OEGlobal 2026: Full Schedule

All sessions are available online except round tables, special activities, and workshops.

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8:45am EDT

Welcome to Day 2

Thursday October 8, 2026 8:45am - 9:00am EDT

Daily Welcome
Start the day with a brief conference welcome featuring important announcements, highlights, and an overview of the day's program.

Thursday October 8, 2026 8:45am - 9:00am EDT
1 Salon MIT MIT Samberg Conference Center, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA 02139 USA

General

Speaker Modality In-person

9:00am EDT

Keynote 3

Thursday October 8, 2026 9:00am - 10:00am EDT

1 Salon MIT

Plenary Session
Conference-wide plenary featuring distinguished speakers and timely conversations on the future of open education. Speaker details will be announced soon.

Thursday October 8, 2026 9:00am - 10:00am EDT
1 Salon MIT MIT Samberg Conference Center, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA 02139 USA

Plenary

Speaker Modality In-person

10:30am EDT

AI Enhanced Open Pedagogy: Empowering Students as OER Creators in Mathematics

Thursday October 8, 2026 10:30am - 11:00am EDT

8 DR6

ID: 34040

Open Educational Resources (OER) and Open Pedagogy have long emphasized learner agency, collaboration, and knowledge sharing. As generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools become increasingly integrated into educational contexts, there is a timely opportunity to examine how these tools can be leveraged ethically and productively within open educational practices. This session presents an exploration of AI‑enhanced Open Pedagogy in undergraduate mathematics courses, where students were positioned not as passive consumers of content, but as creators of openly licensed knowledge.In this study, students engaged in renewable assignments that contributed directly to the OER community. Learners created mathematical problems, explanations, and learning resources, openly licensed their work, and agreed to shared it publicly. AI tools such as ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot were used as learning partners, supporting brainstorming, exploring alternative solution paths, generating practice questions, and refining explanations. Students were explicitly guided to use AI critically such as verifying outputs, reflecting on reasoning to ensuring that all final submissions demonstrated their own understanding.Survey results revealed that the majority of participants preferred this AI‑enhanced Open Pedagogy approach over traditional assignments. Students reported reduced stress, improved confidence, stronger conceptual understanding, and deeper engagement with the material. Many learners highlighted how AI tools supported metacognitive processes such as self‑checking answers, identifying gaps in understanding, and simplifying explanations for broader audiences. Importantly, students consistently emphasized that AI did not replace learning, but rather supported reflection and critical thinking.Participants also expressed enthusiasm about contributing to openly available resources and valued the authenticity of producing work that extended beyond the classroom. However, findings showed that student‑created OERs were often limited in format, underscoring the need for intentional design strategies. This session highlights the importance of brainstorming diverse, interdisciplinary, and creative OER formats with students early in the course to fully realize the potential of Open Pedagogy.The session will conclude with practical lessons learned, ethical considerations for AI use in open contexts, and future directions, including integrating student‑created questions into platforms such as MyOpenMath for global sharing.Key takeaways for attendees include:Practical strategies for integrating AI tools into Open Pedagogy while preserving academic integrity and learner agencyDesign principles for renewable assignments that promote creativity, reflection, and opennessStudent perspectives on AI use in OER creationActionable ideas for expanding the scope and impact of student‑generated OERsThis session offers an early but promising model for how AI‑enhanced Open Pedagogy can support active learning and transform mathematics education within the global open education movement.

Speakers

Virginia Thompson

Associate Professor, CUNY York College

Professor Thompson currently teaches 100‑level gateway courses in the Mathematics & Computer Science Department at York College. She coordinates all Mathematics General Education (GE) courses, which includes orienting new faculty to the curriculum, updating syllabi, choosing textbook... Read More →

Thursday October 8, 2026 10:30am - 11:00am EDT
8 DR6 MIT Samberg Conference Center, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA 02139 USA

Presentation

Speaker Modality In-person
Track Exploring Emergent Technologies and the Future of Openness

10:30am EDT

From Print to Audiobook: Amplifying Student Voices Through Open Pedagogy

Thursday October 8, 2026 10:30am - 11:00am EDT

2 Room M

ID: 31683

This session explores the creation of an open audiobook for College of DuPage’s introductory-level speech communication OER textbook, Exploring Communication in the Real World. The audiobook was developed to expand access to learning materials while engaging students as collaborators in the creation of open educational resources. Designed to accompany and reinvigorate an existing OER speech communication textbook, the audiobook leverages open pedagogy by involving students in the recording, editing, and production of chapter segments. Through this process, students contributed directly to a resource that benefits future learners while developing practical communication, media production, and collaboration skills. This session will discuss how students can transform into a speaker in narration, an audio technician in editing and post-production, and a textbook editor in suggesting or discovering what content may be outdated or may not be clearly understood by students. Presenters will give examples of what was discovered by working with students as co-creators of course material content. The project demonstrates how open pedagogy can transform students from consumers of course materials into active knowledge creators. Participants will learn about the project’s design, including workflows for student participation, accessibility considerations, and strategies for maintaining quality in a collaborative production process. Presenters will give an overview of textbook selection and considerations for selecting this content over others, including information on how a multimedia version of the text can enhance or complement the digital or print version. The session will also explore how open audiobooks can expand the format of OER to better support diverse learners, including those who benefit from multimodal and accessible content. This presentation invites discussion about how institutions and the broader open education community can support innovative forms of open content that democratize knowledge production and make learning materials more inclusive, adaptable, and sustainable. This project was a collaboration between the Library's OER Grant Program and Media Lab. Presenters welcome questions about the process of open publishing and the differences between digital, print, and audio with special consideration for funding, licensing, and necessary skills. In addition, the post-production process, scope of work for students, part-time staff, and full-time staff, and how the success of the program was measured will be discussed. This session will include interactive elements such as links, resources, and audio samples of the work created so attendees can visualize the process along with the presentation. Attendees will be provided with access to the published audiobook at the conclusion of the session.

Speakers

Lauren Kosrow

Digital Content and Open Access Librarian, College of DuPage

Lauren serves as the Digital Content and Open Access Librarian at College of DuPage and chair of the OER Steering Committee. In this role, she facilitates the Faculty Support Grant program and provides leadership for the college’s textbook affordability initiatives. Lauren has an... Read More →

Danielle Oakes

Media Lab Supervisor, College of DuPage

Danielle Oakes, MLIS, works as Media Lab Supervisor at the College of DuPage Library. Past credentials include work in multiple libraries, archives, and museums in Illinois with a focus on emerging and/or vintage technologies. This Guinness World Record holder has been published for... Read More →

Thursday October 8, 2026 10:30am - 11:00am EDT
2 Room M MIT Samberg Conference Center, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA 02139 USA

Presentation

Speaker Modality In-person
Track Innovating Open Content to Democratize Knowledge

10:30am EDT

Open Pedagogy in Action: Enhancing Information Literacy Through Student-Led OER Revision

Thursday October 8, 2026 10:30am - 11:00am EDT

4 Room T

ID: 32228

Open pedagogy provides students with opportunities for their work to have purpose outside of the classroom through the creation or improvement of open educational resources (OER; Witt, 2020). One potential application of open pedagogy is for students to collaborate with their instructor to update an OER (Tillinghast et al., 2020). OER textbooks in particular need updating as new research is conducted and the findings reported in the textbook may be found to be inaccurate or incomplete given the current body of knowledge. In this case study, students across two semesters of an introductory-level child development course collaborated with the instructor to update the research findings reported in the course OER. Throughout the course, students used social annotation to flag citations that were five years or older. A librarian demonstrated to the students how to find scholarly articles using the campus library databases. Students at the end of the term were assigned to chapters to find a scholarly article to update one of the outdated citations. The article was first approved by the instructor to check that it was indeed scholarly and appropriate for the textbook. Then, students organized the information from the article into tables with suggestions for where and how the article could be cited in the textbook . Because students were learning how to identify, use, and create information in this open pedagogy project, it was expected that information literacy skills would be developed. To test this expectation, the students in the course were invited to complete information literacy self-reports of their skills before and after the project (using a measure adapted from Sommer et al., 2021). There was a focus on examining changes in source evaluation skills, given that the project emphasized finding and identifying appropriate sources for updating the OER textbook. Students reported an increase in source evaluation skills based on their indicated level of confidence in items such as “evaluate internet sources,” and “select information most appropriate for the need” from the beginning (M = 3.72, SD = .54) to the end of the semester (M = 4.25, SD = .50; t(90) = 7.73, p < .001). In open-ended responses to skills developed, 72 students mentioned research and source finding skills (e.g., “I learned how to use the library’s databases to find a relevant article”), 48 stated identifying outdated information (e.g., “I developed a focus on comparing information that is modern to information that is outdated”), 38 mentioned critical thinking (e.g., “Looking at sources and realizing not everything in a textbook is law”), 22 mentioned reading and note taking skills (e.g., “It gave me an opportunity to dissect the textbook in many sections”), and 18 mentioned deeper comprehension and engagement (e.g., “It helped me get a better understanding of the concepts”; note that students mentioned multiple skills in their responses). Taken together, the findings indicate that having students collaborate on updating an OER textbook benefits the students involved in developing important skills and benefits future students through an improved textbook.

Speakers

Virginia Clinton-Lisell

Associate Professor, University of North Dakota

Dr. Virginia Clinton-Lisell began her career in education as an ESL teacher in New York City. She then obtained her PhD in Educational Psychology with a minor in Cognitive Science at the University of Minnesota where she was trained in educational research. She has published over... Read More →

Thursday October 8, 2026 10:30am - 11:00am EDT
4 Room T MIT Samberg Conference Center, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA 02139 USA

Presentation

Speaker Modality In-person
Track Innovating Open Content to Democratize Knowledge

10:30am EDT

Reframing the Past, Reimagining the Future: OER Project’s Approach to History and Climate Education

Thursday October 8, 2026 10:30am - 11:00am EDT

6 DR4

ID: 33807

As access to information expands globally, the question is no longer whether knowledge is available, but whose knowledge is represented and how it is framed. OER offers a powerful opportunity not only to remove cost barriers but also to rethink the narratives and perspectives embedded in educational content—and OER Project brings this opportunity to social studies, an often-overlooked discipline that so greatly impacts our present and future. This session explores how openly licensed history and climate curricula offered by OER Project can contribute to a more inclusive and democratic approach to learning. In social studies education, the phrase “to the victor go the spoils” too often underpins historical narratives. Many state standards lean heavily toward a more “traditional narrative,” and textbook publishers therefore follow their lead. OER provides an opportunity to transcend these narratives and open a conversation about who history is about and who it is for. The nature of OER allows for an expanded view of history, enabling students to learn about the diverse underpinnings of our past. OER Project history courses—Big History and World History—were designed to meet standards (because yes, standards are important), but also to provide opportunities for students to learn a more comprehensive and inclusive history, from the impact of Islamic scholars on our understanding of science to the contributions of lesser-known individuals who shaped history, such as Sorqoqtani Beki, who used her networks to shape the Mongol Empire, and Manuel Quezon, who helped more than 1,300 Jewish refugees escaping persecution find a home in the Philippines. OER Project: Climate is a course designed to bring climate change into all classrooms. We believe solving the climate crisis is not a topic that should be contained to science classrooms; solutions are interdisciplinary, and we believe all students—and teachers—should feel equipped to understand and confront the issue. Participants will consider how incorporating multiple perspectives—across regions, cultures, and voices—can help learners better understand complexity, challenge dominant narratives, and engage more critically with historical interpretation. In addition to social studies content, the session highlights the role of open resources in addressing urgent global challenges. Using a climate change course grounded in solutions-oriented thinking, we will explore how OER Project can empower learners not just with knowledge of problems but with frameworks for action and agency. This approach reflects a broader shift in education toward equipping learners to navigate uncertainty and participate meaningfully in shaping the future. Attendees will have the opportunity to learn about a variety of OER Project resources that help democratize knowledge and to reflect on how they could incorporate these resources into their own teaching. By the end of the session, participants will leave with practical strategies for evaluating and implementing open resources that prioritize inclusivity, representation, and learner agency.

Speakers

Chelsea Katzenberg

Academic Lead, OER Project

Chelsea Katzenberg is the Academic Lead at OER Project where she is responsible for managing the content development and updates for all OER Project courses. Before joining OER Project, Chelsea was a founding member of a charter high school in the South Bronx, where she taught world... Read More →

Angelina Meadows Comb

Director of Education, OER Project

Angelina Meadows Comb serves as Director of OER Project, where she leads the development of innovative K-12 social studies curriculum and educator resources. Her leadership advances collaboration and empowers educators to strengthen teaching and learning nationwide.

Thursday October 8, 2026 10:30am - 11:00am EDT
6 DR4 MIT Samberg Conference Center, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA 02139 USA

Presentation

Speaker Modality In-person
Track Innovating Open Content to Democratize Knowledge

10:30am EDT

Service Learning: Decolonizing Open Education Through African Knowledge Co-Creation

Thursday October 8, 2026 10:30am - 11:00am EDT

5 DR3

ID: 33634

Service Learning: Decolonizing Open Education through African Knowledge Co-CreationIn Eastern, Western, Central and Southern Africa, Catholic Higher Education Institutions (CHEIs) are at a critical crossroads. While international knowledge systems have expanded through digital transformation and Open Educational Resources (OER), much of the content, pedagogy, and epistemology remains rooted in colonial legacies that marginalize indigenous knowledge systems and African voices. Open Education has expanded access to knowledge globally, yet critical gaps remain regarding whose knowledge is represented and legitimized. In African CHEIs, colonial legacies through Christianity continue to shape curricula, often marginalizing indigenous knowledge systems and local epistemologies (Ngungi Wa Thiong’o, 1968; Andrew Furco, 1996; Linda Tuhiwai Smith, 1999; Boaventura de Sousa Santos, 2014 & Pete, J. 2019).This presentation examines how open practices can advance the decolonization of education by repositioning knowledge as a contextualized public good for all. Drawing on over a decade of practice in Service Learning and OER, the session presents case studies from selected African CHEIs where students and communities co-create knowledge. Practical examples include: (1) Service Learning projects where students document indigenous knowledge and community innovations as open resources (local language use); (2) collaborative development of localized OER to support context-relevant teaching (faculty led); and (3) regional initiatives promoting open knowledge sharing across CHEIs in 13 Nations of Africa.These practices demonstrate how open pedagogy can shift universities from knowledge transmitters to knowledge co-creators embedded in society’s local context. The session contributes to the conference theme by showcasing African-led innovations that not only adopt but reimagine open education through equity (Solidarity Service Learning), relevance (Empathy), and epistemic justice(Synodality). The conference Pathway of Innovating Open Content to Democratize Knowledge provides a unique opportunity to reimagine education as a public good for all, emphasizing accessibility, inclusion, and contextually relevant. By embracing open practices, African institutions especially CHEIs can democratize knowledge production and dissemination while reclaiming epistemic agency in the 21st century. In a nutshell, this presentation explores the intersection of open education, service learning, and decolonization within African education contexts. While OER and open practices aim to democratize knowledge, they often reproduce global inequalities when detached from local realities. Drawing from the presenter’s work as a regional director in Service Learning and involvement in international OER initiatives, the session highlights three practice-based case studies from several African universities:Service Learning as Open Knowledge Creation: At Catholic Higher Education Institutions and other partner universities in Eastern, Western, Central and Southern Africa, students engage with communities to co-create knowledge. Projects include documenting indigenous agricultural practices, community health solutions, prison ministry and local innovations. Localizing Open Educational Resources: Through curriculum integration efforts, faculty and students collaboratively adapt and develop OER that reflect African context thus embedding local case studies, languages, and lived realities. This addresses the disconnect between imported content and contextual relevance.Regional Collaboration and Knowledge Sharing: Cross-institutional initiatives have fostered networks of educators working on open practices, enabling sharing of resources, pedagogies, and strategies for embedding openness within teaching, learning, and research.

