OEGlobal 2026: Full Schedule

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

11:50am EDT

AI and the Future of Openness: Insights from the DOERS AI+OER Project

Wednesday October 7, 2026 11:50am - 12:55pm EDT

ID: 34021

This panel session introduces the DOERS AI+OER Case Studies Project, a collaborative, multi-institutional initiative exploring how artificial intelligence is intersecting with open educational resources (OER) and shaping the future of openness. As AI tools continue to impact teaching, learning, and knowledge production, open education faces both new opportunities and urgent questions: How do we ensure that AI-enabled practices align with the values of openness and student success? What does it mean to create, adapt, and share knowledge in an era of generative systems? And how can open education practitioners lead in defining ethical, transparent, and sustainable approaches to using AI in education?The DOERS Collaborative launched the AI+OER Case Studies Project to document and examine real-world implementations at the intersection of AI and open education. Drawing on contributions from a wide range of institutional contexts and disciplines, the project centers practice-based case studies that explore how educators, researchers, and program leaders are integrating AI into open education workflows, pedagogies, and infrastructures.This session frames AI not simply as a tool, but as an opportunity for rethinking openness itself. Author/Panelists will present selected case studies that highlight diverse applications, such as using AI to support OER creation and adaptation, enhancing accessibility through automated tools, enabling new forms of student engagement and co-creation, and leveraging AI for data-informed decision-making. At the same time, the session will critically examine tensions that emerge at this intersection, including questions of authorship, intellectual property, bias, transparency, and the environmental and labor implications of AI systems.A central focus of the session is how open education values can inform the development and use of AI in ways that prioritize public good. Panelists will discuss how openness can serve as both a framework and a set of practices for guiding AI integration—emphasizing transparency in processes, openness in licensing and sharing, and collaboration across roles and institutions. They will also explore how case study methodology enables the field to move beyond abstract debates, offering grounded, contextualized insights that can inform both local practice and broader policy conversations.Each contributor will share practical insights from their work, including how they designed their projects, navigated ethical and institutional considerations, and assessed impact. The session will highlight patterns emerging across cases, as well as areas of divergence that point to the complexity of implementing AI in open education contexts.Attendees will leave with a clearer understanding of how AI is currently being used within open education, along with concrete examples and critical questions to inform their own work. The session will conclude with a facilitated discussion, inviting participants to reflect on how they can engage with AI in ways that not only extend the reach of open education, but also uphold and evolve its core principles.

Speakers

Kathy Essmiller

Coordinator, OpenOKState, Oklahoma State University

Kathy is an open education leader, librarian, and educator dedicated to advancing access to education and community through the adoption and creation of open educational resources (OER). As the Coordinator of OpenOKState at Oklahoma State University, Kathy collaborates with faculty... Read More →

Wednesday October 7, 2026 11:50am - 12:55pm EDT
7 DR5 MIT Samberg Conference Center, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA 02139 USA

Panel

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

11:50am EDT

From Frameworks to Futures: Rethinking OER Quality as a Shared Practice

Wednesday October 7, 2026 11:50am - 12:55pm EDT

3 Room I

ID: 33068

As open educational resources (OER) continue to expand across regions, systems, and cultures, critical questions remain: Who defines quality? How do we build trust in OER without constraining openness, diversity, and innovation?Efforts to scale OER often surface tensions between the need for shared standards and the reality of local context. What does “quality” mean across disciplines, cultures, and learning environments? And how can we move beyond fragmented or implicit definitions toward a more transparent, participatory, and adaptable global vision of OER quality?This panel invites participants into that conversation through the lens of Open 4 Peer Review, a collaborative initiative across 13 partners that developed six peer-review rubrics designed to support formative, feedback-centered approaches to OER quality. Addressing areas such as accessibility, copyright, copyediting, disciplinary appropriateness, eLearning, and Universal Design for Learning (UDL), these rubrics are intentionally designed not to score, rank, or gatekeep OER. Instead, they aim to make quality more visible, discussable, and improvable through structured peer feedback.Panelists include project leads from multiple partnering institutions and one institutional representative from outside the project who is actively considering how—and whether—to adopt these tools. Together, they will explore both the promise and the complexity of shared frameworks: How can we articulate standards of quality without enforcing uniformity? How do we ensure that peer review empowers educators rather than constrains them? And what does it take to build trust in OER across systems that differ in priorities, resources, and cultural context?Rather than positioning quality as a fixed benchmark, this session reframes it as a collective, evolving practice—one that emerges through dialogue, reflection, and continuous improvement. Participants will be invited to engage with guiding questions, share perspectives from their own contexts, and consider how peer review might function as a bridge between global alignment and local autonomy.At a time when open education is both expanding and being reimagined, this session challenges us to think differently: not about how to standardize OER quality, but how to co-create it. By bringing together multiple perspectives, the panel aims to spark a broader conversation about how we can design processes, tools, and communities that support trustworthy, inclusive, and context-responsive OER ecosystems worldwide.The goal of the session is to share the rubrics with a global audience. Session participants will be invited to review and provide feedback on these rubrics. The hope of the session is that participants will consider adopting or adapting an OER quality framework.

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 →

Andrea Scott

Open Educational Resources Office of Learning Advancement, Salt Lake Community College

Andrea Scott is Director of Open Educational Resources in the Office of Learning Advancement and Co‑Chair of the Open SLCC Advisory Committee at Salt Lake Community College. Active in Open Education since 2013, she helped establish Open SLCC and now oversees program development... Read More →

Danielle Leek

Project Director, Scottsdale Community College

Danielle Leek, PhD, is an instructor at Johns Hopkins University. She is also Project Director for the federally funded Open 4Peer Review initiative at Maricopa Community Colleges and Founder and Principal at Danielle Leek Consulting.

Gracie McDonough

Reference/Instruction/OER Librarian, College of Southern Nevada

Gracie McDonough serves as an Instruction and Reference Librarian at the College of Southern Nevada in Las Vegas. Since joining CSN, she has been a dedicated advocate for Open Educational Resources (OER), contributing to a significant increase in institutional OER adoption from less... Read More →

Debbie Baker

OER Coordinator, Instructional designer, Maricopa Community College District

Dr. Debbie Baker serves as the open educational resources coordinator and an instructional designer for the Maricopa Community Colleges (MCCCD), and has been an educator for almost 30 years. Her work has centered on reshaping traditional classroom dynamics by involving students in... Read More →

Wednesday October 7, 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 (Re)Inventing our Shared Global Vision Together

1:40pm EDT

Design, Build, Share: A Panel Workshop on Open Microcredential Content and Credential Metadata

Wednesday October 7, 2026 1:40pm - 2:45pm EDT

3 Room I

ID: 33581

As the shift toward skills-based learning accelerates, educators and institutions are increasingly called to design learning experiences that are not only aligned to workforce needs but also open, adaptable, and transparent. While open educational resources (OER) have expanded access to content, there is a growing need to support the development of open, skills-based microcredential content that can be reused, adapted, and recognized across learning and employment contexts. This interactive panel and workshop session invites participants to “come invent with us” by engaging directly in the process of authoring open microcredential content.Grounded in emerging practices at the intersection of open education, microcredentials, and Learning and Employment Records (LERs), this session will move beyond conceptual discussion into hands-on application. Participants will be introduced to key considerations in designing open, skills-based content, including alignment to validated skills, structuring for modularity and stackability, and embedding metadata to support transparency, interoperability, and credential portability (Credential Engine, 2024). Building on principles of OER-enabled pedagogy (Wiley & Hilton, 2018), the session emphasizes not only access to content, but the ability for educators and institutions to actively create, adapt, and share skills-aligned learning resources.A central component of the session will be guided, experiential engagement with the Pressbooks Microcredential Authoring platform. Participants will work within a templated microcredential structure designed to support consistent, high-quality development of skills-based content. Through facilitated activities, attendees will explore how to translate skills into learning outcomes, develop aligned content and assessments, and incorporate content-level metadata that connects learning experiences to verifiable credentials. The workshop will also surface key design decisions, such as how to balance openness with institutional or industry requirements, and how to support multiple models of content sharing (open, closed, and hybrid).Panelists will provide brief framing perspectives from institutional, international, and ecosystem viewpoints, but the majority of the session will focus on participant engagement. Attendees will have the opportunity to workshop their own ideas, collaborate with peers, and receive feedback from facilitators with expertise in open education, microcredentials, and skills-based design.By the end of the session, participants will have a practical understanding of how to design and author open microcredential content, experience a platform-enabled approach to scalable content development, and gain actionable strategies for implementing open, skills-based learning initiatives within their own contexts. This session directly supports the conference track by advancing innovative approaches to open content that democratize knowledge and expand opportunities for learners across educational and workforce systems.

