Reflections on OEGlobal19, the annual Open Education Global Conference, organized by the Open Education Consortium

During the last week of November, the annual Open Education Global Conference (OEGlobal19) was held in Milan, Italy. Organized by the Open Education Consortium, and hosted this year by the Politecnico di Milano, this annual event attracted nearly 300 attendees from over 40 countries. This continues to be my favorite Open Education event.

Above all, I was pleased to see many sessions reflect a larger point that I’ve been including in my work –
OER specifically and Open Education in general are not the goals toward which I’m working, rather they are the tools to achieve larger change in education, indeed in society as a whole.

The idea of Open Education as a tool to achieve larger goals was the focal point of Cheryl Hodgkinson-Williams’ masterful keynote, The Warp & Weft of Open Education & Social Justice. She identifies economic equity, cultural diversity, and political inclusion as explicit social justice intentions of Open Education. She further defines social justice as “a concept that requires the organization of social arrangements that make it possible for everyone to participate equally in society.”

Hodgkinon-William traces these larger goals back to the 2007 Cape Town Declaration, which calls out goals around making education more accessible and more effective, and nourishing a participatory culture, in which everyone should have the freedom to use educational resources.

Dominic Orr began his keynote by stating bluntly that he’s not interested in OER. Rather, he’s interested in higher education helping learners to acquire new skills and competencies, and to consider and practice social reform. Similar to Hodgkinson-Williams, Orr points to OER and Open Education as tools to help achieve larger social and economic goals.

In a similar vein, Orr and Ben Janssen facilitated a discussion session (“action lab”) around their booklet Guidelines on the Development of Open Educational Resources Policies. This publication and their slides from the session offer very useful tools for those who wish to advocate for OER policy.

This points to another important element of OEGlobal19 – celebrating the recently approved UNESCO OER Recommendation and planning to support positive government responses to the Recommendation. The closing session of the conference reviewed the long and collaborative process taken to achieve passage of the Recommendation. In addition, a global coalition was announced to support implementation of the Recommendation. Notably, this coalition includes ICDE.

The conference chair Paola Corti from Politecnico di Milano and the program chair Chrissi Nerantzi from Manchester Metropolitan University, were rightfully congratulated on a rich, diverse, and well-organized program. In addition to the themes noted above, other highlights included:

An opening keynote session that placed students at the
center. I’m honored that Trudi Radtke, a graduate of my institution College of
the Canyons, and a current member of my OER team, was one of the students who
spoke eloquently about how Open Education is a way to “trust your students.”
Appropriately, the conference sessions took place in a lively
university setting, with conference attendees sharing space with students.
Diverse session formats included “action labs” and “world
cafes” that offered participants generous time to discuss and debate.
I co-presented two sessions. One session, co-facilitated with Trudi Radtke,
focused on the topic of engaging students in OER advocacy, including a project
I’m coordinating in California with the support of Barbara Illowsky and the
Michelson 20MM Foundation. We hope that participants were inspired to engage
their own students in their OER projects.

A second session, co-facilitated with Una Daly and Trudi Radtke, applied Hodgkinson-Williams’ social justice framework to the idea of Zero Textbook Cost pathways, which Una and I have supported in California.

I was also honored to receive two awards. The first is for the Best Open Course of 2019, for “Zero Textbook Cost Pathways: OER & Equity,” a course that explores the fundamental connections between Equity, OER, Guided Pathways, and Zero Textbook Cost pathways. I developed this course together with Aloha
Sargent, a librarian at Cabrillo College. Check out all the amazing projects that received Open Education Awards for Excellence.

Second, I was surprised to receive the President’s Award, which is the highest honor that the Open Education Consortium can give. I was cited for “being instrumental in advancing open education around the world through exceptional dedication, outstanding contribution, and exemplary service.” I’m grateful to my colleagues on the Open Education Consortium board for this honor, and am happy to have received this award from my dear friend Willem Van Valkenburg, Board President.

Julie Schiering15 January 2020