Speakers

Judith Pete

Lecturer & Research Coordinator, Tangaza University

Dr. Judith Pete is a Senior Lecturer, Global Researcher and Africa Director for Service Learning at Higher Education institutions in Africa for over a decade. Worked in Regional Non-Governmental Organizations in different managerial and leadership capacities. She is currently the... Read More →

Thursday October 8, 2026 10:30am - 11:00am EDT
5 DR3 MIT Samberg Conference Center, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA 02139 USA

Presentation

Speaker Modality In-person
Track Innovating Open Content to Democratize Knowledge

10:30am EDT

The Curious Commons: Towards a Digital Public Goods Lab

Thursday October 8, 2026 10:30am - 11:35am EDT

7 DR5

ID: 33849

What does it actually mean to uphold knowledge as a public good in a multilingual and digitally divided world? Too often our answers stay stuck in separate silos. Or they chase reforms that do not scale and lack the longevity to serve global majority audiences. We separate arts from sciences. Global North from Global South. Research from lived experience. And open education from other open movements like open source software, open data, open access and open science.We think democratising knowledge means bringing things together intentionally, and we would like to host a panel discussion on these lines. That means drawing on the philosophical and social foundations of the commons, from Elinor Ostrom's work on collective governance to contemporary critical thinking about knowledge as a shared and abundant resource. It also means paying attention to the symbiosis of arts and sciences, learning from the lived experiences of other open communities, and recognising curiosity as a real driver. Curiosity is what turns access into engagement and infrastructure into community.We are bringing together open source advocates, academicians and community builders from across these movements to ask a practical question. How might we build a shared agenda, and perhaps a shared space like a Digital Public Goods Lab, for multilingual open education that is grounded in ideas but also practical and genuinely curious?Our conversation will draw on real experiments. These include the Future of the Commons series, inspired by Ostrom, which runs monthly discussions on AI, archives and Indian languages. Also the Content Partnerships Hub. And recognised DPGs like Wikipedia and Wikidata, which we see as useful examples rather than the main story.We will focus on three questions.First, what philosophical and social frameworks can help us understand knowledge democratisation beyond technical or bureaucratic approaches? Second, how have other open movements navigated barriers of language, power and participation, and what can open education learn from their lived experiences? Third, what would a Digital Public Goods Lab look like if it bridged open knowledge and open education, placed arts and sciences alongside each other, treated curiosity as a design principle, and served marginalised language communities in the Global South?The session will end with audience Q&A and an invitation to join a shared online workspace. The goal is to move from conversation to collective action.

Speakers

Tanveer Hasan

International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad

Tanveer Hasan – Works at the intersection of digital commons, open knowledge and multilingual open education. Convenor of the Future of the Commons series, an informal collective inspired by Elinor Ostrom that runs monthly discussions on AI, archives and Indian languages. Currently... Read More →

Vasudeva Varma

Professor, International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad

Professor at IIIT Hyderabad, specialising in information retrieval, language technologies and AI. Works on making AI and digital infrastructure accessible for Indian languages and marginalised communities in the Global South. Advises on DPG policy and open knowledge initiatives.

Thursday October 8, 2026 10:30am - 11:35am EDT
7 DR5 MIT Samberg Conference Center, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA 02139 USA

Panel

Speaker Modality In-person
Track Hacking the Open Ecosystem and Praxis for the Public Good

10:30am EDT

Open Education Fresk, a Collaborative Workshop to Explore Benefits of Open Sharing and Best Practices

Thursday October 8, 2026 10:30am - 11:35am EDT

3 Room I

ID: 33868

During this collaborative workshop, using maps, quizzes, and guided discussions, identify concrete situations where Open Education and Open Educational Resources (OER) come into play. Connect best practices to these use cases so you too can take action in your environment.During the workshop:- Understand the growing importance of open sharing and digital learning; open education, beyond OER platforms, is a human, collective adventure full of choices to enrich learning success.- Identify the potential benefits of open education for different users: teachers, instructional designers, and students, as well as the obstacles and how to solve them.- Explore best practices to adopt, according to your aspirations.The Open Education Fresk is conceived as a mediating tool that fosters exchange, discussion of perspectives, and the collective emergence of disciplinary or transdisciplinary use cases, while also examining its capacity to facilitate participants' appropriation of the principles and practices of open education. The "Open Education Fresk" workshop lasts 1.5 hours and is designed for up to 30 participants (teachers, instructional designers, doctoral students, support staff), divided into subgroups of 4 to 5 people. It is designed as a collaborative, experiential, and reflective process, fostering the gradual appropriation of open education concepts and open educational resources (OER).The workshop combines short theoretical presentations, professional role-playing exercises, the use of interactive materials (cards, game board), and peer discussions, all within an active learning framework. The workshop is structured in six successive stages: 1. Icebreaker, aimed at building rapport and introducing the benefits of information sharing; 2. Workshop Framework, presentation of objectives, operating rules, and the facilitator's role; 3. Professional role-playing exercises based on concrete teaching or learning situations; each participant will identify a situation that is relevant for himself-herself. 4. Structured input on open education and OER, in the form of a collaborative quiz and a debate with spatial movement, focusing on Creative Commons licenses; 5. Argumentation exercises, where participants adopt the role of ambassadors for open education and connect benefits with concrete practices; 6. Action-oriented conclusion, allowing each group to identify various best practices and a first "small step" for implementation in their individual context. “The fresk” pedagogical model, applied to numerous topics (climate fresk, biodiversity fresk, etc.), accelerates the understanding of major societal issues. The effectiveness of this educational tool and the collaborative experience allow for the rapid and widespread dissemination of an understanding of the subject and encourage action within one's own environment.

Speakers

Anne-Catherine Baseilhac

Open Education COO (Chief Operating Officer) at Nantes University, Nantes University - France

Anne-Catherine Baseilhac, Open Education Chief Operating Officer at Nantes University, France. Graduated from the Lyon School of Management, Anne-Catherine has held several project management positions, both nationally and internationally in companies, where she gained expertise in... Read More →

Arnaud Guével

Vice President for Academic Affairs and Open Education at Nantes Université, Nantes University - France

Arnaud Guével has been Vice President for Academic Affairs and Open Education at Nantes Université since 2020. A professor in sports science specializing in neuromuscular function, he served as Dean of the Faculty of Sport Sciences and Director of the "Motricity, Interactions, Performance... Read More →

Thursday October 8, 2026 10:30am - 11:35am EDT
3 Room I MIT Samberg Conference Center, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA 02139 USA

Workshop

Speaker Modality In-person
Track Catalyzing Human Connection Creativity and Curiosity to Thrive

11:50am EDT

A Massachusetts Initiative to Connect OER with Responsible AI Use

Thursday October 8, 2026 11:50am - 12:20pm EDT

5 DR3

ID: 33662

As open education continues to evolve, practitioners are being asked to rethink how emergent technologies, particularly generative artificial intelligence (AI) can strengthen, rather than undermine, the core values of openness. This session explores how open educational practices can adapt to rapid technological change while remaining grounded in human connection, creativity, and the public good.The session draws on the Career and AI Readiness while Remixing Open Textbooks through an Equity Lens (CA-ROTEL) initiative, a collaborative project bringing together faculty and support teams across multiple institutions in Massachusetts. The project is supported by a $1.98 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education to adopt open-source textbooks and create ancillary materials for general education courses that are applicable across public college systems. Framingham State University is the lead recipient and has partnered with UMass-Lowell and Northern Essex Community College on the initiative. CA-ROTEL integrates open educational resources (OER), ethical uses of generative AI, and career-connected learning into general education courses that serve diverse learner populations.Rather than positioning AI as a shortcut or efficiency tool, CA-ROTEL approaches it as a participatory and reflective technology, one that can support creativity, deepen learning, and help students articulate transferable skills when used transparently and responsibly. Faculty participating in the initiative remix openly licensed textbooks and create ancillary materials that are culturally responsive, adaptable, and locally relevant. Generative AI is used intentionally to support authentic learning activities, such as modeling workplace scenarios, discussing the ethics of AI, generating prompts for reflection and revision, and helping learners practice describing their knowledge and skills for future academic or professional contexts.This session will share how CA-ROTEL intentionally combines open licensing, faculty support, and collaborative professional development to build sustainable open educational ecosystems. Particular attention will be given to the processes that enabled both materials and teaching practices to circulate across institutions while remaining flexible enough to support local context and instructional autonomy.Speakers will highlight how integrating generative AI and career readiness prompted faculty to critically examine their own perspectives on AI and to more intentionally embed the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) Career Competencies within their curricula. Through CA-ROTEL’s structured professional development, faculty gained a practical, values-aligned framework for thoughtfully integrating AI with OER that moves beyond experimentation toward purposeful pedagogical design.As a result, instructors reported increased confidence and readiness to incorporate AI-enhanced learning activities into their courses. This preparation directly supports students in developing essential digital literacy and career-relevant skills, better positioning them to navigate and contribute to today’s AI-influenced workplace.This session positions CA-ROTEL as a transferable case study, not a fixed model. While the initiative emerged within a specific regional context, its methods—remixing OER, supporting faculty through open workflows, and treating AI as a tool for inquiry rather than compliance—are intentionally designed to share. The session invites participants to consider how similar approaches might be adapted to different educational systems, languages, policy environments, and cultural contexts.Dr. Robert Awkward will facilitate this session, offering perspective on the ways the CA‑ROTEL project is influencing OER development in Massachusetts and contributing to wider conversations about openness and educational innovation.

Speakers

Susan Tashjian

Academic Innovations Programs Manager, Northern Essex Community College (NECC)

Susan Tashjian is Academic Innovations Programs Manager at Northern Essex Community College and a CA-ROTEL principal investigator. She supports faculty in instructional innovation, OER adoption/creation, and practical AI integration. Her work emphasizes equitable access, culturally... Read More →

Donna Mellen

Executive Director of Academic Technology, University of Massachusetts Lowell

Donna Mellen is the Executive Director of Academic Technology at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, where she leads campus initiatives focused on learning platforms, open education, digital accessibility, and partnering with faculty to scale inclusive, learner‑centered teaching... Read More →

Robert Awkward

Assistant Commissioner for Academic Effectiveness, Massachusetts Department of Higher Education

Dr. Robert Awkward is an educator and scholar based in Massachusetts whose work explores the intersection of open education, inclusive pedagogy, and emerging technologies in higher education. His interests focus on how open practices—such as OER, collaborative knowledge creation... Read More →

Ben Atchison

Professor of Mathematics, Framingham State University (FSU)

Benjamin Atchison is a Professor of Mathematics at Framingham State University and is a CA-ROTEL principal investigator. He served as an Assessment Coordinator for the original ROTEL grant (2021-2025). He is a long-time OER adopter and an advocate for the development and adoption... Read More →

Thursday October 8, 2026 11:50am - 12:20pm EDT
5 DR3 MIT Samberg Conference Center, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA 02139 USA

Presentation

Speaker Modality In-person
Track Exploring Emergent Technologies and the Future of Openness

11:50am EDT

An Open Introduction to Film: Lessons from a NotebookLM Case Study

Thursday October 8, 2026 11:50am - 12:20pm EDT

6 DR4

ID: 33808

The transition to Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) for foundational survey courses poses a unique challenge: how do we replace beloved, publisher-provided textbooks that come bundled with extensive, high-quality supplementary resources? At the College of San Mateo, an AANAPISI and Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI), the Film 100 (Introduction to Film) course is a core degree requirement and a highly popular general education transfer course. As part of a statewide Acceleration Grant initiative aimed at converting the entire Film AA degree to full ZTC status by Fall 2027, our team is addressing this challenge through the creation of Reframing Cinema, a new, OER ZTC textbook.Crucially, Reframing Cinema is built from a decolonial lens, integrating film history and analysis while centering BIPOC, AANAPISI, and HSI film traditions as constitutive of film history rather than supplementary to it. However, writing a culturally responsive textbook is only half the battle. To truly support both student success and widespread instructor adoption, the text needs a robust ecosystem of visual aids, study materials, and a structured delivery method that rivals commercial publisher packages.This session presents a case study on how we are leveraging Google’s NotebookLM and other generative AI tools to build this comprehensive, scalable, open-access ecosystem. We will showcase how we use generative AI to develop custom images and infographics to illustrate complex film craft concepts, and how NotebookLM transforms the foundational OER text into dynamic study materials—such as interactive podcasts, explainer videos, and study guides—that seamlessly align with the course's decolonial framework.Beyond generating individual assets, we will discuss how we are packaging the textbook and all AI-enhanced supplementary materials into a comprehensive, ready-to-use Canvas Course Shell. This turnkey model allows future instructors to simply copy and adapt the shell, effectively removing the logistical barriers and overwhelming workload often associated with transitioning to ZTC materials. We view this holistic approach as a scalable framework that can support ZTC degree pathways across film and other disciplines.By sharing our work-in-progress, we aim to spark an active dialogue about the intersection of artificial intelligence, open education, and culturally responsive pedagogy. How can we creatively leverage emergent AI tools to build media-rich, inclusive resources? And how do these tools empower faculty to center equity without succumbing to burnout? Participants will leave with actionable strategies for building their own scalable, AI-supported OER frameworks.

Speakers

Tamara Perkins

Film Professor and Filmmaker, College of San Mateo

Tamara Perkins is an award-winning documentary director, producer, and educator with over 20 years of filmmaking experience and over six years teaching film at the College of San Mateo (an AANAPISI and Hispanic-Serving Institution). Deeply committed to equity-centered pedagogy, she... Read More →

Thursday October 8, 2026 11:50am - 12:20pm EDT
6 DR4 MIT Samberg Conference Center, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA 02139 USA

Presentation

Speaker Modality In-person
Track Exploring Emergent Technologies and the Future of Openness

11:50am EDT

From Conference Spark to Campus Change: Students as Co-Creators of Open Practice

Thursday October 8, 2026 11:50am - 12:20pm EDT

2 Room M

ID: 31878

What happens when a student encounters open education for the very first time, not in a classroom, but in the dynamic, participatory space of a conference? This session explores that question through the shared journey of an experienced open education practitioner and an undergraduate education student who, just two years ago, attended an open education conference together. For the student, the experience was transformative. What began as exposure quickly evolved into curiosity, and now into action: a senior capstone project designed to investigate and expand open education awareness at her home institution, where knowledge of open practices remains limited.Framed within the conference theme “Come Invent With Us! Innovating Open Practices to Uphold and Uplift Knowledge as a Public Good,” this session positions students not as passive recipients of open education, but as active agents in “hacking” and reshaping the open ecosystem. Together, the presenters will share their intergenerational and cross-role perspectives on entering, navigating, and contributing to the open education movement.At the heart of the session is the student’s emerging research design. She is developing a faculty survey to assess awareness of, and interest in, open educational practices, alongside plans for student-centered outreach and focus groups. These efforts aim to surface both barriers and opportunities for open education adoption at her institution, while also elevating student voice as a critical yet often underrepresented dimension of open praxis. Participants will be invited to contribute feedback on survey design, question framing, and strategies for engaging both faculty and students in meaningful dialogue about openness.This interactive session aligns with the “Hacking the Open Ecosystem and Praxis for the Public Good” track by centering experimentation, co-creation, and grassroots innovation. It highlights how small, relational entry points, such as bringing a student to a conference, can catalyze broader institutional and cultural shifts. Attendees will engage in rapid ideation activities to help refine the student’s research instruments and outreach strategies, effectively becoming co-designers in a real-time open education initiative.The session is also grounded in emerging literature on the value of student participation in academic conferences and high-impact practices. Research suggests that undergraduate engagement in scholarly communities enhances students’ sense of belonging, professional identity, and academic motivation (Kuh, 2008; Lopatto, 2010). Additionally, involving students as partners in educational innovation aligns with calls for more inclusive and participatory approaches to knowledge creation (Cook-Sather, Bovill, & Felten, 2014).By weaving together lived experience, research design, and participatory engagement, this session invites attendees to consider: What might be possible if we more intentionally invited students into the open ecosystem, not just as beneficiaries, but as co-inventors of the future of knowledge as a public good?