Speakers

Başak Büyükçelen

Chief Executive Officer, Pressbooks

Başak Büyükçelen is the CEO of Pressbooks, where she has spent the last seven years helping shape the company's direction and culture. With a background spanning consulting, manufacturing, banking, finance, film, and video games, she brings a cross-industry lens to the challenges... Read More →

Kevin Corcoran

Assistant Vice Provost, University of Central Florida

Kevin Corcoran is the Assistant Vice Provost of the Center for Distributed Learning. Kevin has over 25 years of experience in the development and support of strategies for the effective use of digital learning tools and content that focuses on quality standards and practices, student... Read More →

Amanda Coolidge

VP, Strategic Engagement and Growth, Pressbooks

Amanda Coolidge is VP of Strategic Engagement and Growth at Pressbooks, where she leads marketing, sales, and customer success and serves as product manager for the company's microcredential platform. She is the founder of Coolidge Collaborative and former Executive Director of BCcampus... 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 →

Wednesday October 7, 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 Innovating Open Content to Democratize Knowledge

1:40pm EDT

The Leading Edge of Open Education: Meet the 2026 Awardees of the OE Awards for Excellence

Wednesday October 7, 2026 1:40pm - 2:45pm EDT

7 DR5

ID: 33277

By the start of this conference, Open Education Global will have announced the winners of the 2026 Open Education Awards for Excellence, the fifteenth year of this community driven program to recognize the people, projects, and practices that exemplify open education in action. We bring together representatives of this years awardees from both ones present at the conference and others who will join is online. Each will share conversational style an overview of the work for which they were recognized, but also to share what motivates them. This is an opportunity for those attending the conference to extend congratulations, for the awardees to express appreciation, and most importantly to build stronger interconnections within the open education community.Since 2011, the OEAwards have recognized over 300 individuals, projects, and practices. Over the past few years, we have been sifting the awards from a "competition" like focus on the "winners" to a celebration and making visible all-- the details of hundreds of nominees are shared. Furthermore, the program is extending itself into an ongoing encouragement all year long of "micro-recognition" as expressions of gratitude for the often invisible work that makes open education possible.Join us for a conversation with the people identified through the program who are modeling in action what Open Education does around the world.

Speakers

Marcela Morales

Executive Co-Director, Open Education Global

Marcela is an avid promotor of access to knowledge and a true believer in the power of education to transform lives and societies all around the world. She believes that education is an essential, shared, and collaborative social good for which we are all responsible.As Co-Executive... Read More →

Alan Levine

Director of Community Engagement, Open Education Global

Alan Levine explores the potential of new technologies for education. In 1993 he set up a web server on a Mac SE/30 at the Maricopa Community Colleges and has not left since. His current role is Director of Community Engagement at Open Education Global. Before that he provided consulting... Read More →

Wednesday October 7, 2026 1:40pm - 2:45pm EDT
7 DR5 MIT Samberg Conference Center, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA 02139 USA

Panel

Speaker Modality Hybrid
Track Catalyzing Human Connection Creativity and Curiosity to Thrive

3:00pm EDT

How Open Should Open Be? The AI Question for Archives, Repositories, and Open Scholarship

Wednesday October 7, 2026 3:00pm - 4:05pm EDT

3 Room I

ID: 34865

Libraries, archives, and mission-driven publishers have been key players in the global movement to increase open and equitable access to scholarship and to primary source materials. One key question that stewards of archival and general collections, and publishers of scholarly content, must wrestle with today is whether the principles behind making content open for individual readers and users can be applied to LLMs and generative AI tools. Concerns over loss of provenance, control, and lack of attribution bump up against a conviction that the high quality content stewarded by research libraries, archives, and scholarly publishers would enhance the quality of output produced by AI tools. As AI systems seek access to scholarly content for training data, long-standing assumptions and values about openness, stewardship, control and provenance are being challenged and reexamined. In this panel discussion, we bring together different perspectives on the core question of whether and how scholarly content should be open for AI use.Panelists:Dave Hansen, Executive Director of Authors Alliance, argues that control and gatekeeping are the wrong approach for libraries and archives, and instead asserts that “building the infrastructure that supports open, accountable research of every kind.” will be the most values-aligned and productive role for the library community.Alison Muddit, Chief Executive Officer of the Public Library of Science (PLOS), asserts that AI and open access are not naturally in tension; but/and that a mission-driven publisher like PLOS must take seriously the fact that AI intensifies the need for rigor, transparency, and signals of trustworthiness. She emphasizes the responsibility to ensure that the scholarly record functions as trustworthy infrastructure for both human and machine reasoning.Chris Bourg, Director of Libraries at MIT, is a global leader in open scholarship and an advocate for the public mission of knowledge institutions. At MIT, she is co-chair of the MIT Working Group on Scholarly Content and Generative AI, and a member of the MIT Committee on AI in Teaching, Learning, and Research Training. Panel facilitator: Mike Furlough, Executive Director of HathiTrust, works with dozens of member libraries to steward over 19 million digitized items from their collections, recognizing that memory institutions have a responsibility to make collections broadly accessible for all modes of research. However, emergent modes of research have brought new, more urgent demands for access to those collections, which in turn pose new questions regarding sustainable stewardship.

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 →

Mike Furlough

Executive Director, HathiTrust

Furlough leads an organization that includes over 90 academic and research institutions working to transform scholarship and research in the 21st century. The partnering institutions currently own and maintain a trusted digital repository of more than 11 million volumes, digitized... Read More →

Dave Hansen

Executive Director, Authors Alliance

David Hansen is the Executive Director of Authors Alliance, a nonprofit that aims to support authors who want to see their works widely distributed for the benefit of the public. Authors Alliance has led efforts to secure copyright exemptions for text data mining researchers and has... Read More →

Alison Muddit

Chief Executive Officer, Public Library of Science

Since June 2017 Alison has been Chief Executive Officer of the Public Library of Science (PLOS), an organization on a mission to drive open science forward with measurable, meaningful change in research publishing, policy, and practice. Prior to PLOS, Alison served as Executive Director... Read More →

Wednesday October 7, 2026 3:00pm - 4:05pm EDT
3 Room I MIT Samberg Conference Center, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA 02139 USA

