support provided by KPU Open. We invited participants to join focus groups, providing an opportunity to delve deeper into their support needs. Additionally, we assessed the efficacy of KPU Open's existing support mechanisms, including workshops and other resources.

By identifying faculty engaged in open education practices, KPU Open can tailor its support services more effectively. Adequate support ensures faculty success in implementing open education initiatives. Additionally, knowing the distribution of open education practitioners across faculties enables targeted collaboration. We can work strategically with each faculty to reduce barriers and encourage further engagement with open education. Participants actively involved in open education practices were be invited to join a community of practice, fostering peer learning and collaboration.

Our research project gave us insight into open education practices at KPU that we previously had no way of knowing, and allowed us to optimize support mechanisms and empower faculty to embrace open education fully. By doing so, we contribute to a more inclusive, accessible, and sustainable open educational environment.

ABSTRACT. Through a unique collaboration between higher education institutions and sectors, two community colleges (College of the Canyons in California and Maricopa Community Colleges in Arizona) joined forces with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a research-focused university, to learn what happens when community college faculty adopt and adapt open educational resources (OER) from MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW). Community colleges provide access to high-quality post-secondary education for students across socioeconomic statuses (Budwig, 2022) and they democratize education by advancing open practices (Tesh, 2022). MIT has long-shared OER at scale through OCW but has traditionally not collaborated with community colleges.

Guided by the principle that “Open is Everyone’s Business,” we intentionally crossed institutions, sectors, student communities, and geographic locations to support community college faculty in discovering, using, and reflecting on teaching with OER. In this presentation we will offer a working model to help develop similar cross-institutional collaborations that will support teaching and learning with OER as a shared responsibility for all stakeholders within the open ecosystem.

In this 60-minute panel discussion, leaders from each institution will share insights, learnings, and reflections from this Alfred P. Sloan Foundation grant-funded collaboration that concluded in June 2024. Topics will include: the benefits of collaborative goal-setting; the impact of providing structure such as professional development, reflective practice opportunities, curated OER discovery assistance, and in-person community building; and addressing assumptions about prestige and status.

The panelists will discuss how these learnings point to three tenets of a working model for cross-sectional institutional open collaborations, including: the importance of 1) identifying institutions with which to collaborate that have complementary strengths; 2) communicating respect for stakeholders via programmatic infrastructure; and 3) making space for transparent conversations about how institutionalized stigmas and historical oppression impact the collaboration. These conversations are important because they allow stakeholders to challenge and dismantle prevailing ideologies that perpetuate inequities in higher education.

Throughout the panel discussion, participants will be encouraged to help the panelists expand on the model they are developing for cross-institutional open collaborations by contributing nuances to the tenets discussed and adding others from different perspectives that the panelists have omitted from their working model. We see attendees’ contributions as critical to our work because we cannot build a model for cross-institutional open collaborations alone. It takes a community. Together, we can forge an innovative and adaptable model that draws on the strengths of many to advance equity for all.

ABSTRACT. 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.

ABSTRACT. Fostering faculty participation in adopting Open Educational Resources can be challenging when faculty lack full competency in digital literacy. Digital literacy is a pillar of UNESCO's Sustainable Development Goals and integral to the adoption of OER. Creating resources and training to provide faculty comfort in learning digital literacy can help in the buy-in and adoption of OER. This requires collaboration in a variety of areas across campus and identification of people who can teach these skills in multiple areas.

This presentation will focus on how to use public relations tactics to create buy-in among faculty members that promotes institutional spread of digital literacy and OER across a small, non-profit minority-serving institution in the United States.

ABSTRACT. 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.

ABSTRACT. Equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) have been a significant topic within the Open Education (OE) community. However, the provision of free and online resources, such as Open Educational Resources (OER), does not guarantee that access to these open resources is equitable, diverse, and inclusive. The vast majority of OER is only available in the English language, which makes it difficult for many learners worldwide to access them, in particular learners in the Global South. This is just an example that openness might not necessarily reach everyone and that more work is needed to ensure that open is equitable, diverse and inclusive (Bossu, et al., 2023; Iniesto & Bossu, 2023).

Other instances where EDI in OE might not be applicable or appropriate for everyone: • Resistance to change – as not everyone may be open to embracing EDI principles and practices. Individuals or institutions with entrenched biases or outdated beliefs may resist efforts to promote diversity and inclusion in open education. • Cultural beliefs - cultural differences and norms can influence the acceptance and implementation of openness. Some communities or institutions may have cultural traditions or beliefs that need to be respected, but also clash with certain aspects of openness, posing challenges to its widespread adoption. • Lack of awareness - some open practitioners may not fully grasp the importance of EDI or may be unaware of the impact of systemic inequalities on marginalized groups. This lack of awareness can impede efforts to promote EDI across all educational contexts, in particular in open education.

While promoting EDI in open education is critical for fostering a more inclusive and equitable open learning environment, it is essential to recognise that there may be limitations and challenges that hinder its universal applicability. Addressing these barriers and engaging in thoughtful, context-specific discussions and strategies can help ensure that EDI initiatives are relevant and effective.

This panel aims to provide a venue for these discussions to take place. Distinguished speakers from various backgrounds and from different regions of the world, including from South America, Asia, and Africa, will shed light on the impact of EDI practices in promoting access and participation in open education. Through sharing research, case studies, and best practices, the panellists will provide valuable insights on how to create more inclusive learning environments and resources. Panel attendees can expect to engage in thought-provoking discussions and gain practical strategies for advancing EDI in the field of open education.