Speakers

Sydney DelMastro

Student, Endicott College

Sydney DelMastro is a student at Endicott College, majoring in English Secondary Education with a minor in Spanish. Her academic work and field experiences have focused on supporting diverse learners and creating inclusive, engaging classroom environments. She has completed field... Read More →

Lisa Young

Founder & Principal, EduEssentials Consulting

Dr. Lisa Young is a longtime advocate for open education and learner centered innovation in higher education. She recently retired after more than 30 years with the Maricopa County Community College District, where she served in several leadership roles, including Faculty Administrator... Read More →

Thursday October 8, 2026 11:50am - 12:20pm EDT
2 Room M MIT Samberg Conference Center, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA 02139 USA

Presentation

Speaker Modality In-person
Track Hacking the Open Ecosystem and Praxis for the Public Good

11:50am EDT

Futures Thinking in Open Education, and What to Do When the AI Bubble Bursts

Thursday October 8, 2026 11:50am - 12:20pm EDT

8 DR6

ID: 34012

Education done with some sort of “open” ethos has existed for decades, changing shape and direction as new technologies like the World Wide Web and mobile connectivity made learning possible in new places and new ways. Over the last few years, what we previously referred to as machine learning has been repackaged with applications and software layers that communicate with humans in their native language – AI has arrived. But questions surrounding the onset and expansion of AI in the OER and broader Open Education spaces have increased, while conclusive answers about the direct and indirect impacts of its use elude us. What is AI able to do for us that we were previously unable to do, and at what social, financial, legal, and environmental costs? What changes between learners and across collaborators when various blackbox AI tools remain unreliable in their outputs? How do financial inequities shift as AI is taken up unequally by different groups, closing some gaps and further stratifying others? How do OER practitioners change their approaches to copyright and content sharing or reuse as AI models scrape and churn all content, not just that which has been openly licensed? And how might people at all levels of OER leadership and practice consider the implications on the environment, weighing them against the increased potential to democratize education? This session will explore key questions beyond just AI technology itself, but as Heidegger theorized nearly a century ago, the question concerning technology is not simply a technological question.This session will also discuss the process of futures modeling pioneered by Jim Dator, and how images of the future can be created based on trends and patterns of the past and present. Specific focus will be given to opening up the possibility that the current AI ecosystem may experience a bubble burst, similar to the Dot-com bubble in the late 1990ʻs. How do we assess the durability of our work in Open Education in the context of a potential AI bubble burst? And what do we do when it happens? While the future itself cannot be predicted, it is worth considering how Open Education changed as a result of previous seismic shifts in technology. At minimum, we can prepare to tackle undesirable future trajectories while charting paths towards those which uphold (and expand) efforts in Open Education to democratize access to public knowledge and level the learning playing field for anyone, anywhere.

Speakers

Billy Meinke-Lau

Director, Instructional Design and Development, Outreach College, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa

Billy Meinke is the Director of Instructional Design and Development (IDD) of the Outreach College at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, leading a team developing online programs and Open Educational Resources (OER). He has worked across many areas of Open Education, and enjoys... Read More →

Thursday October 8, 2026 11:50am - 12:20pm EDT
8 DR6 MIT Samberg Conference Center, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA 02139 USA

Presentation

Speaker Modality In-person
Track Exploring Emergent Technologies and the Future of Openness

11:50am EDT

What If Open Learning Began with the World Each Learner Brings?

Thursday October 8, 2026 11:50am - 12:20pm EDT

4 Room T

ID: 32255

What if open learning began not with content, but with the world each learner already brings? Open education has done transformative work in widening access to knowledge, resources, and participation. But in an age of artificial intelligence, when information is increasingly abundant and instantly available, a deeper educational question comes into view: what helps learners make meaning from what they encounter, connect it to their own lives, and locate themselves in relation to one another and the world?This session explores that question through a story-first approach to open learning. Rather than beginning with abstract content, predetermined curricular structures, or decontextualized competencies, this approach begins with something personally meaningful to the learner: a language, a family story, a migration history, a food tradition, a place, or another lived point of connection. From there, learning expands outward into broader historical, cultural, ecological, and interdisciplinary understanding. The aim is not simply to make learning more engaging, but to create a form of education that is more humanly relevant, contextually grounded, and responsive to the realities learners already inhabit.At the center of the session is the proposition that openness must now do more than expand access to materials. It must also create conditions for curiosity, connection, recognition, and agency. When learners are invited to begin with their own worlds, openness becomes not only a matter of availability, but also of relevance, participation, and meaning. This has important implications for how we think about global learning, intercultural understanding, and the future of education in diverse, multilingual, and technologically mediated contexts.The session introduces a story-first model for open learning that is designed to be adaptable, translatable, and usable across settings. Participants will consider how such an approach might complement and extend existing understandings of openness by foregrounding lived experience, human connection, and local context. The session will be especially relevant to educators, designers, and institutional leaders interested in the relationship between AI, global learning, and more meaningful forms of open education.After a brief framing of the core idea, participants will be invited into guided reflection and discussion around one central question: What would change in open education if learning began not only with open content, but with the world each learner brings? The goal is to generate both practical and conceptual insight for participants seeking more human-centered, future-facing approaches to open learning, approaches that preserve the values of openness while making space for identity, context, curiosity, and connection.

Speakers

Paula Laurel Jackson

What If Open Learning Began with the World Each Learner Brings?, Harvard Graduate School of Education, Project Zero

Paula Laurel Jackson is a Research Fellow and Education Architect exploring global learning, identity, human development, and the future of education in the age of AI. Drawing on research and field-based work across 56 countries, she examines how learning can become more meaningful... Read More →

Thursday October 8, 2026 11:50am - 12:20pm EDT
4 Room T MIT Samberg Conference Center, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA 02139 USA

Presentation

Speaker Modality In-person
Track Catalyzing Human Connection Creativity and Curiosity to Thrive

11:50am EDT

Embedding Open Scholarship into the Ecosystem

Thursday October 8, 2026 11:50am - 12:55pm EDT

3 Room I

ID: 33942

MIT has a storied history of hacking, born of a culture of creative problem-solving, boundary-pushing, and building the system you believe in if it doesn’t yet exist. The MIT Libraries bring that same spirit of hacking to the open scholarship ecosystem, in service of our vision of “a world where enduring, abundant, equitable, and meaningful access to information serves to empower and inspire humanity." This panel explores the conditions that enabled MIT Libraries to embed open scholarship not as a single program or role, but as an institutional commitment woven through every aspect of our work. Central to the MIT Libraries’ vision is a clear strategic principle: to be relentless in the pursuit of a more open and equitable scholarly landscape. This relentlessness requires intentional structural decision-making to invest in open scholarship, strong cultural emphasis on open scholarship as a tool for “working wisely, creatively, and effectively for the betterment of humankind” and courage as a leadership imperative. Through a moderated discussion, our panelists will speak to each of these conditions from their own areas of responsibility, and engage with the audience in reflective discussion on what moves the needle in their own organizational environments: Director of Libraries Chris Bourg will briefly set the stage by describing how MIT's strategic priorities — open scholarship, data and computation, digital-first libraries — are deeply interdependent, and how open scholarship is inseparable from MIT's institutional identity and values. She will then moderate a panel discussion and open a conversation with the audience.Erin Stalberg, Associate Director for Knowledge Strategy and Access, will focus on how MIT’s collections strategy operationalizes these values and how we navigate our goals for openness within a publishing ecosystem that, while changing, still remains heavily influenced by profit motives.Sue Kriegsman, Deputy Director for the Center for Research on Equitable and Open Scholarship, will focus on how research informs the development of policies and funding models, to ensure institutional practices for open scholarship are built on a foundation of data and rigorous analysis.Heather Sardis, Associate Director for Data, Discovery, and Technology Solutions will will describe how openness is built into the Libraries' technology infrastructure, from open APIs enabling computational access to research, to repositories as platforms for open scholarship, to a discovery strategy designed to make it easy to choose open resources.After framing the MIT example of a successful ecosystem (that is still and always evolving), the moderator will open the conversation to the room: through the lenses of scholarly communications, research, data and technology, what conditions have made it possible (or challenging) to infuse open scholarship through your own organization? What advice, alternatives, and tools have been successful or challenging? The goal is a collective conversation about what it takes to move from open as aspiration to open as embedded practice.

Speakers

Chris Bourg

Director of Libraries, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Chris Bourg is the Director of Libraries at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where she is also the founding director of the Center for Research on Equitable and Open Scholarship (CREOS). Prior to assuming her role at MIT, Chris worked for 12 years in the Stanford University... Read More →

Sue Kriegsman

Deputy Director, Center for Research on Equitable and Open Scholarship, MIT LIbraries

Sue Kriegsman is the deputy director for the Center for Research on Equitable and Open Scholarship (CREOS) at MIT Libraries where her porfio includes managing the interdisciplinary team that produces and supports research and education on the policies, practices, and impacts of open... Read More →

Heather Sardis

Associate Director for Data, Discovery, and Technology Solutions, MIT Libraries

Heather Sardis is the Associate Director for Data, Discovery, and Technology Solutions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Libraries. Prior to assuming her role at MIT, Heather directed the library of the California Academy of Sciences. Her work in the nonprofit... Read More →

Erin Stalberg

Associate Director for Knowledge Strategy and Access, MIT Libraries

Erin Stalberg is the Associate Director for Collections and Faculty Relations Strategy at MIT Libraries, where her portfolio includes general and distinctive collections, scholarly communications and copyright strategy, technical and access services, and liaisons, instruction, and... Read More →

Thursday October 8, 2026 11:50am - 12:55pm EDT
3 Room I MIT Samberg Conference Center, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA 02139 USA

Panel

Speaker Modality In-person
Track Hacking the Open Ecosystem and Praxis for the Public Good

12:25pm EDT

The Open Science Adoption Gap in Research Training

Thursday October 8, 2026 12:25pm - 12:55pm EDT

6 DR4

ID: 33915

Open science has become a central element of global science policy and open education. International initiatives such as the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science (2021) encourage transparency, accessibility, and collaboration in research. Universities and research agencies have increasingly implemented infrastructures and policies supporting open access publishing, open repositories, and open research data. However, open science requires not only open infrastructures but also capacity building for the collective process of knowledge creation (Peršić and Straza, 2023). How are future researchers educated to embrace open practices and become part of this open ecosystem? This session examines the relationship between open science policies and the educational practices (Cronin, 2017) that prepare researchers to engage in open science. It provides a Latin American perspective by examining how open science is translated into research training within a public university in Uruguay. The study analyzes how open science concepts and practices appear in social sciences undergraduate studies and humanities programs at a large public university. The research focuses on the curricular content of 56 undergraduate courses related to research training, including methodology, epistemology, statistics, information science, and digital technologies.Using qualitative content analysis supported by AI-assisted tools, the study explores whether open education and open science principles—such as open educational resources, open access, open data, open peer review, and collaborative research—are explicitly or implicitly present in course programs. The results reveal a significant gap between the institutional promotion of open science and the educational preparation of future researchers. Explicit references to open science are largely absent from the analyzed curricula. While some courses address elements related to the public nature of science, data management, or research transparency, the systematic teaching of open science practices remains limited.Drawing on sociological perspectives on academic habitus (Bourdieu, 1990) and theories of technological appropriation, the session argues that the adoption of open science depends not only on policies and infrastructures but also on how openness becomes embedded in teaching and learning the professional grounds and practices of open research. From an open education perspective, integrating open science into research training curricula may represent a crucial step in enabling universities to move from policy adoption toward the meaningful practice of openness in knowledge production.The session invites participants to reflect on how global open science agendas encounter local academic traditions, institutional constraints, and epistemic inequalities (Fricker, 2007) in research training. It aims at answering how higher education institutions can bridge the gap and connect open science policies with open education strategies that support the development of new generations capable of working within open knowledge ecosystems.

Speakers

Mariana Porta Galván

Universidad de la República

Mariana Porta is a sociologist and holds a PhD in Informatics in Education from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul and Universidad de la República (UFRGS–Udelar). She is a faculty member and researcher at Universidad de la República, Uruguay, where she works at the intersection... Read More →

Thursday October 8, 2026 12:25pm - 12:55pm EDT
6 DR4 MIT Samberg Conference Center, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA 02139 USA

Presentation

Speaker Modality In-person
Track Innovating Open Content to Democratize Knowledge

12:25pm EDT

Wikipedia and Open Education

Thursday October 8, 2026 12:25pm - 12:55pm EDT

4 Room T

ID: 34909

This presentation explores how might we transform a university’s course catalog, expert faculty, and multimedia archives into a global public good through the Wikimedia ecosystem. We explore formal, institutional-scale collaborations that move beyond traditional classroom or departmental-level projects in higher education. A focus of the effort we have underway at MIT is the shift toward a "multimedia-first" strategy. By integrating video lectures and course materials into Wikimedia Commons, partnerships can go beyond text to bridge critical knowledge gaps in, for example, climate science, technology history, and women's history.The session will address critical issues of this type of collaboration:Navigating the social and technical challenges of high-volume, automated contributions across multilingual projects.Transitioning a text-centric culture to effectively host, curate, and search complex digital assets like video and structured metadata.Moving from isolated, project-based "edit-a-thons" to permanent models that align with a university’s core mission of knowledge dissemination.Historically, university engagement with Wikipedia has been siloed within departments or library collections. This interactive session invites the GLAM, education, and multimedia communities to help shape a new model of engagement that respects the volunteer-led spirit of the movement while amplifying the reach of specialized academic knowledge to billions.

Speakers

Andrew Lih

Wikimedian in Residence, MIT Open Learning, MIT Open Learning

Andrew Lih has a long history in the Wikimedia movement and was the 2022 Wikimedia Laureate. He was among the first to use Wikipedia in the classroom at the university level, at the University of Hong Kong in 2003. Since then, he has been a champion of partnerships with universities... Read More →

Peter B. Kaufman

Associate Director, Resource Development, MIT Open Learning, MIT Open Learning

Peter B. Kaufman is Associate Director of Development at MIT Open Learning. Educated at Cornell and Columbia, he is the author of The New Enlightenment and the Fight to Free Knowledge (Seven Stories Press, 2021) and The Moving Image: A User’s Manual (The MIT Press, 2025). An educator... Read More →

Thursday October 8, 2026 12:25pm - 12:55pm EDT
4 Room T MIT Samberg Conference Center, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA 02139 USA

Presentation

Speaker Modality In-person
Track Innovating Open Content to Democratize Knowledge

12:55pm EDT

Lunch

Thursday October 8, 2026 12:55pm - 1:40pm EDT

9 7th Floor Lobby

Lunch Break
Take a break to enjoy lunch, connect with colleagues, and continue conversations with fellow conference participants before the afternoon sessions begin.