Panel

Speaker Modality Hybrid
Track Innovating Open Content to Democratize Knowledge

3:35pm EDT

GO-GN Canada Hub - Rediscovering the Land as Open Educators

Wednesday October 7, 2026 3:35pm - 4:05pm EDT

7 DR5

ID: 34731

In the summer of 2025, the GO-GN Canada Hub was formed as an extension of the global GO-GN network based in the Open University, United Kingdom. Because community building and in-person convenings are so important to the GO-GN network of PhD students and GO-GN alumni, the GO-GN Canada Hub spent a 2-day Indigenous land-based learning experience at the Cultural Use Area in Jasper National Park, guided by Darrion Letendre and Ni’tokisiks (Blackfoot elder) Lance Scout. This land-based learning extended and deepened conversations about the compatibility/incompatibility of open education and Indigenous knowledge that began through Darrion’s keynote address at the Open Education Global 2023 keynote in Edmonton (i.e., OEGlobal23 Keynote: Embracing 2-Eyed Seeing to Revitalize Sustainable Relations). During the grant period and beyond, regular online meetings support GO-GN student updates, progress on meeting the Hub’s deliverables, and other educational activities including a community of practice book study of Wahi Wah Indigenous Pedagogies: An Act of Reconciliation and Anti-racist Education (Chrona, 2022). The members of the Canada Hub co-authored a multi-modal collection of their land-based learning. In these reflections, the tensions and intersections of the history of colonization are revealed alongside open education, research perspectives, and Indigenous ways of knowing(Canadian Commission for UNESCO, 2021). The pressbook (released Spring 2026) will be part of the panel presentation. Several blog posts and growing the GO-GN awareness and membership were also key deliverables from the Hub. The community of practice online meetings continues with the taking up of open access articles, reports, and practitioner concerns. The GO-GN Canada Hub supports and expands GO-GN’s strategic direction to “inspire alternative ways of being and understanding the world” (Farrow et al., 2024, p. 42). As a collaborative community, the Canada Hub is part of the maturation of open education and the challenges that individuals and the community face as this hub continues to be an imperfect act of conciliation and reconciliation for its Canadian members. The online panel discussion will highlight the Hub’s activities and its ongoing efforts of walking alongside, learning from and with our Indigenous and more than human relatives.

Speakers

Connie Blomgren

Professor, Athabasca University

Dr. Constance Blomgren is a Professor in the Open, Digital and Distance Education Master of Education programs at Athabasca University and the Masters of Education Program Director. She teaches and researches about openness in education. She is an associate editor for the International... Read More →

Darrion Letendre

InSTEM and Land Based Learning Specialist, Norquest College

Darrion is a dedicated and passionate Nehiyaw-Métis educator with over 10 years of experience of land-based learning for Indigenous youth. He is an advocate for Indigenous education and revitalizing cultural knowledge through Western education systems. He has been a member of the... Read More →

Agnieszka (Aga) Palalas

Professor, Athabasca University

Dr. Palals is a Professor in Open, Digital, and Distance Education, and Program Director in the Doctor of Distance Education Program at Athabasca University. She is an experienced practitioner and researcher of technology-assisted learning and teaching with a focus on innovative pedagogy... Read More →

Wednesday October 7, 2026 3:35pm - 4:05pm EDT
7 DR5 MIT Samberg Conference Center, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA 02139 USA

Panel

Speaker Modality Online
Track Catalyzing Human Connection Creativity and Curiosity to Thrive

4:20pm EDT

Practicing Rebellion: Strategies to Sustain Open Education Leadership

Wednesday October 7, 2026 4:20pm - 5:25pm EDT

3 Room I

ID: 33975

The Rebus Luminary Fellowship for Education Leaders brought together fifteen postsecondary leaders across Canada and the United States for a three-month program dedicated to collective learning and renewal. Together in the winter and spring of 2026, we witnessed transformation in one another and ourselves through three online synchronous sessions and a three-day in-person summit. Our inquiry focused on individual and collective liberation. We developed an honest assessment of disparity in higher education, drawing on real-time pressures in our workplaces to track and examine the distribution of power at the systems-level. Rebus Luminary Fellows serve in multiple leadership roles within education institutions and organizations, ranging from directors to program leads to design specialists. Our community offers valuable perspectives rooted in our own leadership needs and educational contexts. We also dedicated time for inner work, personal reflection, and discussion, fueling visions of possible futures.In this hybrid panel, Rebus Luminary Fellows speak candidly about the challenges of leading open education initiatives, including isolation, burnout, and overwork. We also detail the newly acquired liberatory strategies that continue to make a difference for us in our daily work. In particular, the panel invites participants to consider the miracle of shifting perspective, deep values alignment, and moving from extractive to generative practices. Panelists will examine how these new practices, which started out as suggestions and flashes of curiosity, contribute to restorative, playful, and inventive leadership. Panelists will also discuss realistic methods for sustaining a cross-regional community of practice following the formal completion of a program. Fellows remain committed to nurturing our relationships and continued shared growth, but navigate active schedules and lead multiple projects. To this end, we share innovative ways to nourish and protect meaningful connection across the distance. We invite participants to replicate and experiment with examples of our asynchronous and synchronous engagement for ongoing interaction in your own communities. This session offers both solidarity and strategy. Methods for inclusive hybrid interaction include: open-ended Menti questions and polls to gauge participant priorities and special interests in leadership and collective transformation; a shared online document for real-time note-taking to ensure participation is open and equitable for online participants; and voicing the Meeting Chat comments aloud at regular intervals to ensure multiple means of access to the contributions of online participants. Come away with concrete practices for sustaining yourself and your communities, as well as affirmation that we are not alone in this work.

Speakers

Christina Hendricks

Professor of Teaching and Academic Director of the Centre for Teaching, Learning, and Technology., University of British Columbia Vancouver

Christina Hendricks is a Professor of Teaching in philosophy at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, where she also serves as the Academic Director of the Centre for Teaching, Learning, and Technology. She has been an open education practitioner, advocate, and researchers... Read More →

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 →

Joan Giovannini

Manager of Faculty Development with Instructional Design, Engagement, and Support (IDEAS), University of Massachusetts Amherst

Joan Giovannini is Manager of Faculty Development with Instructional Design, Engagement, and Support (IDEAS) at University of Massachusetts Amherst, where she leads institution‑wide initiatives that support evidence‑based, and technology-enhanced teaching and learning. Joan designs... Read More →

Allison Buckley

Program Specialist, Southern Regional Education Board

Allison Buckley manages and supports the work of open educational resources and the Education Technology Cooperative, where she aids in increasing open educational resources awareness at the local and national levels. She joined SREB’s postsecondary education team in 2024 as a... Read More →

Ginelle Baskin

Assistant Professor and Open Education Librarian, Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU)

Ginelle Baskin is the Open Education Librarian at Middle Tennessee State University, where she leads campus initiatives to advance textbook affordability and the adoption of open educational resources (OER). She works closely with faculty, departments, and campus partners to support... 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 →

Brandon Carson

Sessional Instructor and Research Associate, Ontario Tech University

Brandon Carson is an open education scholar-practitioner whose work sits at the intersection of teaching and learning, educational technology, and higher education change. With more than 17 years of experience in the post-secondary sector, Brandon has supported initiatives related... Read More →

Wednesday October 7, 2026 4:20pm - 5:25pm EDT
3 Room I MIT Samberg Conference Center, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA 02139 USA

Panel

Speaker Modality Hybrid
Track Catalyzing Human Connection Creativity and Curiosity to Thrive

5:30pm EDT

California to the World: Co-Creating an Open Educational Equity Toolkit for Global Use

