Name: Beyond Tech vs Content: Articulating the Public Interest in AI Policy:The Open Education Perspective
Start: 2026-10-08T16:55:00-0400
End: 2026-10-08T17:25:00-0400

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

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

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 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

Tickets

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OEGlobal 2026

William Cross

Meredith Jacob

Robin DeRosa

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Success you have shared X tickets.

OEGlobal 2026

William Cross

Meredith Jacob

Robin DeRosa

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