Thursday October 8, 2026 12:55pm - 1:40pm EDT
9 7th Floor Lobby MIT Samberg Conference Center, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA 02139 USA

General

Speaker Modality In-person

1:40pm EDT

After the Origin Story: Inheriting, Reframing, and Growing a Library-Led OER Program

Thursday October 8, 2026 1:40pm - 2:10pm EDT

5 DR3

ID: 33691

What if an OER program isn't a program at all — it's an ecosystem? Not a single initiative, not one flagship, but an interconnected web of relationships and program lines that meet faculty where they are, with different levels of support, funding, and librarian involvement at each entry point. That's not how most OER programs are designed from the start. It's often how they end up; and this session is an honest account of what it takes to get there deliberately. When the presenter joined a mid-sized regional R1 university library as Open Education Librarian in 2023, she stepped into exactly that kind of inherited complexity. A program existed, small, functional, and built on the work of a predecessor, but it lacked differentiation, clear pathways, and a coherent story that faculty could easily understand or act on. The programs that did exist had grown organically, which meant they were also quietly accumulating complexity: overlapping eligibility criteria, administratively burdensome payment structures, and no formal mechanism for maintaining the OER that had already been created. The work of the past two-plus years has been threefold: nurture and honor what already existed, redesign what wasn't working, and build new pathways where gaps were clear. The result is a six-line program ecosystem that covers the full range of faculty OER engagement: from high-investment original creation and course-level remixes to no-cost embedded partnerships with programs and departments, to high-impact online course rebuilds, to new editions of aging existing OER. Some program lines carry direct department-level funding; others are supported entirely through librarian time, graduate assistant partnerships, and strategic collaboration with instructional designers and program directors. Together, they provide a clear, campus-facing answer to a question many institutions struggle to answer simply: here are all the ways you can work with Open Education at this institution, and here is who is eligible for what. This session will walk through the arc of that ecosystem's development: what was inherited, what was reframed, what was built new, and what is currently being formalized as the program prepares for a deliberate public relaunch. It will address the administrative lessons learned, including why individual faculty payment structures became untenable and how shifting to department-level payments dramatically reduced complexity, as well as the ongoing challenge of sustaining a multi-line program with a small team and no external grant funding. Attendees will leave with a practical framework for thinking about OER programs as ecosystems of relationships and initiatives rather than single projects; concrete, low- and no-cost program models tested in a library-led, resource-constrained context; and a realistic picture of what it looks like to inherit, reframe, and grow an open education program over time. This session is especially relevant for OER practitioners, academic librarians, and program coordinators navigating program development without the benefit of a clean slate or a large grant — which is to say, most of us.

Speakers

Christine Rickabaugh

Open Education Librarian, University of Arkansas Libraries

Christine Rickabaugh is a former early childhood educator who traded crayons and glitter for Pressbooks and Creative Commons licenses — and hasn't looked back. Now the Open Education Librarian at the University of Arkansas Libraries, she leads the university's OER program, chairs... Read More →

Thursday October 8, 2026 1:40pm - 2:10pm EDT
5 DR3 MIT Samberg Conference Center, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA 02139 USA

Presentation

Speaker Modality In-person
Track Hacking the Open Ecosystem and Praxis for the Public Good

1:40pm EDT

Building the Open Education Association: A Framework for Field-Building

Thursday October 8, 2026 1:40pm - 2:10pm EDT

8 DR6

ID: 33985

This session will walk through what it took to build the Open Education Association from the ground up, and what that process can offer to open education advocates looking to strengthen coordination in their own regions and contexts.The Open Education Association is a newly founded national organization dedicated to strengthening and expanding the open education field across the United States. Rooted in the decades-strong open education community, it represents a national coordinating body shaped entirely by the people working within it. Its development began not with a formal plan, but with a conversation at the 2023 Open Education Conference, where practitioners reflected on what the field still needed to move forward collectively.From there, SPARC, the four regional interstate higher education compacts, and DOERS co-hosted a national discussion series that examined the case for a national strategy. Those conversations pointed to a consistent theme: the field did not need a single program; it needed stronger coordination among existing efforts. A subsequent needs assessment survey gathered input from more than 1,000 community members across all 50 states. The findings confirmed that the field was not lacking solutions. It was lacking the coordination to make those solutions visible and accessible to everyone who needed them.Practitioners identified four priority areas where greater support was needed: finding OER, responding to political and technological change, securing funding, and accessing tools and resources. Just as telling, only 14% of respondents viewed the field as well-coordinated nationally, making the case for a national coordinating body clear.The association responded to those findings by developing governance structures, a membership model, and a first-year programming agenda through a series of open working sessions with the broader community. That process required making real decisions about scope, priorities, and how to balance accessibility with sustainability. It also meant sitting with the tension of building something new while being careful not to duplicate the work that existing organizations were already doing well. This session will present that development arc honestly, including what worked, what required pivoting, and what the association's early days have looked like in practice.Every national context is unique, and this session is not intended to be prescriptive. Rather, it is an opportunity to share our process openly so that others can consider what may be relevant in their own context. For anyone considering coordinating infrastructure at any scale, this session offers frameworks and hard-won lessons in how to build something that reflects the needs of the people it is meant to serve.

Speakers

Nicole Allen

Director of Open Education, SPARC

Nicole Allen is the Director of Open Education for SPARC, leading efforts to advance openness and equity in education. She oversees a state and federal policy program, a librarian community of practice, and a leadership program for open education professionals. Nicole has dedicated... Read More →

Joy Shoemate

Director of Online Education, College of Canyons

Joy Shoemate is the Director of Online Education at College of the Canyons where she supports instructors’ successful integration of technology into teaching and learning to promote student success, persistence and completion in distance education courses. She also oversees the... Read More →

Aishah Abdullah

Open Education Project Manager, SPARC

Aishah Abdullah works for SPARC as the Open Education Project Manager. In this role, she helps support SPARC's open education work and provides support to the Open Education Association. She began her journey in open education as a student advocate at her community college and continued... Read More →

Thursday October 8, 2026 1:40pm - 2:10pm EDT
8 DR6 MIT Samberg Conference Center, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA 02139 USA

Presentation

Speaker Modality In-person
Track Catalyzing Human Connection Creativity and Curiosity to Thrive

1:40pm EDT

Reimagining Open Practices at Scale: How Massachusetts Is Using Strategic Planning and Privacy-Conscious AI to Advance and Deepen the Utilization of OER

Thursday October 8, 2026 1:40pm - 2:10pm EDT

6 DR4

ID: 33812

The Massachusetts Department of Higher Education's Open & Low-Cost Educational Resources Advisory Council (OLERAC) Strategic Planning Committee embarked on a comprehensive, year-long initiative to determine national best practices in OER implementation, identify systemic barriers facing the open education community, and explore OLERAC's potential role in expanding educational access. This presentation shares our complete methodological approach, evidence-based findings, and actionable recommendations developed for the Commissioner and the Board of Higher Education. Our multi-phase research methodology combined rigorous desk analysis of published policy and operational content from OER programs nationwide, semi-structured interviews with OER program leads across North America representing diverse institutional types (community colleges, four-year institutions, and state systems), and systematic review of internal operational, policy, and budgeting documentation from existing OER programs. Critically, we pioneered the use of closed large language models for rapid qualitative analysis while developing novel methodological frameworks and engagement documents to maintain participant privacy and data security - a pressing consideration for public institutions navigating emergent AI technologies while upholding ethical research standards. Attendees will gain practical insights into how our work directly addresses the conference theme of reimagining open practices, policies, and pedagogy to solve real-world problems at scale. We will share concrete, transferable strategies for scaling OER adoption across institutional boundaries, overcoming common implementation barriers including faculty engagement, sustainable funding, and technical infrastructure – while noting sustained faculty engagement remains an ongoing challenge. We also explored Early College and Dual Enrollment students, an emergent population that stands to benefit disproportionately from reduced material costs and improved access to high-quality learning materials before matriculating to college, though this warrants further investigation.The implications of this work extend far beyond Massachusetts. With Massachusetts public higher education students saving $21.5 million in FY24 alone, a remarkable 33% increase over FY23, and experiencing 20% lower DFW (Drop/Fail/Withdraw) rates when using no-cost textbooks compared to traditional materials, our findings offer compelling, evidence-based pathways for other states and institutions pursuing similar large-scale OER initiatives. We will present specific data on student outcomes, institutional adoption rates, and the relationship between OER implementation and equity metrics. We will also address critical questions about the intersection of openness and emergent technology: How can institutions responsibly leverage AI tools while maintaining privacy and ethical standards? What role should advisory councils play in shaping state-level OER policy?How might open practices be extended to reach students earlier in their educational journeys, particularly those from underrepresented and low-income backgrounds? Our presentation offers replicable components for strategic planning that balances innovation with accountability, demonstrating how open education can serve learners through cost savings and improved success, faculty through increased teaching & learning choices and the opportunity to use open pedagogy, and communities through expanded access to higher education.By transparently sharing our methodology, findings, challenges, and recommendations, we invite the open education community to learn from our successes, adapt our approaches to their local contexts, and collaborate on solving shared challenges, embodying the very spirit of openness, equity, and practical problem-solving this conference track celebrates.

Speakers

Robert Awkward

Assistant Commissioner for Academic Effectiveness, Massachusetts Department of Higher Education

Carey Zigouras

Access Services Manager, Massachusetts Maritime Academy

Carey Zigouras has managed the Massachusetts Maritime Academy Library in Buzzards Bay, Ma. since 2022. A former high school English teacher, she is interested in first year college students’ information literacy skills and their previous experiences with libraries. She joined... Read More →

Sarah C. Hutton

Education and Clinical Services Librarian, University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School

Dr. Sarah C. Hutton (she/her/ella) is an academic research librarian, educator, and data analyst whose work spans open education, governance frameworks, organizational theory, and strategic planning. At the Lamar Soutter Library at UMass Chan Medical School, she supports multi-institution... Read More →

Thursday October 8, 2026 1:40pm - 2:10pm EDT
6 DR4 MIT Samberg Conference Center, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA 02139 USA

Presentation

Speaker Modality In-person
Track Exploring Emergent Technologies and the Future of Openness

1:40pm EDT

The Keys to Opening Open Pedagogy: Unlocking Student-Created Digital Escape Rooms Through Renewable Assignments

Thursday October 8, 2026 1:40pm - 2:10pm EDT

2 Room M

ID: 31985

Use the clues to find the keyTo opening open pedagogy.Escape rooms set the learning toneWhere students can create and own.In an introductory Library course, students are tasked with creating digital escape rooms for their peers to pilot test, learn from, and rise to the challenge of finding the key to escape based on a series of clues. Students have the option to license their digital escape rooms using Creative Commons licensing and have an understanding that they are creating an Open Educational Resource (OER) to teach future students. Marketed as content created by students for students, these digital escape rooms are renewable assignments. Renewable assignments are grounded in (OER) open pedagogy research (Wiley & Hilton, 2018) and theoretical frameworks such as self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 2000) and redistributive, recognitive, and representational principles of social justice (Lambert, 2018). In an effort to empower students and include diverse voices in the creation of learning materials, the digital escape rooms are creatively designed by students for future students as they teach and learn the value of libraries, information literacy concepts, or what they want students to know about the syllabus.Participants will gain insight into how this assignment integrates multiple technologies such as PowerPoint for interactive slide challenges, Canvas quizzes with embedded video content (and closed captioning), Canva for designing, and Springshare tools such as LibWizard and LibGuides for structured clues with multiple landing pages that deliver research-based adventures. These multiple levels of digital escape rooms from basic to more advanced provide scaffolding opportunities in online classes for learners to develop skills using information literacy frames such as Research as Inquiry, Searching as Strategic Exploration, Information Creation as a Process, and Information Has Value (ACRL, 2016).The session will outline the open pedagogical framework that was a key takeaway from completing the Open For Anti-Racism (OFAR) training. Open pedagogy transforms students from passive consumers of information to active creators using online learning as the modality for escape rooms, which are popular entertainment for students. Peer to peer instruction increases confidence (Tullis & Goldstone, 2020), aligning this assignment with research that demonstrates increased engagement, motivation, and deeper learning when students proudly publish their work. Wiley and Hilton (2018) highlight renewable assignments as improving student agency and achievement of learning outcomes with work that has lasting value. DeRosa and Jhangiani (2017) emphasize that open educational practices foster inclusivity by amplifying diverse voices in the creation of knowledge in student-authored OER.Attendees will leave with ideas and strategies for implementing digital escape rooms as renewable assignments in their courses, examples of student-created escape rooms for syllabus content,library orientations, and a framework for assessing creativity and information literacy outcomes. The session will also address scalability, sustainability, and alignment with institutional goals such as Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) initiatives, equity-minded teaching practices, and OER creation.This approach democratizes knowledge as student content creators share their lived experiences, embed their cultural knowledge and how they understand the course by creating these digital escape rooms.

Speakers

Natalie Lopez

Librarian, Department Chair, Academic Senate President, Crafton Hills College

With twenty years of professional experience in libraries from: Private Research (The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens), Academic (California State Polytechnic University, Pomona; Palomar College, Crafton Hills College), and Public (Rancho Mirage Library and Conservatory... Read More →

Thursday October 8, 2026 1:40pm - 2:10pm EDT
2 Room M MIT Samberg Conference Center, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA 02139 USA

Presentation

Speaker Modality In-person
Track Innovating Open Content to Democratize Knowledge

1:40pm EDT

What Would You Do with $100? Student-Centered OER Advocacy in the Library

Thursday October 8, 2026 1:40pm - 2:10pm EDT

4 Room T

ID: 32429

What happens when you put up a poster board in the library and simply ask students about their textbook purchasing experience? The answers are funny, heartbreaking, and powerful. "Textbook Madness" is a tabling event designed to meet students where they are, turning an everyday library space into a site of community, storytelling, and open education advocacy. The format is deliberately simple and low-tech: poster boards invite students to share their most expensive textbook cost and what they would do with that money if they didn't have to spend it on course materials. The responses reveal the very real financial burden students carry and open the door to conversations about open educational resources (OER) and the movement to make knowledge more accessible. Over two iterations of the event, more than 250 students have participated, generating a rich collection of quantitative and qualitative data. That data is not just displayed on a poster board, it becomes a tool for institutional advocacy. Student-generated figures on textbook costs have been presented directly to undergraduate student government and to university leadership, making the case for expanded OER adoption in concrete, human terms. This presentation will walk attendees through that full arc: from the initial design of the event to data collection and analysis, to the advocacy conversations it has made possible at the highest levels of campus administration. An additional component of the event was the distribution of student advocacy cards, a resource designed to empower students to become active voices for OER on their own campuses and in their own academic communities. These cards extend the reach of the event beyond the library table and invite students into a broader movement. This session is grounded in the belief that open education advocacy is fundamentally a relational practice. Numbers matter, but it is the act of listening, of creating space for student experience, and of transforming that experience into collective action, that builds a truly sustainable OER advocacy community. The library, often imagined as a quiet backdrop to academic life, can be reimagined as a frontline space for that work. Attendees will leave with a replicable, low-cost model for community-centered OER advocacy that can be adapted across institutional contexts. Whether you are a librarian, an instructional designer, a faculty member, or an administrator, this session offers both a practical framework and an invitation to think differently about where and how open education advocacy happens AND who gets to lead it.