Wednesday October 7, 2026 5:30pm - 6:00pm EDT

3 Room I

ID: 33124

In 2024, OEG recognized the Open for Antiracism Program as an outstanding program for inclusive excellence. In moving OFAR beyond its base in California, what does it look like when open education for equity moves to other US and global contexts? This panel presents the Open for Antiracism (OFAR) Toolkit—a collaborative, openly licensed resource rooted in five years of program data from the California Community College system—as a living prototype for how the open education community can collectively advance UNESCO Sustainable Development Goal 4: inclusive and equitable quality education for all.OFAR began as professional development to help educators examine the relationship between OER, open pedagogy, and educational equity. The OFAR Toolkit extends that work into a freely adaptable Canvas Commons course to assist educators, institutions, and administrators in adapting our research-backed model for their own communities and contexts. The Toolkit is designed to resist one-size-fits-all definitions of equity—because equity looks different depending on the place, institution, and individual. This session features an OFAR coach who has guided educators through the program's community-of-practice model; two adapters localizing OFAR for distinct contexts; and the project's leadership team. Together, panelists will share what OFAR has accomplished, what it cannot accomplish alone, and how open collaboration is reinventing its possibilities via the Toolkit.Session StructureThe panel has four segments: (1) the project leadership introduces OFAR's five-year research base, outcomes data, and core design principles; (2) Our lead coach discusses the community-of-learners model at the program's core: how cohort structures, mentorship, and sustained professional relationships create conditions for genuine pedagogical transformation—and what requires local roots to replicate; (3) Two adapters share how they are localizing the Toolkit for their own educational communities: what they changed, what they kept, and what tensions arose between the Toolkit's assumptions and their own contexts. They speak directly to the SDG 4 challenge of building equity frameworks across borders without imposing them; and (4) The session closes with structured audience dialogue. Attendees are invited to reflect: What terms, practices, or structures would you change? What does equity-centered open pedagogy look like where you are? What can we build together that none of us can build alone? This segment draws on the Toolkit's "Room to Grow" framework, modeling the reflective and collaborative spirit the resource is designed to cultivate.

Speakers

James Glapa-Grossklag

Dean, Educational Technology, Learning Resources and Distance Learning; and Technical Assistance Provider, College of the Canyons; and ZTC Grant Program California Community College Chancellor’s Office

James Glapa-Grossklag is Dean, Educational Technology, Learning Resources, and Distance Learning at College of the Canyons (USA). He serves as Technical Assistance Provider for the California Community Colleges' Zero Textbook Cost Degree Program, the largest-ever public investment... Read More →

Cindy Domaika

Academic Engagement Partner, Nicolet College, WI

Cindy Domaika is a long-time higher-education professional at Nicolet College who specializes in open educational resources (OER), socially-just academics, and service-learning. Her work centers on expanding affordable and equitable access to education through zero-textbook-cost initiatives... 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 →

Laura Dunn

Director, Open for Antiracism

aura Malia Dunn, Ph.D. is a scholar of Pacific-Asian religions, contemplative practice, and educational equity. She is the Co-Director of the Open for Antiracism Program (OFAR), a statewide professional development initiative for California Community Colleges, and faculty at the University... Read More →

Jamie Thomas

Lead Coach and Course Facilitator, Open for Antiracism

Dr. Jamie Thomas is OFAR Lead Coach and a Lecturer in Linguistics and TESOL at CSU Dominguez Hills. She holds a PhD in Applied Linguistics, with a focus on African languages, and she has been proud to support OFAR as a coach since 2021. In 2022, Jamie was recognized with the Distance... Read More →

Wednesday October 7, 2026 5:30pm - 6:00pm EDT
3 Room I MIT Samberg Conference Center, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA 02139 USA

Panel

Speaker Modality Hybrid
Track (Re)Inventing our Shared Global Vision Together

5:30pm EDT

EdTech, Open Values: Preparing Open Educators for AI, and the Next Big Thing

Wednesday October 7, 2026 5:30pm - 6:00pm EDT

7 DR5

ID: 33918

As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes increasingly integrated into education, educators face significant challenges in understanding how to effectively and ethically incorporate these tools into their teaching practices. Issues such as privacy, surveillance, intellectual property, plagiarism and policy gaps create uncertainty around AI use in the classroom. Additionally, educators lack structured guidance on how to align new integrations with the principles of open pedagogy, which emphasize student-centered learning, access to education, and public engagement. Without support, educators risk implementing emerging technologies in ways that may compromise educational equity, student autonomy, and ethical standards. But these are not new issues, and considering AI as if it were a unique challenge risks us thinking there must be a uniquely AI-focused solution. Instead, libraries and educators need a framework for understanding new and emerging educational technologies in a way that centers our values. Today it’s AI, but education has always been and will continue to be impacted by new and emerging technologies. Some (like with Wikipedia and the World Wide Web) will be empowering and useful, others (like Second Life or NFTs) will be distracting and disruptive. Many new technologies will be a mix of all of these pressures. In order to prepare librarians to understand the opportunities and challenges created by new technologies, and guide educators as they develop new practices and pedagogies, we have adapted our Open Pedagogy Incubator program to use AI as a case study to introduce a framework for evaluating new technologies. This framework equips librarians and educators with the tools needed to a) understand and evaluate the technical affordances and legal implications of these technologies, b) explore the new pedagogical opportunities created or foreclosed by these technologies, and c) build a plan for engaging with (or putting aside) new technologies in a way that centers open values of inclusion and student-centered impact in the classroom and for lifelong learning. With support from the IMLS and our state library we supported our first online cohort in the spring of 2026 and led a series of workshops across our state in the summer. These cohorts brought together educators from across the state, including academic librarians, community college educators, and public librarians. Together we developed and expanded a framework for open values in edtech and explored strategies for incorporating that framework into our communities of practice. This panel brings together participants to discuss their experiences, introduce the framework, and share lessons learned from this program.

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 →

David Tully

Principal Librarian for Student Affordability, North Carolina State University Libraries

David is the Principal Librarian for Student Affordability at NC State University Libraries, focused on advancing student success by reducing the financial barriers to higher education. Through leadership in open education and strategic fundraising, he works to expand access to affordable... Read More →

Katya Mueller

Libraries Fellow, North Carolina State University Libraries

Katya Mueller (pronounced KA-tee-uh MAW-luhr) is a Libraries Fellow (2024-2027) at North Carolina State University Libraries. She works on the Libraries’ open education initiatives in supporting the use of OERs in coursework and designing programs that empower faculty to meaningfully... Read More →

Campbell Barnes

Graduate Research Assistant, North Carolina State University Libraries

Campbell Barnes is the Graduate Research Assistant for the Open Knowledge Center at NC State University Libraries, where she supports faculty and student success through open educational initiatives. She is a facilitator on the Open Pedagogy Pit Stop and Open Pedagogy Incubator programs... Read More →

Wednesday October 7, 2026 5:30pm - 6:00pm EDT
7 DR5 MIT Samberg Conference Center, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA 02139 USA

Panel

Speaker Modality Hybrid
Track Exploring Emergent Technologies and the Future of Openness