Speakers

Khrisma McMurray

Open Education and Teaching Librarian, Indiana University Indianapolis

Khrisma McMurray is the Open Education and Teaching Librarian at IU Indianapolis, where she turns library spaces into sites of student empowerment through OER advocacy. Within her role she leads OER initiatives such as Open Education Week, Open Education Award, and OER Development... Read More →

Thursday October 8, 2026 1:40pm - 2:10pm EDT
4 Room T MIT Samberg Conference Center, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA 02139 USA

Presentation

Speaker Modality In-person
Track Catalyzing Human Connection Creativity and Curiosity to Thrive

1:40pm EDT

Commons, Ecosystems, and Schools: Structures for Futuring Open

Thursday October 8, 2026 1:40pm - 2:45pm EDT

3 Room I

ID: 33966

The open education movement stands at a critical inflection point. After 25 years of evolution, and in the midst of emerging technologies largely controlled by commercial interests, this is a critical time to pause, reflect, and re-consider the philosophical foundations and building blocks shaping its future—specifically the commons, ecosystems, and schools. Moving forward, questions of sustainability, participation, and purpose are becoming increasingly urgent to revisit, particularly in the context of a changing world with rapid technological and institutional shifts.This panel brings together a collective set of voices that reflect their lived experience within the open education movement and are uniquely positioned to suggest a way to reset and reframe as we think about what comes next. Drawing on decades of experience across research, practice, innovation, and system-building, the panelists will offer grounded perspectives on how the movement can evolve and how we can shape the future of open education with intention, clarity, and collective responsibility.Framing open education through the lens of the learning commons, the session will explore how shared open resources can be governed, sustained, and expanded in ways that ensure equitable participation and benefit without exploitation. It will invite participants to engage deeply with the commons-based approach as a foundation for the next phase of open education, prioritizing collective ownership, stewardship, and long-term sustainability.Building on this, the panel will examine the role of ecosystems as the enabling structures that connect people, resources, and practices. We will explore how stakeholders in the open education ecosystems can function as stewards of the movement and as force multipliers, where collaboration amplifies impact and accelerates innovation. The conversation will surface the frameworks for such ecosystems to thrive, including aligned incentives, shared infrastructure, and governance approaches that support trust and long-term collaboration.Finally, the session will focus on schools as critical sites of application and innovation within these ecosystems. The panel will explore how schools can support and sustain the movement becoming active contributors and co-creators while navigating current challenges such as resource constraints and shifting ideological landscapes. It will examine why and how faculty, students, and institutional leadership can engage meaningfully in open practices and become active participants in shaping the next 25 years of the movement beyond a narrow focus on access to resources.The panel will then solicit reactions and thoughts from the audience, both in-person and online. Together we will initiate a dialogue on what directions, choices, and changes we collectively need to make at the ecosystem, commons, and school/library levels to move open education forward.Across these three interconnected structures, the session will also engage with emerging ethical dilemmas and technological shifts—particularly the growing role of AI in the creation, adaptation, and dissemination of open resources. The panel will critically examine what it means to remain truly open, equitable, and community-driven, and how the values of openness can be upheld in an evolving digital landscape.

Speakers

Lisa Petrides

CEO and Founder, Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education (ISKME)

Lisa Petrides is CEO and founder of the Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education (ISKME), a nonprofit dedicated to making learning and knowledge-sharing participatory and open for all. She is a scholar and international open education expert who has led the development... Read More →

Jim Luke

Independent Scholar and Professor of Economics (ret), Planning Solutions LLC

Jim Luke is an independent scholar and planning consultant. He is a retired professor of economics and was Open Learning Faculty Fellow at a community college in Michigan (USA), where he created the Open Learning Lab, a web-based pedagogy innovation incubator. Jim has expertise in... Read More →

Robin DeRosa

Executive Director, Open Education Network

Dr. Robin DeRosa is an educator and community leader who has served in many roles over the span of her career. She has been a middle school theater teacher, a high school literature and writing teacher, and a college professor of both English and Interdisciplinary Studies. She has... Read More →

Thursday October 8, 2026 1:40pm - 2:45pm EDT
3 Room I MIT Samberg Conference Center, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA 02139 USA

Panel

Speaker Modality In-person
Track (Re)Inventing our Shared Global Vision Together

2:15pm EDT

The Open EdTech Advantage: Winning Support (and Funding) in a Proprietary World

Thursday October 8, 2026 2:15pm - 2:45pm EDT

6 DR4

ID: 34005

The evolving landscape of technology demands a fundamental shift in how we approach the procurement of EdTech tools. Higher Ed institutions need access to and control over technology that is inherently transparent, and tools they can not only inspect for ethical use and data privacy but also confidently modify and trust for long-term sustainability. In an era where every vendor claims to have “AI inside,” the real competitive advantage is not a license key but a community: the students, faculty, and staff who can shape, sustain, and continuously improve the tools they use every day.Over the past two decades we have seen how open source technologies and open approaches to EdTech can offer benefits for the institution as well as educators and most importantly, students. Yet one of the recurring challenges with open source software in education is advocating for open source not only as a solution for testing out innovations, but as an enterprise service. For open educators and learning technologists this presents an ongoing issue, balancing the requirements of institutional IT and purchasing policies with the needs of educators and students. With cyber security, responsible use of AI and accessibility all increasingly important, is there any room left for open solutions and services alongside an institution's core digital estate?This session reframes Open EdTech Advocacy from a plea for cheaper software into a strategic investment in human capacity. We will show how choosing open source is less a procurement decision and more a strategy that lowers total cost of ownership, reduces vendor lock-in, grows institutional expertise, and can deliver solutions that truly evolve to fit the needs of a community. We will explore strategies for making the case for open-source tools and open edtech platforms at multiple levels of an institution, from Leadership and Budget Holders, IT Teams and Central Services, to Faculty and Academic Units, as well as Students and Future Professionals.This presentation will also showcase several new Open EdTech case studies (based on interviews conducted with teams of instructional designers over the past 2 years) that show who and how institutions who are at the forefront of Open EdTech adoption develop, scale and deploy open source educational services, including Stanford University, Princeton University and SUNY Oneonta. At a time when openness in education and on the web is more contested than ever before, these case studies offer practical advice for learning designers and learning technologists, as well as strategic insights for anyone navigating funding and procurement processes for open source technologies and looking for practical know-how and resources to help you advocate for similar initiatives in your own institution.

Speakers

Taylor Jadin

Systems Administrator and Director of Operations, Reclaim Hosting

Taylor is Reclaim Hosting’s Systems Administrator and Director of Operations, as well as a proud husband and father, teacher, musician, avid camper, and unashamed nerd. He is passionate about educating and empowering people who want to make cool stuff on the web! Before joining... Read More →

Thursday October 8, 2026 2:15pm - 2:45pm EDT
6 DR4 MIT Samberg Conference Center, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA 02139 USA

Presentation

Speaker Modality In-person
Track Hacking the Open Ecosystem and Praxis for the Public Good

3:00pm EDT

Advancing Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in Open Education During Politically Challenging Times

Thursday October 8, 2026 3:00pm - 3:30pm EDT

2 Room M

ID: 32094

As Open Education (OE) continues to expand across higher education in the United States, the commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) remains central to its promise of democratizing knowledge. In a political climate marked by increased scrutiny of diversity initiatives, legislative challenges, and public debate about the role of equity in education, EDI-focused work has become both more difficult and more essential. This session explores how the Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources (CCCOER) Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Committee has worked to advance inclusive OE practices while navigating a challenging political environment.The committee’s work centers on advocating for OE Practices that empower contributions from diverse learners and educators who have been underrepresented, particularly those served by community colleges. Through professional development, resource sharing, and community dialogue, the committee has focused on identifying ways to advance equity in the open movement and to increase the representation of marginalized educators and students. At the same time, the committee has had to adapt its approaches in response to shifting political pressures that may challenge the language, framing, or implementation of EDI efforts.Hosted by the current Co-Chairs of the committee, this presentation will highlight the challenges faced, key changes, and strategies developed to sustain meaningful EDI work while engaging with our broad community. These strategies include creating safe spaces for dialogue, supporting open advocates doing this work, and highlighting diverse voices, all within the OE community.Drawing on examples from committee initiatives, programming, and collaborative resource development, the session will illustrate how OE networks can continue advancing equity even in politically sensitive contexts. Presenters will discuss lessons learned as the committee navigated the shifting higher-education landscape while continuing its work on priorities and mission. The session invites discussion about how the OE community can remain resilient and values-driven while responding thoughtfully to evolving political realities. By sharing experiences from the CCCOER EDI Committee, this presentation contributes to broader conversations about how OE can remain a powerful vehicle for equity, diversity, and inclusion, even when the political environment complicates such work.

Speakers

Wayde Oshiro

Head Librarian, Leeward Community College

Wayde Oshiro is a professor and library director at Leeward Community College, Hawaiʻi, with over two decades of experience in academic librarianship. Since 2015, he has co-led the University of Hawaiʻi Community Colleges System's OER initiative across seven campuses. He co-chairs... Read More →

Lauren Kosrow

Digital Content and Open Access Librarian, College of DuPage

Thursday October 8, 2026 3:00pm - 3:30pm EDT
2 Room M MIT Samberg Conference Center, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA 02139 USA

Presentation

Speaker Modality In-person
Track Catalyzing Human Connection Creativity and Curiosity to Thrive

3:00pm EDT

Conversations in Care: Strategies for Collective Healing in the Open Education Movement

Thursday October 8, 2026 3:00pm - 3:30pm EDT

8 DR6

ID: 34001

“No individual can meet all the needs of the world. Humans are not built to do big things alone; we are built to do them together.” - Emily & Amelia NagoskiOpen education leaders refer to ourselves regularly and proudly as members of a global open education community. Yet what does our belonging mean to us? How does our belonging sustain us? To be in community is a reciprocal relationship built on trust, shared interest, and care. This session dives deeper into this notion of care, or the obligation we have to past, present, and future generations as human beings. Deep unrest and destabilization in political, civic, and environmental sectors ultimately depletes our capacity to engage in care. This loss is particularly significant for leaders with the responsibility to manage and make direct decisions for open education efforts. During these times of great uncertainty and constant change, how do we continue to labor toward meaningful, transformative, and sustaining open education? How could we come alongside one another, learn from one another, and offer necessary support? This session seeks to take the pulse of the current open movement. We examine stories from 10 interviews with English-speaking open education leaders from around the world. Leaders hold formal or implied authority over an institution’s or department’s open education program, initiative, committee, or task force. Interviews rely on open-ended questions that allow leaders to name unmet needs in open education advocacy, to reflect on the extent of reciprocity of care in their work, to surface personal moments of awe in and outside of open work, and to assess authentic representation and shared decision-making within open education efforts. We see these conversations as an opportunity to give and receive care through focused discussion, intentional listening, and shared reflection. These sessions are also agentic, revealing the motivations, hopes, and actions that leaders seek to offer and receive from their global community. This presentation invites participants to consider how we are able to show up for ourselves and one another within open initiatives and spaces in this current historic moment. We spotlight and celebrate the strategies of our global open community that address common negative experiences like overwhelm, job precarity, and discrimination. Through a critical examination of current working conditions in open leadership, we promote practitioner well-being and collective care. We hope participants at all stages in this discovery process will come away with a greater sense of agency and belonging.

Speakers

Natalie Hill

Scholarly Communications Librarian and Liaison to African American Studies, Anthropology, Education, Global Studies, & Psychology, Colby College

Natalie Hill is dedicated to open education advocacy, ensuring equitable access to information, and increasing representation of historically underrepresented groups in teaching, learning, and research materials. Before joining Colby College in 2023, she worked in library, instructional... Read More →

Veronica Vold

Education Consultant, Equinox Learning Design, LLC

Veronica Vold, PhD, created Equinox Learning Design, LLC to champion equity in higher education. With Open Oregon Educational Resources, she led an instructional design team and created statewide initiatives for accessibility and design justice. As an education consultant, she provides... Read More →

Thursday October 8, 2026 3:00pm - 3:30pm EDT
8 DR6 MIT Samberg Conference Center, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA 02139 USA

Presentation

Speaker Modality In-person
Track Catalyzing Human Connection Creativity and Curiosity to Thrive

3:00pm EDT

Designing AI to Support Learning, Not Bypass It: A CLT-Grounded MOOC Case from NTHU

Thursday October 8, 2026 3:00pm - 3:30pm EDT

6 DR4

ID: 33853

The rapid integration of generative AI (GenAI) into higher education has produced a complex and often contradictory evidence base. A three-level meta-analysis found that GenAI significantly promotes higher-order thinking (g = 0.851) but shows no significant effect on creativity or reflective capacity (Wang & Fan, 2025). A broader synthesis of 68 experimental studies found a moderate positive effect on learning outcomes (SMD = 0.45), yet with extremely high heterogeneity (I² = 95%), indicating that AI's impact varies enormously depending on how, when, and for whom it is deployed (Han et al., 2025). These findings compel open education practitioners to move beyond the question of whetherto adopt AI, toward the more consequential question of how to design AI tools that reliably produce learning gains rather than cognitive by-pass.This session reflects on the experience of National Tsing Hua University (NTHU), Taiwan, in integrating five GenAI-powered features into its open MOOC platform through the principled application of Cognitive Load Theory (CLT). We contend that CLT, with its precise account of working memory constraints, element interactivity, and the distinction between intrinsic and extraneous cognitive load, offers the most rigorous and actionable theoretical foundation available for AI tool design in large-scale open education. This contention is itself a reflective one: having experimented with broader, multi-theoretical frameworks, we found that CLT's specificity is precisely what makes it generative for design practice.Two empirically grounded risks frame this design challenge and inform our reflections throughout. The first is cognitive offloading (Skulmowski, 2023): when learners over-delegate memory and reasoning to external tools, they tend to retain only gist-level representations rather than the richly organized long-term memory schemas that support transfer and genuine expertise development. The second is the AI placebo effect (Skulmowski, 2024): learners systematically overestimate their own contributions when using AI, producing an illusion of competence that circumvents the productive cognitive struggle necessary for schema formation. Taken together, these risks reveal that AI tools designed without explicit attention to cognitive architecture may perform well on surface-level engagement metrics while undermining the deeper learning they are meant to support.Against this backdrop, the session presents five AI features developed on the platform, each designed to address specific CLT mechanisms. The AI Panda chatbot applies Load Reduction Instruction (Martin & Collie, 2025) through Socratic dialogic scaffolding. AI Integrative Questions maintain productive intrinsic load for schema construction at the close of each course chapter. AI Mind Maps address the split-attention and transient information effects characteristic of video-based MOOC delivery. AI Notes operationalize the worked example effect by reducing the extraneous burden of concurrent note-taking. AI Practice and Open-Ended Questions dynamically calibrate task demands in response to the expertise reversal effect, while leveraging retrieval practice to consolidate long-term retention.We close by reflecting critically on the institutional, administrative, and instructional design tensions encountered during implementation, and by sharing early outcomes from the deployment of these features in NTHU's Pre-AP program. We invite attendees to interrogate whether CLT offers a transferable design language for open education institutions navigating the pressures of AI adoption without sacrificing pedagogical integrity.

Speakers

Tonny Menglun Kuo

Division Director, Division of Learning Support and Research Planning, Center for Teaching and Learning Development, National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan

Tonny Menglun Kuo, Ph.D. is Assistant Professor in the Interdisciplinary Program of Management and Technology (IPMT) at the College of Management and Technology, National Tsing Hua University (NTHU), Taiwan. He concurrently serves as Division Director of Learning Support and Research... Read More →

Thursday October 8, 2026 3:00pm - 3:30pm EDT
6 DR4 MIT Samberg Conference Center, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA 02139 USA

Presentation

Speaker Modality In-person
Track Innovating Open Content to Democratize Knowledge

3:00pm EDT

OERs for Kids, Edited by Kids – Online Engagement to Maximise Accessibility and Learning Outcomes

Thursday October 8, 2026 3:00pm - 3:30pm EDT

7 DR5

ID: 32792

Young people overwhelmingly use online sources for extra-curricular learning, particularly now that many carry a smartphone everywhere. In this new era, resource providers (such as publishers) have an obligation to ensure that our young audience have highest-quality OERs to refer to freely. We must meet young learners in their preferred sphere, and provide trusted sources of information to combat the misinformation which is so prevalent online, causing negative mental health outcomes for young people. Beyond this, for STEMM learning, we should inspire and actively engage with young learners, to ensure we are using a shared language, shaped by our young audience themselves. If we do this successfully, we will maximise learning outcomes and boost STEMM participation throughout the key stages of education. This enables new generations to not just suffer through their formal education but to fall in love with science, and remain science-literate throughout their lives. This is the mission of Frontiers for Young Minds. Discover how our non-profit OER project works with top scientists globally, to re-write their peer-reviewed publications into short kid-friendly articles, published as open access OERs, across all fields of STEMM, free to read for anyone with an internet connection. We offer a case study on how to go beyond high-quality OER publishing by offering an online platform for direct engagement: in our unique peer-review process, every manuscript submitted is reviewed with our global network of kids aged 8-15. By taking in their feedback, we create a shared language of understanding directly between young people and active scientists, ensuring that everything we publish is accessible AND fun-to-read for the young peers of our reviewers. Our Young Reviewers gain critical thinking skills, and by having direct contact with both a Science Mentor (PhD-holding adults vetted by the FYM team and working with the kid reviewers locally) and our Authors (who are leading researchers and whose peer-reviewed research we have likewise already validated), they gain the revelation that science really IS for everyone, helping them engage with STEMM. By raising their “science capital”, we increase the likelihood of them remaining engaged, science-literate citizens, thus boosting public trust in science, and even creating the active scientists of the next generation in future.And interestingly, we can show that the learning goes two ways: our Young Reviewers, by giving their direct and unfiltered feedback to the scientist Authors, empower researchers with that new, shared language they can use to communicate their research to anyone.

Speakers

Laura Henderson

Head of Program – Frontiers for Young Minds, Frontiers Research Foundation (Frontiers Media SA)

Laura Henderson is an academic publishing professional with 20 years’ experience across respected international presses. Now part of the Frontiers Research Foundation, she strategically directs the unique science-engagement project, Frontiers for Young Minds (FYM). Passionate... Read More →

Thursday October 8, 2026 3:00pm - 3:30pm EDT
7 DR5 MIT Samberg Conference Center, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA 02139 USA

Presentation

Speaker Modality In-person
Track Innovating Open Content to Democratize Knowledge

3:00pm EDT

Re-Designing an International, Student-Led, Co-Curricular, Community-Engaged, Experiential Learning Project for OA

Thursday October 8, 2026 3:00pm - 3:30pm EDT

5 DR3

ID: 33695

This design case details the development of an international, student-led, co-curricular, community-engaged, experiential learning project during its first two years, during which staff and faculty guided and mentored undergraduate students as they developed a process for mentoring young writers in the US and East Africa and creating an anthology of their stories. This project was later converted to an open access approach for creating OER. I discuss critical challenges and successes regarding the design of the project that were made during this period, following the organization of teams for mentoring young writers, editing the anthology, raising funds for printing, and implementing an evaluation plan. I will focus specifically on the challenges and benefits of a minimally-funded project that placed much of the decision-making in the hands of the students. The project lasted for twelve years and resulted in twelves volumes of stories in English and Kinyarwanda, many of which are available for free online. It wasn't until after the first twelve years that the project members considered OA approaches. I conclude with implications for developing and converting to OA a project of this complexity and discuss the successes and failures that the project encountered during the first two years of its implementation (2008-2010) and beyond. I discuss the current emphasis of the project on preparing educators to create OA juvenile titles that can be adapted and translated into underserved languages.

Speakers

Beth Lewis Samuelson

Associate Professor, Indiana University Bloomington

Beth Lewis Samuelson is Associate Professor in the Indiana University Bloomington School of Education, with distinguished contributions in service, teaching, and research and 20 years of experience in higher education. Her research specializations include language awareness and language... Read More →

Thursday October 8, 2026 3:00pm - 3:30pm EDT
5 DR3 MIT Samberg Conference Center, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA 02139 USA

Presentation

Speaker Modality In-person
Track (Re)Inventing our Shared Global Vision Together

3:00pm EDT

Fostering Creativity in Creative Commons: Empowering Communities to Remix Educational Resources

Thursday October 8, 2026 3:00pm - 3:30pm EDT

4 Room T

ID: 33989

How do you know whether people use your creative-commons-licensed educational resources? Library professionals often do the work of translating complex information into educational resources and engaging learning experiences for their communities to connect with each other, but do not always make time to document and share their resources broadly. Through human-centered approaches that invite playing together, elevating the creativity of library professionals and educators, and joyfully trying out others' ideas in different communities, the inspiration powered by the excitement to share resources can become an unstoppable force. To address the gap of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education for a wider audience, MIT Public Library Innovation Exchange (PLIX, plix.mit.edu) develops creative creative-commons-licensed STEAM ("A" adds the arts to STEM) learning resources and experiences based on MIT research and co-designed for the public library setting. With a reach of over 1,400 public library professionals across all 50 United States, and connections across 40 countries, PLIX programs support learners as 1) designers, rather than consumers, of technology, 2) creators, rather than recipients, of knowledge, and 3) scientists and artists, rather than one or the other. PLIX connects library professionals and MIT researchers to co-design learning experiences and develop and share facilitation practices to inspire engaging STEAM programming in public libraries. Drawing from a repository of 13 thoughtfully designed STEM activities, and over 70 adaptations created by the community for localized contexts, learners create, play, experiement with paper circuits, the sound of food, wearable data trackers, urban ecology, an arcade of offline games to learn AI FUNdamentals, and more. To encourage library professionals' confidence to offer high quality STEM learning experiences, PLIX offers 1) easy-entry free online STEAM workshops that provide space for hands-on practice, 2) multi-session facilitation training on creative STEAM pedagogy available in-person, online, and in a hybrid format, and 3) an annual ambassador program to bring together a cohort of library professionals to connect, collaborate, and inspire each other. (Across 4 iterations of the PLIX ambassador program, over 67 librarians continue to use and promote PLIX resources to their library peers.)In this round table, we joyfully share a showcase of PLIX CC-BY-NC-SA printable zines, the different pathways we use to promote their adaptation and use, and encourage attendees to collaboratively edit, cut, paste, and create their own adaptations about knowledge they are excited to share with the world.

Speakers

Ada Ren-Mitchell

Learning Programs Designer, MIT Public Library Innovation Exchange

Ada Ren-Mitchell is a Learning Programs Designer at the MIT Public Library Innovation Exchange (PLIX), where she designs cozy communities and creative STEAM learning experiences. Since 2014, her experiences encompass innovative education pedagogy, STEM research, community facilitation... Read More →

Thursday October 8, 2026 3:00pm - 3:30pm EDT
4 Room T MIT Samberg Conference Center, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA 02139 USA

Round Table

Speaker Modality In-person
Track Catalyzing Human Connection Creativity and Curiosity to Thrive

3:35pm EDT

Cross-Institutional Assessment of Student Outcomes Associated with Course Material Cost in Massachusetts Public Higher Education

Thursday October 8, 2026 3:35pm - 4:05pm EDT

5 DR3

ID: 34006

Beginning in the 2021-2022 academic year, the Massachusetts Open and Low-Cost Educational Resource Advisory Committee (MA OLERAC) implemented a statewide process to collect and standardize data on no- and low-cost course materials. OLERAC coordinated with institutional research offices at each of the twenty-eight undergraduate-serving public institutions of higher education in Massachusetts to collect data. Institutions included community colleges, state universities, and the University of Massachusetts System.The first year was a slow roll out with traditional data collection like cost savings and the number of no- or low-cost course sections offered to students. In subsequent years, data collection was expanded to include a comparison of student academic outcomes in courses with materials cost greater than $50 ("traditional"), less than $50 ("low-cost"), and $0 ("no-cost," including open educational resources, library and other free resources). Productive (ABC) and non-productive (DFW) grades were tracked for each student in every course system-wide, comparing academic outcomes among courses with traditional, low-cost, and no-cost materials. Data were further disaggregated by race, gender, and Pell Grant eligibility.In this session, we describe the process and challenges of large-scale, cross-institutional data collection and present two years of academic outcome data. Among Massachusetts public institutions, courses with no-cost materials are associated with lower DFW rates than courses with either traditional or low-cost materials. When the data are disaggregated, the correlation of improved course outcomes and no-cost course materials is consistent across almost all gender, race, and economic groups.Together with numbers of low-cost and no-cost sections and course materials cost estimates, the system-wide academic outcome data show that the use of no-cost teaching and learning materials represents a cost-savings for students, offers faculty additional tools that may be customized to engage students, and is positively linked with student academic performance. That means students who enroll in such sections are better able to persist, increase enrollment intensity, and ultimately complete their degree at a lower cost.Key takeaways from this session are a description of the types of OER data collected by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, strategies for cross-institutional data collection, and assessment of the impact of no- and low-cost course materials on course grades for students from diverse demographic backgrounds. We will also discuss how to identify key partners needed to effectively implement data collection processes within a State’s Department of Higher Education and how to develop strategies to address the data collection challenges experienced when data submission is not mandatory.

Speakers

Connie Strittmatter

Strategic Projects Librarian, Fitchburg State University

Connie Strittmatter is the Strategic Projects Librarian at Fitchburg State University. In her current position, she supports Fitchburg State’s open and affordable education initiative by delivering workshops on OER topics, working individually with faculty to incorporate OER into... Read More →

Amanda Simons

Professor and Chair of Biology, Framingham State University

Amanda Simons is the Chair of Biology at Framingham State University. She is the author of Chromosomes, Genes, and Traits, an OER textbook written with the support from a ROTEL program grant. She is currently serving as a faculty fellow for the Massachusetts Department of Higher... Read More →

Bernadette Sibuma

Director, Online Learning, Massachusetts Bay Community College

Bernadette Sibuma, Ed.D., is the Director of Online Learning at Massachusetts Bay Community College. She serves as a current member of the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education’s Open and Low-Cost Educational Resources Advisory Council (MA OLERAC) and the OLERAC Assessment... Read More →

Emma Wood

Scholarly Communication Librarian, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth

Emma Wood is the Scholarly Communication Librarian at the University of Massachusetts - Dartmouth. She encourages the adoption of Open Educational Resources (OER) among faculty and helps students understand and access OER materials. She serves as a member of the Massachusetts Department... Read More →

Robert Awkward

Assistant Commissioner for Academic Effectiveness, Massachusetts Department of Higher Education

Emily Alling

Associate Dean, Library Services, Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts

Emily Alling is the Associate Dean for Library Services at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts in North Adams, Massachusetts and leads the open and affordable textbook in initiative at her institution. She is a member of the Massachusetts Open and Low Cost Educational Resources... Read More →

Suzanne Smith

Director of Research and Evaluation, Massachusetts Department of Higher Education

Suzanne Smith is the Director of Research and Evaluation at MA Department of Higher Education. She liaises with the Massachusetts Open and Low Cost Educational Resources Advisory Council (OLERAC) Assessment Committee to collect OER key performance indicator data from the 28 public... Read More →

Thursday October 8, 2026 3:35pm - 4:05pm EDT
5 DR3 MIT Samberg Conference Center, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA 02139 USA

Presentation

Speaker Modality In-person
Track Innovating Open Content to Democratize Knowledge

3:35pm EDT

The Content Mafia: How Publishers Weaponize Copyright to Control Educational Resources

Thursday October 8, 2026 3:35pm - 4:05pm EDT

6 DR4

ID: 33913

This session examines eight common practices in educational publishing—edition cycling, access codes and DRM, regional pricing, bundling, inclusive access programs, copyright term extensions, orphan works, and author rights transfer—and explores how Open Educational Resources offer structural alternatives to each challenge. Rather than focusing on what's broken, we'll demonstrate what's possible when educational materials are designed for access from the start.For each publishing practice, we'll show how OER provides concrete solutions: continuous community updates replace fixed edition cycles; open formats work offline and across devices; zero-cost access eliminates currency fluctuations and affordability barriers; modular design lets instructors select exactly what students need rather than buying predetermined bundles transparent licensing prevents orphan works while protecting student privacy; and open licenses let authors retain control while enabling global adaptation and sharing.This session confirms the work OER advocates are already doing while providing practical language and evidence for advancing open alternatives. We'll explore how different business models serve different purposes, examine which practices create barriers to educational access, and equip participants with tools to advocate effectively for student-centered approaches in their own contexts. Attendees will leave with actionable strategies, international examples, and a framework for discussing educational materials that centers learning outcomes and equitable access.

Speakers

Beth Chenette

Associate Librarian, Texas A&M University Libraries

Elizabeth Chenette is an Associate Librarian, member of the OpenEd team, and Reserve Services Coordinator at Texas A&M University Libraries in College Station, Texas. With an MLS from the University of North Texas, Elizabeth has worked in higher education for 13+ years. She has Creative... Read More →

Thursday October 8, 2026 3:35pm - 4:05pm EDT
6 DR4 MIT Samberg Conference Center, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA 02139 USA

Presentation

Speaker Modality In-person
Track Hacking the Open Ecosystem and Praxis for the Public Good

3:35pm EDT

Design Discomfort: The Friction Open Education Requires

Thursday October 8, 2026 3:35pm - 4:05pm EDT

4 Room T

ID: 33999

Open education has made extraordinary progress dismantling structural barriers to access. But access is not connection, and presence is not participation. As scholars like Audrey Watters have argued, the promises of open education have often defaulted toward scale and efficiency, optimizing for reach while leaving questions of depth, belonging, and relational learning underexplored. This roundtable asks participants to sit with a new provocation: what if the next step isn't more content, but more friction, the slow, relational work of learning together.Design Discomfort is a circulating research series operating across creative and innovative spaces: design studios, schools, and organizations. The research began as a direct response to AI: where AI aggregates anonymous, patterned, average, "scraped" knowledge at scale, Design Discomfort aggregates named, vulnerable, situated, face-to-face knowledge, asking what remains distinctly human about learning together. Participants gather to have both joyful conversations and the harder ones they tend to avoid, about job security, the role of technology, what education actually prepares you for, and what society needs now. No presentations. No panels. Just people in a room, making something together. Drawing on the facilitation traditions of Freire and bell hooks, the methodology is simple: discomfort invites vulnerability, vulnerability builds community, and community is what education urgently needs.This round table puts that methodology into practice. Rather than presenting findings, the facilitator will open the room with provocations adapted for the open education community, creating the conditions for the same kind of dialogue Design Discomfort generates elsewhere. The format embodies the argument: culture is produced between people, not stored inside them, and education's role isn't to decorate culture but to actively participate in producing it.Participants will engage with questions including: What does genuine community feel like inside open education and how do we build more of it? In a landscape defined increasingly by automation and scale, what do we risk losing if we don't design for vulnerability and human contact? Attendees will leave having experienced relational learning in practice, a transferable methodology for facilitating generative dialogue in their own institutions, and the reminder that education, at its best, has always been about what happens between people — not what gets delivered to them. The friction is the point.