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

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

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

11:50am EDT

Sometimes Open Isn’t Enough: Leveraging Library Resources in an Oer Ecosystem

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

7 DR5

ID: 33637

While OER initiatives in higher education have historically emphasized openly licensed materials, many institutions, states, and consortia have been adopting course material affordability initiatives (sometimes called Zero Textbook Cost, or ZTC initiatives). This broader focus includes OER, library-licensed materials, items used within the bounds of fair use/fair dealing, and other free-to-use options – sometimes with all-rights-reserved copyright, and sometimes behind paywalls requiring user authentication. This focus on affordability rather than openness responds to the real-world problem of expensive course materials but also raises new questions about librarians’ roles in upholding the values of the open movement.For many academic librarians, affordability initiatives represent both an opportunity and a tension. On one hand, this approach can scale affordability efforts more quickly by allowing the use of library collections and other existing materials. On the other hand, these approaches may move institutions away from the long-term goals of openness, remixability, and public access that have historically defined the open education movement. Librarians working in this space must often balance pragmatic affordability solutions with broader commitments to open knowledge, ultimately considering whether course material affordability initiatives are hacking the open ecosystem or undermining it.This panel will feature three librarians from different institutions, all of whom are tasked with solving the real-world problem of textbook costs for students and all of whom sometimes recommend “closed” content to reduce the cost of course materials. By hearing the voices of librarians working at different public institutions – a four-year regional university, a large land-grant university, and an urban research university – we will explore the tensions of closed content in an OER world. Panelists will briefly describe their institutional contexts and the strategies they use to support affordability initiatives, followed by a moderated conversation exploring the philosophical, practical, and strategic questions that arise when affordability rather than openness becomes the primary goal. In addition to a Q&A period at the end of the session, panelists will invite attendees to share their thoughts throughout the panel to encourage engaged conversation. Some of the issues to be explored include:What tensions and challenges exist in a space where affordability is the goal, rather than openness?How do librarians define and communicate the differences between affordable course materials and OER?Do affordability initiatives expand or dilute open education goals?What strategic tradeoffs do librarians face in the context of affordability and OER?What specific strategies do librarians use to leverage library collections as course materials?How can librarians leverage relationships with their campus stores to advance affordability goals?How do affordability and OER initiatives enhance or compete with automatic textbook billing programs?By examining these questions through multiple institutional perspectives, this panel will offer participants a nuanced look at the evolving landscape of affordability work in academic libraries. Attendees will gain practical insights into how librarians are navigating the intersection of affordability and OER initiatives, communicating these concepts to faculty and administrators, and making strategic decisions about course materials in complex policy and institutional environments.

Speakers

Cheryl Casey

Open Education Librarian, University of Arizona

Cheryl Casey has led OER initiatives at the University of Arizona since 2014. She’s active in the OER community as a trainer for the Open Education Network (OEN) and one of the instructors for the OEN's Certificate in Open Education Librarianship. She holds a a Master’s in Library... Read More →

Anna Crosswhite

Affordable Course Materials Librarian, Central Washington University

Anna Crosswhite serves as the Affordable Course Materials Librarian at Central Washington University. Her work focuses on affordable course materials including Open Access (OA), Open Educational Resources (OER), and library licensed eBooks. She holds a Bachelors of Social Work (BSW... Read More →

Nancy A. Henke

Open Education Librarian, University of Colorado Denver

Nancy A. Henke is the Open Education Librarian at the University of Colorado Denver where she works to advance initiatives related to Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) and Open Educational Resources (OER). She earned her degree in Library and Information Science from the University of Iowa... Read More →

Thursday October 8, 2026 11:50am - 12:55pm EDT
7 DR5 MIT Samberg Conference Center, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA 02139 USA

Panel

Speaker Modality Hybrid
Track Hacking the Open Ecosystem and Praxis for the Public Good

1:40pm EDT

Charting the Path: Seeding the Open Education Movement

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

7 DR5

ID: 33949

The open education movement itself may be the biggest legacy of the announcement made on the front page of the New York Times on April 4, 2001, “Auditing Classes at M.I.T., on the Web and Free.” The innovation and leadership of MIT and the William and Flora Hewlett and the Andrew W. Mellow Foundations, along with Creative Commons, did more than just break paths for access to learning as a public good in the digital age, they made possible the impact from countless other organizations globally. This announcement twenty five years ago accelerated a global online movement in open education. This session invites selected organizations from the early days of open education to describe their paths and impact, thanks in small part to paths opened by MIT OpenCourseWare.Panelists will tell their organization’s open education origin stories and celebrate their impact and innovation over the last two decades.Delft University Technology: TU Delft, the oldest and largest technical university in the Netherlands, is at the forefront of open and online learning and a long standing advocate for open education. One of the first opencoursewares globally, TU Delft continues to offer openly licensed course materials through its OpenCourseWare, which was launched in 2007.Open Education Japan: OE Japan represents universities and companies in Japan promoting open education and disseminating open educational resources. With its origins in the Japan OCW Consortium, OE Japan includes two early opencoursewares celebrating their 20+ year anniversaries, the University of Tokyo OpenCourseWare, the University of Kyoto OpenCourseWare and Nagoya University OpenCourseWare.Open Education Global: Today, OEGlobal connects a broad global community of open education organizations and leads international initiatives such as Open Education Week. It has its origins as the OpenCourseWare Consortium with informal meetings beginning in 2006. Mountain Heights Academy: Mountain Heights serves approximately 3,000 middle and high school students across Utah in the United States with a curriculum based on open education resources. Founded as the Open High School of Utah in 2009, it was the first K-12 school to embrace open education resources as the primary educational content for its courses.

Speakers

DeLaina Tonks

Executive Director, Mountain Heights Academy

Dr. DeLaina Tonks has been involved in education since 1991, as a teacher, instructional designer, and administrator. Prior to coming to Mountain Heights Academy, she taught high school French and Spanish in Upper Arlington, Ohio. DeLaina is a 2020 “Best of State – Administrator... Read More →

Katsusuke Shigeta

Professor, Information Inititative Center / Hokkaido University

Dr. Katsusuke Shigeta is a Professor at the Information Initiative Center and Director of the Data-Driven Education Initiative Center at Hokkaido University. He serves as the President of Open Education Japan (OEJ) and was previously a member of the Board of Directors for Open Education... Read More →

Willem van Valkenburg

Executive Director TU Delft Learning for Life Centre, Delft University of Technology

Willem van Valkenburg is the Executive Director of the Learning for Life Centre of Delft University of Technology based in the Netherlands. The Centre offers online and blended education to empower professionals and lifelong learners worldwide. The Centre has developed more than 250... Read More →

Curt Newton

Director, MIT OpenCourseWare, MIT Open Learning

Curt Newton leads MIT OpenCourseWare in supporting millions of global learners and educators every year with freely shared materials from over 2,500 MIT courses. He joined OpenCourseWare in 2004, shortly after its launch, captivated by the promise of open education, and worked as... Read More →

Brandon Muramatsu

Thursday October 8, 2026 1:40pm - 2:45pm EDT
7 DR5 MIT Samberg Conference Center, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA 02139 USA

Panel

Speaker Modality Hybrid
Track (Re)Inventing our Shared Global Vision Together

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

3:00pm EDT

Open Publishing in Practice Across Europe

Thursday October 8, 2026 3:00pm - 4:05pm EDT

3 Room I

ID: 33888

In this panel, leaders from institutions across Europe will share how they are building and scaling open publishing networks to support institution-wide publishing initiatives — and what those efforts mean for knowledge as a public good.Each panelist will showcase their open catalogs, highlight key Open Educational Resources (OER) projects, and offer a behind-the-scenes look at how open publishing is being implemented across different national and institutional contexts. We'll explore how and why each institution chose to launch their initiatives, the types of publishing they support, and how they are working to advance institutional goals around openness, access, and teaching innovation.Attendees will hear what each team is most proud of, lessons learned along the way, and what's next for open publishing at their institutions. Whether you're just getting started with open education or looking to scale an existing program, this session offers practical insights and perspectives from across Europe on building sustainable open publishing infrastructure.