Speakers

Cameron King

Vice President, Creative (and Grad Student), CASE Agency (and Vermont College of Fine Arts)

Cameron King is a designer, educator, and advocate for collaborative creative communities.His practice sits at the intersection of visual communication, design leadership, and creative culture. As VP of Creative at CASE, he partners with global brands, including e.l.f. Beauty, Disney... Read More →

Thursday October 8, 2026 3:35pm - 4:05pm EDT
4 Room T MIT Samberg Conference Center, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA 02139 USA

Round Table

Speaker Modality In-person
Track Catalyzing Human Connection Creativity and Curiosity to Thrive

4:20pm EDT

Designed for Humans: Invitations and Boundaries for the Future of Open Courses

Thursday October 8, 2026 4:20pm - 4:50pm EDT

6 DR4

ID: 33860

Designed for Humans: Invitations and Boundaries for the Future of Open Courses explores strategies to move open education beyond static content delivery toward human-centered, equitable learning design that reinforces course integrity while navigating both the promise and pressure of generative AI. Framed through the lens of "invitations" and "boundaries," we highlight course design as an expansion of and integration with OER textbooks. Grounded in research on learner engagement, equity, and Universal Design for Learning, this model was developed and refined in a diverse community college setting with 13,000 students, but the model is adaptable. We invite attendees to bring their institutional contexts, student populations, and constraints to the conversation, and choose what to reuse, revise, remix, or set aside.Invitations and Boundaries Explained"Invitations" encourage students to actively participate, identify content relevance, and build confidence. "Boundaries" preserve course integrity, protect learning outcomes, and keep students on track. When thoughtfully designed, they make open education more usable, supportive, and equitable.The Course as OERBuilding on our “Designed for Humans” work with faculty and institutions, we share a course-as-OER model, treating the course as an intentionally-curated learning experience that includes:Curated, interactive engagement activities tied to OER contentRelevance to students' lived experiencesFocused videos and strategic OER textbook excerptsLocalized content that reflects and speaks to student populationsLow-stakes assessments to reinforce understandingAuthentic assessments that build resumes, college applications, and scholarship possibilitiesThese elements broaden access to knowledge while encouraging active participation rather than passive consumption or AI shortcuts.A Repeatable Module PatternEach module follows a consistent, scaffolded structure:Engagement activity - invites immediate connection, introduces concepts2-minute journal - includes a quick knowledge check with questions drawn from the activityCurated OER content - aligned to learning objectivesLightning lecture - 3-5 minutes, targeted and specificAnonymous poll - low-stakes engagement, formative feedbackCurated OER content - second touchpoint reinforcing the conceptLightning lecture - 3-5 minutesQuiz - question pools created from unique OER and video content Discussion board video post - students apply initial learning Following module - students revisit initial post and respond using newly-learned content and collaborative problem-solvingThis module pattern creates a rhythm that helps students get into the flow. As one student noted, “Once I got started, I didn’t want to stop. I just had to see the next module’s (engagement activity), and before I knew it, I was halfway done with the next module.”For Every Learner, EverywhereOER gives educators the instructional material; intentional course design integrates that material with purpose. Both matter deeply as institutions worldwide serve learners with differing levels of preparation, confidence, time, access, and technological fluency. Attendees will leave with a course framework, examples, and revision ideas they can apply, adapt, and share across disciplines, institutions, and borders. OER works best not as a textbook substitute, but as a foundation for a learning experience that meets students where they are. By reimagining what openness looks like in practice, this session offers a path toward open courses that are truly designed for humans.

Speakers

Claire Sparklin

Professional Faculty: Communication, Washtenaw Community College

Claire Sparklin is a Communication Faculty member at Washtenaw Community College in Michigan and a former instructional designer whose work centers on AI, instructional design, Open Educational Resources (OER), and authentic student engagement. In addition to her college teaching... Read More →

Michelle Westerdale

Learning Experience Designer, Washtenaw Community College

Michelle Westerdale is a Learning Experience Designer at Washtenaw Community College in Michigan. She partners with faculty to create online courses focused on authentic student experience, current pedagogy, and sustainable course design. She brings together her background as a teacher... Read More →

Thursday October 8, 2026 4:20pm - 4:50pm EDT
6 DR4 MIT Samberg Conference Center, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA 02139 USA

Presentation

Speaker Modality In-person
Track Innovating Open Content to Democratize Knowledge

4:20pm EDT

For the Benefit of All: Rethinking OER Access Through Discoverability and Student Navigation

Thursday October 8, 2026 4:20pm - 4:50pm EDT

5 DR3

ID: 33697

Open Educational Resources (OER) and Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) pathways are often presented as equity-minded solutions for reducing financial barriers in higher education. Across California Community Colleges, substantial institutional effort has gone into course conversion, pathway mapping, funding, and reporting. Yet an important practical question remains: even when OER or ZTC options exist, can students actually find them, understand them, and intentionally choose them within the systems they use to plan and register for classes? This session examines that gap between institutional availability and student-facing usability.Drawing on findings from a mixed-methods ZTC Degree Feasibility Study involving 19 participating California community colleges, this presentation shares findings from an exploratory convergent design that integrates three sources of evidence: a multi-institutional student survey on awareness, preferences, and decision-making; student focus groups on navigation strategies and barriers; and semi-structured interviews with counselors, faculty, IT professionals, and administrators on operational feasibility. Together, these sources allow us to compare what institutions say is available with what students are realistically able to perceive and navigate.Across the data, several patterns emerged. Many students do not recognize the terms “OER” or “ZTC,” even when they are enrolled in courses that meet those definitions. Students consistently express interest in lower-cost and no-cost options, but cost is only actionable when it is visible, trustworthy, and easy to interpret at the moment of decision-making. Students also report confusion when labels are unclear or inconsistent, and some describe enrolling in courses marked ZTC or OER that still required payment for course materials. These findings suggest that access is not only a question of whether open options exist, but whether those options are embedded in student-facing systems in ways that support confidence, choice, and follow-through.This session introduces the concept of ambient discoverability: the idea that students should be able to identify and pursue OER and ZTC options without needing prior insider knowledge or familiarity with specialized terminology. Framed this way, OER access becomes not just a content issue, but a system design issue involving registration interfaces, degree planning tools, advising workflows, scheduling practices, and reliable backend data. Participants will leave with a practical framework for evaluating discoverability in their own settings and with concrete strategies for improving student-centered implementation. By reframing access through discoverability, navigation, and trust, this session speaks directly to the conference theme of protecting knowledge as a public good and ensuring that open education functions in practice, not only in principle. Open education is not fully open if only students with insider knowledge can find their way to it.

Speakers

Cheryl Bailey

Instruction & Systems Librarian, Irvine Valley College

Cheryl Bailey, MLIS, MA, is an Instruction and Systems Librarian whose work centers on equitable access to higher education, particularly for neurodiverse students. She earned her MLIS from San José State University and her MA from California State University, Long Beach, and is... Read More →

Rachel Fleming

OER & Equity Librarian, Irvine Valley College

Rachel Fleming, MLIS, is the OER and Equity Librarian at Irvine Valley College. She earned her MLIS from San José State University and is currently completing her first year in the CSU Channel Islands Doctorate in Educational Leadership for Equity and Justice (DELEJ) program. Over... Read More →

Thursday October 8, 2026 4:20pm - 4:50pm EDT
5 DR3 MIT Samberg Conference Center, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA 02139 USA

Presentation

Speaker Modality In-person
Track Hacking the Open Ecosystem and Praxis for the Public Good

4:20pm EDT

Open Access in Action: The Real-World Impact of Transformative Agreements

Thursday October 8, 2026 4:20pm - 4:50pm EDT

7 DR5

ID: 32841

This session brings transformative agreements to life through compelling real-world examples, researcher voices, and measurable institutional outcomes. Moving beyond theory, attendees will explore how TAs are streamlining the path to open access publication —including testimonials from researchers and institutions about the simplicity of the process and the tangible difference it has made to their work's reach and impact. From increased citation rates and global visibility to reduced administrative burden and cost transparency, this session demonstrates why transformative agreements are reshaping the publishing landscape — one institution, one researcher, one article at a time.

Speakers

Sarah Whalen

Director, Open Research Americas, Wiley

With over 20 years of publishing experience, Sarah started her career in book publishing as the international coordinator for the Alfred A. Knopf imprint at Penguin Random House. After shifting to scholarly publishing, she gained expertise in journal production and editorial management... Read More →

Thursday October 8, 2026 4:20pm - 4:50pm EDT
7 DR5 MIT Samberg Conference Center, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA 02139 USA

Presentation

Speaker Modality In-person
Track Hacking the Open Ecosystem and Praxis for the Public Good

4:20pm EDT

The Structural Value of Openness: Open Infrastructure for Public Good

Thursday October 8, 2026 4:20pm - 4:50pm EDT

8 DR6

ID: 34004

Broadly conceived, open education is a collection of values and practices that seek to create, share, and expand access to knowledge for the public good. The work of open education happens in many ways across higher education. Faculty and students teach and learn with OER, librarians guide us through knowledge discovery and cataloging processes, and staff develop and support programming to cultivate communities of practice. Often these practices are disjointed across the institution and rarely connected to a university’s wider mission. However, at the City University of New York, the development of the CUNY Academic Commons demonstrates the structural value of openness: how openness can serve as an infrastructural commitment and guiding principle for an institution and the knowledge that it produces. Using the City University of New York as a case study, and in particular the open-source technological infrastructure of the CUNY Academic Commons, this presentation will explore how open infrastructure supports inclusive, student-centered pedagogical approaches, fosters faculty, staff, and student agency in knowledge creation, and connects the work within the university to its mission to serve the public good.The City University of New York is the largest urban public institution of higher education in the United States, comprising 26 colleges spread across the five boroughs of New York City. Founded as the Free Academy 1847, CUNY has a history of openness and activism. The university’s foundational principle contends that higher education should be accessible to all the city’s residents, and despite persistent lack of funding and chronic austerity, CUNY continues to provide affordable access to higher education and serve as a transformative engine of social mobility for all New Yorkers. In 2009, a group of CUNY faculty, staff, and graduate students used the open-source software frameworks WordPress and BuddyPress to launch the CUNY Academic Commons, a digital platform to “support faculty initiatives and build community through the use(s) of technology in teaching and learning.” Over the years, and more recently with OER funding from New York State, the CUNY Academic Commons has grown to over 50,000 users who have built 40,000+ websites and administer over 2,200 groups. In addition to the Commons, other projects have emerged across CUNY, creating an open-source ecosystem and community of practice that develops alternatives to corporate, siloed tools for teaching and learning at CUNY. As a community-developed and maintained platform, the CUNY Academic Commons evolves in response to users' needs and desires. Faculty teach and students take courses, some of which involve co-developing projects and public-facing resources. University staff create websites to publicize their departments and research centers. Graduate students create personalized portfolios to share their academic and non-academic work. Colleagues leverage groups to share research projects and connect across the city. This presentation will detail how the openness and flexibility of the CUNY Academic Commons gives us a vision of what a university for the public good is and could be: diverse communities of practice facilitating and engaging in the creation of knowledge for all.

Speakers

Laurie Hurson

Assistant Director of Open Education, The Graduate Center, The City University of New York (CUNY)

Laurie Hurson is the Assistant Director of Open Education at the CUNY Graduate Center's Teaching and Learning Center, where she focuses on faculty development and the implementation of open educational practices. Her work includes developing and leading initiatives such as the Open... Read More →

Thursday October 8, 2026 4:20pm - 4:50pm EDT
8 DR6 MIT Samberg Conference Center, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA 02139 USA

Presentation

Speaker Modality In-person
Track Hacking the Open Ecosystem and Praxis for the Public Good

4:20pm EDT

Make a Zine and Make Community

Thursday October 8, 2026 4:20pm - 4:50pm EDT

4 Room T

ID: 34010

During this round table session, participants will discuss reasons that we need support right now, and will learn how to make zines as one way to create community. Making things together (crafts, OER) can help us develop relationships, have fun, and feel a sense of accomplishment. We will discuss the ways that we might be able to find connection and hope through the values of open education. Working in higher education in the United States is especially difficult at this moment in history. Beyond the headline-grabbing threats and cancelled research funding, educators are still feeling effects from the pandemic lockdowns and altered teaching practices that began in 2020--2021. Many students today feel anxious and isolated, and have minimal coping skills to handle those feelings. Many have difficulty reading and comprehending written instructions, and some are so overwhelmed by the demands of what used to be a typical college semester that they just shut down or give up. I find this heartbreaking, frustrating, and exhausting. On top of that, I am part of a minority of faculty in my department who use open resources, which can cause a feeling of isolation. Using OER over time has led me to develop and articulate my values around education--especially public higher education--that go beyond “free is good for students” to include “education is a human right” and “my institution exists to serve the people who live in the region, whoever they are.” Sometimes I remix or create new open content, but in recent years the amount of extra work to take the materials from “class handouts” to “open resources that are proofread, formatted, licensed, posted, and publicized” has been beyond my capacity. That said, I have been able to find sources of resilience! I have found like-minded individuals within my institution. We have made changes to our classes that encourage hope and play and just talking to each other more. I attribute the latter to my decade-plus use of OER, which allowed me to decouple my teaching from the rigid structure of a commercial textbook. It has become a habit, now, to check my assumptions, figure out what my students’ needs are now, and then to find or make something that will meet those needs. Zines (from the word magazines) are 8-page booklets folded from a single sheet of letter-sized paper. The zine maker writes, draws, makes collages for each page. The zine can then be photocopied, folded, and distributed.I have used zines in classes as a way for students to engage with the course material in cognitive, affective, creative, and tactile ways that are different from what they usually do. Students summarize and create and imagine something new using what they have learned in class, and they enjoy it so much. Materials and examples will be provided.

Speakers

Elizabeth Siler

Professor, Worcester State University

Elizabeth Siler is a professor at Worcester State University in the Business Administration and Economics Department. She teaches management classes to undergraduate students and almost exclusively uses open education resources, and is an advisor for the Fiber Arts Circle student... Read More →

Thursday October 8, 2026 4:20pm - 4:50pm EDT
4 Room T MIT Samberg Conference Center, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA 02139 USA

Round Table

Speaker Modality In-person
Track Catalyzing Human Connection Creativity and Curiosity to Thrive

4:20pm EDT

Inventing Open Together: A Massachusetts Snapshot of Statewide Collaboration

Thursday October 8, 2026 4:20pm - 5:25pm EDT

3 Room I

ID: 33778

Open Education (OE) doesn’t scale through tools or policies alone, but through relationships, and Massachusetts offers a vivid example of that work in progress. What becomes possible when OE is approached not just as an institutional effort, but as a statewide, collaborative ecosystem? The Open & Low-Cost Educational Resources Advisory Council (OLERAC) advances statewide efforts to reduce educational costs, promote equity, and support the creation and recognition of open knowledge.This panel offers an evolving snapshot of Open Education in Massachusetts, with a focus on community colleges and the work of OLERAC. Through faculty and administrative perspectives, panelists will explore how cross-institutional collaboration, shared infrastructure, and community-driven approaches are shaping more sustainable and equitable open practices.Rather than presenting a single model, this session highlights work in progress: efforts to scale course marking, support faculty engagement, and navigate emerging questions around sustainability, accessibility, and artificial intelligence. Panelists will reflect on both successes and ongoing challenges, including the realities of coordinating across systems, roles, and capacity constraints.Grounded in the conference theme, this session invites participants into the conversation. After a brief panel discussion, attendees will engage in a full-room dialogue to share how similar (or different) efforts are unfolding in their own states, regions, or countries. Together, we will surface ideas, tensions, and possibilities for “inventing” more connected and resilient open ecosystems.