Speakers

Celine Peignen

Deputy Librarian, Technological University of the Shannon

Celine Peignen is the Deputy Librarian and Open Education Librarian at the Technological University of the Shannon (TUS), where she has worked in the library sector for over 15 years. She has been a driving force behind TUS's open education strategy, securing funding from the National... Read More →

Maura Flynn

Open Educational Resources Librarian, Technological University of the Shannon

Maura Flynn is the Open Educational Resources (OER) Librarian at the Technological University of the Shannon (TUS), where she leads the development and promotion of open publishing and open education initiatives across the institution. She is the founder of TUS Open Press, the university's... Read More →

Amanda Coolidge

VP, Strategic Engagement and Growth, Pressbooks

Kirstine McDermid

Open Education Resources Manager, University of Leeds

Kirstine McDermid is dedicated to fostering inclusive and equitable learning pathways through open education. With expertise in Pressbooks, instructional technologies, WordPress, course design, accessibility, copyright, and licensing, she supports educators in adapting and creating... Read More →

Jane Saunders

Associate Director: Content and Discovery, University of Leeds

Jane is responsible for the Libraries’ main research and teaching collections. (Rare books and archives fall under the remit of our Cultural Collections). She manages the Libraries’ information resources budget, which buys the books, journals, databases and digitised collections... Read More →

Thursday October 8, 2026 3:00pm - 4:05pm EDT
3 Room I MIT Samberg Conference Center, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA 02139 USA

Panel

Speaker Modality Hybrid
Track (Re)Inventing our Shared Global Vision Together

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

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 →

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

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

10:30am EDT

Feminist Pedagogy as Liberatory Practice

Friday October 9, 2026 10:30am - 11:35am EDT

3 Room I

ID: 34013

Equity and inclusion have recently become contentious topics on college campuses, but in the classroom, the expectation for student-centered learning remains constant. As educators navigate the tension between increased scrutiny of their teaching practices and eroding higher education institutions, pedagogy is at an inflection point. Institutional incentives to perpetuate the status quo abound; now more than ever, the educational is political.This panel calls for an analysis of power in and outside the classroom, and a confrontation of the patriarchal and oppressive underpinnings of traditional pedagogy. Despite a renewed focus on inclusion in the classroom, many teaching practices still center the professor-as-expert; promote a canon of white, Western-centric ways of knowing; and perpetuate a violent culture of individualism. Mainstream discourse around student-centered learning tends to reinforce hegemonic power structures and place the burden of change on educators rather than on institutions. To foster learning environments that are marked by belonging, agency, and connection, and to prepare students for an increasingly complex society, inclusive teaching practices must be accompanied by an analysis of power, both in the classroom and in the world around them.Feminist pedagogy is a framework that places questions of power, inequality, and justice at the center of teaching. Feminist scholar and educator bell hooks, informed by Brazilian educator Paulo Freire, defined feminist pedagogy as a liberatory practice that fosters critical thinking and provides students with the tools to question inequality and social structures. hooks framed the pursuit of learning as intertwined with the pursuit of liberation, and elevates educators as as catalysts for transformation who should foster love and justice. There is no precise formula for practicing feminist pedagogy; it comprises a set of unifying themes such as reducing the classroom power gap, viewing students as active participants in their education, addressing systems of oppression, and challenging those systems through a democratized classroom.This panel aims to highlight ways in which feminist pedagogical practices are currently shaping education, and explore ethical and practical challenges that educators face in their teaching. Emerging from the collaborative book project Feminist Designer: On the Personal and the Political in Design (MIT Press, 2023), which illuminates design as a feminist practice, we propose a moderated dialogue featuring five educators working at the intersections of art, design, and technology, each from diverse backgrounds and institutions in and outside the U.S. Each panelist arrives at this conversation through the unique lens of their own identities and experiences as educators, administrators, practicing designers, mothers, social workers, queer folx, and people of color. Topics to be addressed include power relations in the classroom; care as a pedagogical method; culturally responsive mentorship; curricula and projects that center social justice; where feminist and decolonial perspectives merge; and enacting change within institutions. Panelists will share a plurality of approaches to implementing feminist ways of knowing and doing in the classroom that could be applicable to any discipline. With an emphasis on collaboration and community, we aim to generate an open dialogue about education as a liberatory practice for both students and educators.

Speakers

Heather Snyder Quinn

Associate Professor, DePaul University

Heather Snyder Quinn, MFA is an Associate Professor of Design and Civics Institute Teacher-Scholar. She was named a 2024 “Researcher to Know” by the Illinois Science and Technology Coalition and serves on the board of directors for DePaul’s Institute for Business and Professional... Read More →

Ayako Takase

Associate Professor, Rhode Island School of Design

Ayako Takase is a designer and educator who centers their practice on creating experiences and objects that foster meaningful, emotive connections with people, culture, and audiences. Her life is a mixture of east and west—her early upbringing in Japan fostered an appreciation of... Read More →

Jeff Kasper

Associate Professor, UMass Amherst

Jeff Kasper is an interdisciplinary artist, writer, and educator, specializing in public art, design, community education, and social engagement. He creates text-based projects, experimental publications, games, audio storytelling, open editions, exhibitions, and workshops, often... Read More →

Alison Place

Assistant Professor Educator, University of Cincinnati

Alison Place is a designer, educator, and writer whose work explores the intersection of design and feminist theory as a space for critical making and radical speculation. She is the author of Feminist Designer: On the Personal and the Political in Design (MIT Press 2023), which illuminates... Read More →

Sarah Rutherford

Associate Professor, Cleveland State University

Sarah Rutherford is an Associate Professor of Design and the Undergraduate Director of Design at Cleveland State University and a former President of AIGA Cleveland. She researches, writes, and speaks about pedagogy and learning in higher education. She holds a Master of Fine Arts... Read More →

Friday October 9, 2026 10:30am - 11:35am 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

11:50am EDT

Future of Openness: A Human-in-the-Loop Framework for Agentic OER

Friday October 9, 2026 11:50am - 12:55pm EDT

3 Room I

ID: 34020

As generative AI reshapes the educational landscape, the open education community faces a critical crossroads: Will technology automate the student experience, or can we "invent" new practices that safeguard the human element of learning? This panel discussion invites participants to explore a transformative "Human-in-the-Loop" (HITL) framework for assessment. Rooted in AI engineering but reimagined for the classroom, the HITL model ensures that technology acts as a supportive tool for student growth rather than a "black box" replacement for intellectual effort.By innovating open practices that prioritize the learning process over the final output, we uphold knowledge as a public good and ensure that student agency remains the heartbeat of open education. This discussion introduces a dual-tool pedagogical framework designed to foster a resilient learning process. We will discuss our experiences on how two specific tools—The Forge and Discuss-It—work in tandem to transition OER from passive content delivery to an Agentic OER model. In this model, the "loop" of learning is anchored by the student rather than the algorithm. Rather than deploying writing analytics as a tool for surveillance, The Forge reinvents them as a transparency engine, shifting the power back to the student to document and own their creative writing process. It allows students to visualize the evolution of their work, documenting the iterative steps of their thought process. We will discuss how this shift to Agentic AI principles empowers students to treat their intellectual labor as a valuable public contribution. By making the "messy" stages of drafting visible, we make the use of "black box" automation less appealing and highlight the intrinsic value of human effort. Complementing The Forge, Discuss-It is a multimodal interaction platform that fosters authentic communication by integrating audio and video threaded dialogues directly into the learning path. This tool breaks down the text-heavy barriers that often isolate online learners, transforming assessment into an active, humanized exchange of ideas. Together, these tools form a HITL framework where the student remains the primary author and navigator of their progress, supported—but not supplanted—by emergent technology.Participants will engage with the "Come Invent With Us!" call to action by examining how these tools prevent the commodification of student data and protect the privacy of the learning journey. By centering assessment on the authentic human process, we offer a provocation to the field: to invent a future where Agentic OER does not hide the student behind a prompt, but instead illuminates the brilliance of their individual progress.