Speakers

Chris Laney

Professor of History & Coordinator, Honors Scholar Program, Berkshire Community College

Chris Laney teaches history and serves as the Honors Program Coordinator at Berkshire Community College. He has used OER since 2019 and is a member of the BCC OER Committee and the Massachusetts OLERAC. He lives on a homestead in Western Massachusetts with his family and an assortment... Read More →

Gina Foley

Associate Professor of Biology, Berkshire Community College

Gina Foley is an Associate Professor of Biology at Berkshire Community College, where she has spent the past two decades teaching and supporting STEM students. During a recent sabbatical, she developed Storytelling in Biology, an OER resource that uses powerful real-world stories... Read More →

Bernadette Sibuma

Director, Online Learning, Massachusetts Bay Community College

Ceit De Vitto

Sr. Special Programs Coordinator/Open Education, Bunker Hill Community College

Ceit De Vitto holds an M.E.d. in Instructional Design, from UMass Boston. Since 2018 she has worked for Bunker Hill Community College as the Open Education Cooridinator. She also chairs the Course Flagging Committee for Massachusetts Department of Higher Education’s Open and Low-Cost... Read More →

Heather Blicher

Director, Community College Consortium for OER (CCCOER), Open Education Global

Heather Blicher is the Director of the Community College Consortium for OER (CCCOER) with Open Education Global, where she leads efforts to expand and support Open Education across community and technical colleges in North America. A passionate advocate for access, equity, and collaboration... Read More →

Thursday October 8, 2026 4:20pm - 5:25pm EDT
3 Room I MIT Samberg Conference Center, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA 02139 USA

Panel

Speaker Modality In-person
Track Catalyzing Human Connection Creativity and Curiosity to Thrive

4:20pm EDT

Sparking Connection, Creativity, and Curiosity with the Open Education Network

Thursday October 8, 2026 4:20pm - 6:00pm EDT

2 Room M

ID: 31480

Engage in creative conversation with other open practitioners as you experience unique open spaces and centers around the MIT campus and nearby Cambridge. A chance to unwind, interact, and pursue ideas while stepping outside of the confines of the traditional conference setting. Convened by the staff of the Open Education Network, who are also always happy to chat about their work and offering of support resources!

Speakers

Open Education Network

Staff, Open Education Network

The OEN is a global collective of more than 1,700 higher education institutions and consortia that partner together to make higher education more affordable and equitable through engagement with open education. We are not a vendor, a business, or even a non-profit; we are part of... Read More →

Thursday October 8, 2026 4:20pm - 6:00pm EDT
2 Room M MIT Samberg Conference Center, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA 02139 USA

Special Activity

Speaker Modality In-person
Track Catalyzing Human Connection Creativity and Curiosity to Thrive

4:55pm EDT

Augmenting Open Educational Resources at Scale: AI-Driven Approaches to Adoption, Adaptation, and Distribution

Thursday October 8, 2026 4:55pm - 5:25pm EDT

6 DR4

ID: 34028

Artificial intelligence (AI) is ushering in a significant shift in education, introducing systems capable of adapting to learners with unprecedented precision and immediacy. Rather than functioning as static tools, AI-driven platforms now provide context-aware guidance, personalized learning pathways, and real-time feedback that reshape how knowledge is acquired and applied. While these advances can enhance instructional effectiveness and deepen student engagement, they also raise critical concerns about access, as unequal availability risks widening existing gaps in educational opportunity.This presentation examines a new initiative from LibreTexts, a widely adopted, not-for-profit platform, that advances the integration of AI into open educational resources to create a scalable, adaptive, and equitable learning ecosystem. The initiative develops and deploys a comprehensive suite of intelligent tools across the LibreVerse, including context-aware AI tutors embedded within digital textbooks, automated generation and evaluation of formative homework, AI-assisted writing and research support, AI-guided coding and data science tools within Jupyter environments, and AI-enabled social annotation to foster deeper collaboration and engagement.The initiative is organized around five core development areas: (I) AI tutor–enhanced textbooks providing contextualized, always-available guidance grounded in vetted OER; (II) AI-supported homework systems enabling scalable question generation and automated evaluation; (III) AI-assisted writing tools supporting both student learning and instructor content creation; (IV) AI-integrated coding and data science environments enabling collaborative problem-solving; and (V) AI-enhanced social annotation to strengthen interaction, comprehension, and critical thinking.Complementing these advances are robust faculty development programs that support effective adoption and adaptation, alongside a rigorous assessment framework to evaluate learning outcomes, user experience, and system performance for continuous improvement. The anticipated result is a nationally scalable, openly accessible AI-powered ecosystem that improves student comprehension, engagement, and achievement while reducing equity gaps through free, personalized learning support. Instructors benefit from integrated tools for content creation, assessment, analytics, and pedagogy. Grounded in transparency and openness, the initiative establishes a trustworthy AI infrastructure enabling seamless interoperability across textbooks, assessment systems, coding environments, writing tools, and collaborative platforms.This initiative it builds on the proven foundation of the LibreVerse, reaches a truly global audience, and operates under a mission-driven, nonprofit model that maximizes impact. LibreTexts has an established record of developing transformative educational technology and high-quality content for post-secondary learning, with current engagement levels reaching roughly 250 million student interactions per year. This scale enables new AI-driven capabilities to be deployed and adopted rapidly. As a nonprofit dedicated to broad dissemination of OER and open-source tools, LibreTexts removes profit-driven barriers, ensuring innovations can be distributed widely, quickly, and at minimal cost.The project is also innovative in both design and implementation. Its integration within the LibreVerse leverages one of the world’s largest OER repositories, creating a powerful feedback loop of rapid deployment, widespread adoption, and continuous refinement based on authentic learning behavior. Key technical innovations include context-aware AI systems trained on open educational content and aligned with pedagogical best practices, cross-platform interoperability across the entire ecosystem, and transparent development pipelines that allow educators and researchers to audit, extend, and adapt the tools.

Speakers

Delmar Larsen

Professor and CEO, University of California, Davis and LibreTexts

Delmar Larsen is a Professor of Chemistry at the University of California, Davis, and a leading advocate for open education. He is the founder and CEO of the LibreTexts project, one of the world’s largest open educational resource (OER) platforms, providing freely accessible, customizable... Read More →

Thursday October 8, 2026 4:55pm - 5:25pm EDT
6 DR4 MIT Samberg Conference Center, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA 02139 USA

Presentation

Speaker Modality In-person
Track Exploring Emergent Technologies and the Future of Openness

4:55pm EDT

Beyond Tech vs Content: Articulating the Public Interest in AI Policy:The Open Education Perspective

Thursday October 8, 2026 4:55pm - 5:25pm EDT

4 Room T

ID: 34027

Public debate continues to rage over AI policy - the economic, technical, and legal regulation of AI tool creation and use. These debates, however, reduce the interests down to a balancing of the interest and demands of the content industry with the interests and demands of the technology industry. Neither of those interests align particularly closely with the interests of users, and of public interest institutions including libraries, educational institutions, and the populations they serve.The members of the panel will discuss what issues define the public interest as distinct from both of these corporate interests - working from the experience of the open education community as both committed to the public interest and engaged with new technologies. We will cover interests including:Accessibility, universal design, and student agency - including the importance of users control and tool choiceTransparency and due process - focusing on the importance of disclosure when AI tools are used and a process for challenging AI determinations when they are made without meaningful reviewStudent surveillance, learning, and open pedagogy - preserving space for experimentation and learningInteroperability and portability - pushing back on platformization as a tool for extractive business models and content silosAgainst these concerns we will start with a discussion of choices at an instructor or an institutional level, but will also focus on building a public agenda for policy debates and lawmaking processes to enunciate the interests that are not currently well represented in the debate. We will engage with audience members to identify decision points in the selection, implementation, and use of AI in different teaching and learning contexts and to map the interests of users in specific cases. This session will build on previous work, including the “Policy Priorities for Generative AI and Open Education: A Report for the DOERS Community” as well as previous workshops within the open education community over the past four years. We hope this session will serve two parallel purposes: First we hope it prepares participants for discussions of AI implementation and policy that they are involved in at a classroom, department, institutional or system level. Second, we hope that active discussion, participation, and feedback from participants will shape our forward looking work on furthering the public interests in law and policy debates on AI regulation, licensing, and lawmaking. These goals are urgent - as policy decisions are being made we need a clear case for the interests of users, not just a bargain struck between two competing corporate interests. Members of the open community provide a valuable public interest perspective into this debate.

Speakers

William Cross

Director, Open Knowledge Center, North Carolina State University

Will Cross is a medium-sized pile of diplomas in a trench coat. He serves as the Director of the Open Knowledge Center at N.C. State University, an instructor at UNC Chapel Hill, and a Senior Policy Fellow at American University's Washington College of Law. Will holds a law degree... Read More →

Meredith Jacob

Director, Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property, American University Washington College of Law

Meredith Jacob is the director of the Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property at American University Washington College of Law. Currently her work includes research and advocacy focused on: open educational resources, open access to federally funded research, and... Read More →

Robin DeRosa

Executive Director, Open Education Network

Thursday October 8, 2026 4:55pm - 5:25pm EDT
4 Room T MIT Samberg Conference Center, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA 02139 USA

Round Table

Speaker Modality In-person
Track Exploring Emergent Technologies and the Future of Openness

5:30pm EDT

Preparing for the Future of Work: Communications Between Workforce and OER

Thursday October 8, 2026 5:30pm - 6:00pm EDT

3 Room I

ID: 33960

Upskilling and reskilling of the current workforce has become an essential part of achieving the global development agenda of the UN’s Sustainable Development Solutions Network. Skills centered on equitable access, digital competency, and principles of sustainability are vital not only for economic growth, but also for our societies to thrive. While educational institutions and industries guide students from one stop on their path to the next, collaboration or even communication between both parties is limited.This panel brings together representatives from the DOERS Workforce Development Project to share their perspectives on the rapidly-evolving relationship between workforce and post-secondary education systems, and the value of open education in this currently prioritized landscape. Industry representatives, directors of workforce initiatives, college & university administrators and faculty, open education leaders, and working group leaders will discuss challenges and achievements in strategic outreach and forged connections. Sharing concrete examples demonstrating how the openly licensed, customizable nature of OER facilitates innovative approaches to support career-connected learning and align programs with workforce needs will impart the value of OER in workforce development to session attendees. This project explores open educational resources (OER) as a practical policy tool supporting institutional innovation, affordability, and workforce alignment across many US states and Canadian provinces. OER use allows institutions to update curriculum efficiently, embed industry-recognized competencies, and reduce cost barriers; goals that are particularly relevant as states expand work-based learning, dual enrollment, competency-based education, and stackable credential pathways. Since 2024, the DOERS Workforce Project has focused on a three-phase approach toward its goal of supporting higher education systems and consortia toward the growth and integration of open education and OER across workforce-aligned education. Phase One was the creation and testing of an OER + Workforce Collaboration System at OpenEd25 and a plenary workshop at the Wyoming OER Conference 2026. This co-design experience invites participants to explore and test a suite of collaboration tools designed to help cross-sector teams imagine, create, and implement workforce-aligned OER solutions. Phase Two was the convening of 3 focus groups to further spotlight gaps in OER + workforce and offer future directions. Phase Three saw the generation of a Workforce OER Playbook. This living resource (forthcoming Summer 2026) will collect real-world use cases, stories, and evidence from across the OER and workforce development communities — showcasing how collaboration can lead to better learning outcomes and stronger regional economies. Both the Collaboration System and the Playbook will be openly published and made available to session attendees. DOERS acknowledges its valuable partnership with The Rebus Foundation and Clear Kinetic on the Workforce Project.

Speakers

Jaimie Henthorn

Director, Academic Innovation Programs, University of Colorado System

As Director of Academic Innovation Programs for the University of Colorado System, Jaimie leads initiatives across four campuses aimed at lowering barriers to quality education through innovation. Initiatives include OER, micro-credentialing, MOOCs, and more. Currently, the Innovation... Read More →

Mindy Newfarmer

Thursday October 8, 2026 5:30pm - 6:00pm EDT
3 Room I MIT Samberg Conference Center, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA 02139 USA

Panel

Speaker Modality In-person
Track (Re)Inventing our Shared Global Vision Together

5:30pm EDT

Who Gets Credit When AI Shares the Work? A Provenance Conversation

Thursday October 8, 2026 5:30pm - 6:00pm EDT

4 Room T

ID: 34030

When a student submits work that includes AI-generated text, adapted OER, and original writing, who made it? When a librarian publishes a course guide remixed from three openly licensed sources and refined with an AI tool, whose work is it? When an educator adapts a textbook chapter, runs it through a translation model, and posts it under CC BY, who does that license require you to credit?
These aren't hypothetical questions. They're happening in classrooms, libraries, and publishing workflows right now, and many of us are making up the answers as we go.
Attribution in open education has always been more aspiration than infrastructure. Creative Commons gives us TASL (Title, Author, Source, License) as a starting point, not a system, and the ground is shifting under even that starting point. The U.S. Copyright Office concluded in its January 2025 copyrightability report that AI-generated content without sufficient human authorship is not copyrightable, which means the "Author" field in TASL now carries questions it was never designed for. CC Signals, Creative Commons' emerging preference signals project, introduces credit obligations for machine reuse of openly licensed collections but operates at the dataset level, not per-work provenance tracking inside a content workflow. The gap between what we say we value and what we can trace keeps growing.
This round table is a conversation about what honest attribution looks like when humans and AI share the work.
We're bringing one proposed answer to the table: DARP (Devise, Author, Review, Prepare). DARP is a structured attribution model that assigns contributor roles, human or AI, across four stages of a content workflow, each with a defined scope of involvement. It tracks provenance as work is made, not reconstructed after the fact, and that record persists through remixing and redistribution without altering source text.
DARP is not theoretical. It is implemented in commonFrame, an open-source platform licensed under AGPL, with tooling available at no cost. But this conversation is not about the platform. It's about whether a model like DARP reflects how open educators actually work (and what's missing).
One question will anchor our time together: does a four-stage attribution model fit your practice, and where does it break? We especially want to hear from the open educators, open technologists, and open innovators at OEGlobal 2026 who remix, adapt, translate, and publish in open contexts every day. If the model doesn't fit your workflow, tell us why. If there's a stage we haven't accounted for, we want to know. If your context raises questions we haven't considered, we want to hear them.
Attribution is what keeps open education trustworthy and sustainable. This community has been working in open contexts longer than most, and that experience should shape what gets built next.

Speakers

Victoria Brame

Co-Founder, Clear Box

Victoria Brame is the co-founder of Clear Box, a mission-driven organization creating local-first, clear-box AI infrastructure so that access to knowledge never comes at the cost of privacy. She also leads strategic communications at The Rebus Foundation, expanding the reach of impactful... Read More →

Chris Macek

Co-Founder, Clear Box

Chris Macek is the co-founder of Clear Box, a mission-driven organization working to make public good software approachable and trustworthy. He leads development and designs systems that make it possible, a role that comes naturally after 20 years of doing the same thing in recording... Read More →

Thursday October 8, 2026 5:30pm - 6:00pm EDT
4 Room T MIT Samberg Conference Center, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA 02139 USA

Round Table

Speaker Modality In-person
Track Exploring Emergent Technologies and the Future of Openness

OEGlobal 2026

From $195.00

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