Speakers

Sarah Harmon

OER/ZTC Program Manager and Adjunct Professor of Linguistics, Cañada College

Dr. Sarah Harmon is the OER/ZTC Program Manager and Adjunct Professor of Linguistics at Cañada College in Redwood City, California. She brings experience in AI, OER, and faculty development across multiple college contexts. Her work focuses on practical, scalable approaches that... Read More →

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 →

Michelle Pilati

Professor and Open Education Resource Initiative Director, Rio Hondo College

Michelle Pilati is a Professor of Psychology at Rio Hondo College and a recognized leader in open education and online learning within the California Community Colleges system. She has served as faculty at Rio Hondo since 1999 and has extensive experience teaching in online and hybrid... Read More →

Shagun Kaur

Faculty and ZTC Grants Coordinator, De Anza College

Shagun Kaur is a Communication Studies faculty member at De Anza College and a statewide leader in open educational resources (OER) and zero-textbook-cost (ZTC) initiatives through the ASCCC OERI. Her work focuses on building sustainable, faculty-driven pathways that expand access... Read More →

Cristina Moon

Professor, Chabot College

Cristina Moon, Ph.D. is a Professor of Spanish at Chabot College, where she has been a full-time faculty member since 2006. She earned her B.A. in Spanish Literature from University of California, Berkeley and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Hispanic Languages and Literatures from University... Read More →

Friday October 9, 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 Exploring Emergent Technologies and the Future of Openness

11:50am EDT

Who Maintains the Commons? A Hybrid Panel on Hacking OER for Shared Stewardship

Friday October 9, 2026 11:50am - 12:55pm EDT

7 DR5

ID: 33906

If open educational resources are to serve the public good in fields where knowledge shifts from semester to semester, we must stop treating them like books and start treating them as commons that require ongoing care. This hybrid panel brings together OER authors, administrators, and platform developers to hash out what it would actually take to build infrastructures for shared maintenance and governance—economically, technologically, and culturally. Our starting provocation comes from recently published work on OER as dynamic digital commons (Daly, Ahmad, & Schneider, 2026). The panel uses that work as a shared reference point, but panelists will bring their own experiences to bear from authoring, administering, and building the tools that hold OER together.Three clusters of questions will structure the conversation. First, on economic flows: why does funding still stop at creation and one-way adoption, and what would it look like for grants, consortial dues, or platforms like Open Collective to sustain maintenance labor over years rather than weeks? Second, on technology: current OER platforms are designed for publication and adaptation rather than collaboration, lacking the version control, upstream contribution, and contributor identification features that open source communities rely on. What would it take for platforms to integrate these affordances without losing the accessibility that has made tools like Pressbooks successful? Third, on culture: how do we shift adopter expectations from passive reading to active participation, and what role should governance documents inside OER themselves play in signaling that shift?Audience engagement is central to the session design. After brief opening positions from each panelist (roughly fifteen minutes total), the moderator will open the floor using a hybrid-friendly format that blends live microphone questions with a shared online document and chat channel, so that in-person and remote attendees contribute on equal footing. We will pose two or three targeted prompts to the audience, for example, asking participants to name one maintenance obstacle they have encountered in their own work, and feed responses back into the panel discussion live.By the end of the session, attendees will have heard multiple grounded perspectives on challenges to OER maintenance, a working vocabulary for discussing OER as dynamic digital commons, and a short list of concrete next steps they can bring back to their own institutions, platforms, and funding bodies.

Speakers

Nathan Schneider

Associate Professor, Department of Media Studies, University of Colorado Boulder

Nathan Schneider is an associate professor of media studies at the University of Colorado Boulder, where he leads the Media Economies Design Lab and the MA program in Media and Public Engagement. He is the author of four books, most recently Governable Spaces: Democratic Design for... Read More →

Cheryl Casey

Open Education Librarian, University of Arizona

Diana Daly

Associate Professor and Associate Dean of Academic Affairs, College of Information Science, University of Arizona

Dr. Diana Daly has authored open educational resources including Humans R Social Media and Decoding Deception, and a scholar in information science focused on literacies in new media technologies including artificial intelligence, and on information trust, misinformation, and information... Read More →

Amanda Coolidge

VP, Strategic Engagement and Growth, Pressbooks

Nancy A. Henke

Open Education Librarian, University of Colorado Denver

Friday October 9, 2026 11:50am - 12:55pm EDT
7 DR5 MIT Samberg Conference Center, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA 02139 USA

Panel

Speaker Modality Hybrid
Track Hacking the Open Ecosystem and Praxis for the Public Good

1:40pm EDT

From Collections to Classrooms: Unlocking Cultural Heritage for Open Education

Friday October 9, 2026 1:40pm - 2:45pm EDT

3 Room I

ID: 35081

Millions of cultural heritage objects from museums, archives, and community collections have been digitized and made openly available. This growing body of open access material has already enabled new forms of research and discovery. For example, scientists have used digitized butterfly collections to track the impacts of climate change over time.Yet these collections are rarely designed with educators in mind. Educators, in turn, often lack the tools, context, and pathways needed to meaningfully incorporate these materials into teaching and learning. The result is a paradox: a vast and valuable body of open knowledge remains underused, even as demand for adaptable, culturally grounded learning resources continues to grow.This session invites participants to explore a central question:What would it take for open cultural heritage to become active building blocks for teaching and learning?Drawing on Curationist’s work at the intersection of museums, open knowledge, and digital access, this session will examine the structural, technical, and pedagogical barriers that limit reuse. These include challenges related to metadata quality, rights clarity, platform design, discoverability, and the lack of educator-centered pathways for engagement.Through a combination of framing, case examples, and facilitated discussion, participants will explore how educators, cultural institutions, and open education practitioners can work together to bridge these gaps. The session will surface practical insights and shared challenges across sectors, with a focus on moving from access to meaningful use.Participants will be invited to reflect on their own experiences and contribute ideas for tools, practices, and collaborations that could better connect open collections with open education ecosystems. The goal is not only to identify barriers, but to begin outlining a more integrated and participatory approach to open knowledge—one where cultural heritage materials are not just available, but actively used, adapted, and brought into learning environments.

Speakers

Jennryn Wetzler

Director of Learning and Training, Creative Commons

Jennryn Wetzler leads global learning and training initiatives at Creative Commons, with a focus on open education, copyright, and equitable access to knowledge. She works with educators, institutions, and governments to support the adoption and effective use of open educational resources... Read More →

Amanda Figueroa

Platform Director, Curationist Foundation

Amanda Figueroa works at the intersection of cultural heritage, digital access, and community engagement. Her work focuses on making collections more accessible, contextualized, and usable for diverse audiences. She brings experience in bridging institutional collections with public-facing... Read More →

Christian Dawson

Executive Director, Curationist Foundation

Christian Dawson is Executive Director of the Curationist Foundation and a leader in advancing open access to cultural heritage. His work focuses on connecting museum collections with broader digital knowledge ecosystems to support more inclusive and meaningful public engagement... Read More →

Friday October 9, 2026 1:40pm - 2:45pm EDT
3 Room I MIT Samberg Conference Center, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA 02139 USA

Panel

Speaker Modality Hybrid
Track Innovating Open Content to Democratize Knowledge

2:15pm EDT

Generative AI for Mathematics Open Educational Resources: Developer and Educator Perspectives

Friday October 9, 2026 2:15pm - 2:45pm EDT

7 DR5

ID: 33183

This panel will report about an ongoing project about generative AI in OER use and creation in mathematics. Each speaker will share about their specific areas of responsibility and findings from the project. Cristina Heffernan will present about the ASSISTments platform. ASSISTments is a Standards-aligned math practice and assessment solution that provides timely feedback to students and data to teachers. This data is used by teachers to inform their formative assessment practices. We feel that formative assessment should be integrated into tier one (whole-class, grade-level) instruction. The introduction of a highly rated and used open educational resource, Illustrative Mathematics, has enabled us to do just that. This presentation will share our story from a research project to a competitive product in the K-12 market, supporting the implementation of Illustrative Mathematics in schools that want a proven tech solution.Candace Walkington will present on ideas for using generative AI in OER creation. Generative AI introduces new possibilities for creating open educational resources that are tailored to learners’ interests, experiences, and learning needs. I will discuss how our team is implementing systems for AI-powered context personalization of math problems into OER, as well as systems for integrating AI-generated visuals into OER. Such approaches can improve the quality and relevance of OER materials, both in K-12 and in higher education. They can allow students to better be engaged by and understand difficult mathematical tasks.Jiabao Wen will present on interviews with educators on using generative AI for visuals in OER. Both K-12 mathematics teachers and college mathematics instructors often use problems in their courses that involve visuals – images that show math properties or relationships, or that illustrate real-world contexts. AI offers new opportunities for educators to generate new visuals for mathematics learning on-the-fly, to support their students’ needs. I will discuss a series of 30 interviews we conducted with mathematics instructors who use OER where they described their needs related to AI image generation to accompany OER materials, and tested and reacted to current AI image generation approaches.Virginia Clinton-Lisell will present on interviews with OER developers in this project. Ten mathematics OER developers were interviewed about their use of generative AI and tried AI tools for visual creation. Based on analyses of the interviews, there was varied adoption of AI tools by OER developers for their workflow process, with some enthusiastic about AI and others reporting little to no use. Common complaints about the generative AI tools demonstrated were the lack of accuracy and concerns that the images would not be accessible across functional diversity.

Speakers

Candace Walkington

Annette and Harold Simmons Centennial Chair and Professor, Southern Methodist University

Dr. Candace Walkington is an Annette and Harold Simmons Centennial Chair, Professor, in the Department of Teaching and Learning at Southern Methodist University, specializing in mathematics education. Dr. Walkington conducts research on technology-enhanced approaches to mathematics... Read More →

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 →

Cristina Heffernan

Co-Executive Director and Co-Founder, ASSISTments

Cristina began her teaching career as a Peace Corps volunteer in Gabon, Africa. Since then she has felt at home working with and for educators with a special passion for middle school math. In 2003, Cristina was the go-to advisor for the work her husband Neil was starting at WPI... Read More →

Jiabao Wen

PhD student, Southern Methodist University

Jiabao Wen is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Teaching and Learning at Southern Methodist University. His research focuses on generative AI in K–12 mathematics education, with particular attention to multimodal AI, visual representations, and the design of AI-supported learning... Read More →

Friday October 9, 2026 2:15pm - 2:45pm EDT
7 DR5 MIT Samberg Conference Center, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA 02139 USA

Panel

Speaker Modality Hybrid
Track Exploring Emergent Technologies and the Future of Openness

3:00pm EDT

Leading Openly, Reaching Widely: MOLLI Beyond Maryland

Friday October 9, 2026 3:00pm - 3:30pm EDT

3 Room I

ID: 33061

Leading Openly, Reaching Widely: MOLLI Beyond MarylandWhat happens when a regional professional development institute opens its doors to the world? The Maryland Online Leadership Institute (MOLLI) is finding out.MOLLI is a project of MarylandOnline (MOL), a consortium of Maryland colleges and universities dedicated to advancing online learning through training and collaboration. Designed for online learning professionals at all career stages — from instructional designers and librarians to IT managers, faculty, and administrators — MOLLI develops leadership skills through an immersive, project-based curriculum grounded in inspiration, reflection, and real-world practice.At its core, MOLLI operates on a simple but powerful belief: leadership skills are learnable, and they are valuable at every level of an organization. Each cohort, which runs on a two-year cycle, brings together higher education professionals to build community, sharpen competencies, and tackle the evolving challenges facing online and technology-mediated learning.Now, MOLLI is evolving too.Originally focused on Maryland institutions, MOLLI has expanded its reach to serve professionals across the United States — and is actively working to grow its community even further, welcoming participants from beyond U.S. borders. This expansion reflects MOLLI's commitment to building a truly global community of practice for online learning leaders.Alongside this geographic growth, MOLLI has deepened the scope of its signature high-impact group projects — year-long collaborative endeavors where cohort participants apply their learning to real challenges in online education. This session highlights one such evolution: the intentional integration of Open Educational Resources (OER) and Universal Design for Learning (UDL) into project work, with a focus on creative outputs designed to increase student engagement.Whether you are an online learning professional looking to grow your leadership skills, an administrator seeking to replicate or partner with models like MOLLI, or an open education advocate curious about how OER and UDL intersect with professional development, this session offers practical insights and an open invitation to join a growing community.MOLLI started in Maryland. Its future is wide open.

Speakers

Shinta Hernandez

Dean of MC Online and Academic Support, Montgomery College

Shinta Hernandez, Ph.D. is the Dean of MC Online and Academic Support at Montgomery College (MC), providing leadership in online education, open education, learning centers, academic success coaching, and assessment centers. From the time she started at MC in January 2007, she has... Read More →

Gracie McDonough

Reference/Instruction/OER Librarian, College of Southern Nevada

Debbie Baker

OER Coordinator, Instructional designer, Maricopa Community College District

Friday October 9, 2026 3:00pm - 3:30pm 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

3:00pm EDT

UHCOOL: A Sustainable Governance Model Bridging University OER and K-12 Blended Learning

Friday October 9, 2026 3:00pm - 3:30pm EDT

7 DR5

ID: 33508

While the expansion of Open Educational Resources (OER) and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) has democratized access to higher education, their integration into K-12 environments remains challenging. Literature consistently indicates that K-12 learners require structured teacher support and blended classroom integration rather than independent, isolated online study. Furthermore, the true challenge of OER initiatives lies not merely in facilitating "open sharing," but in establishing "sustainable management" through institutional governance, platform support, and localized pedagogical adaptation. Existing collaborative models primarily focus on higher-education-to-higher-education partnerships, leaving a critical research gap regarding cross-level governance frameworks for University-High School-Platform collaborations.To address this gap, this presentation introduces the UHCOOL initiative, an innovative, research-backed governance model developed by Taiwan’s HERO Center and the "ewant" MOOC platform. UHCOOL transforms university-level intellectual capital into adaptable, open-access learning modules specifically designed for integration into formal high school curricula. Rather than treating this initiative as a simple course promotion, our research positions UHCOOL as a systematic, cross-educational blended learning model. In this ecosystem, the "ewant" platform serves as a central hub, while high school Open Learning Environments (OLE) and localized teacher communities function as the core governance mechanisms supporting student engagement.Our research utilizes a proposed Multi-level Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) framework to empirically validate the effectiveness of this integration. Drawing on a dataset of 661 participants (596 students and 65 teachers) across diverse subjects, including Introduction to Medicine and Semiconductor Principles, we examine the critical pathway from classroom-level interventions to individual student outcomes. Specifically, the study investigates how different modalities of teacher support—such as progress monitoring, worksheet adaptation, and classroom discussion—directly influence students' log-based MOOC learning behaviors, including video completion rates and supplementary study time. We hypothesize that these learning behaviors subsequently impact learning outcomes, course evaluations, and ultimately, students' long-term intention to utilize OER platforms. By moving beyond the simple question of whether blended learning is effective, this presentation explores the specific structural and pedagogical conditions under which it succeeds in a cross-institutional context. Attendees will gain valuable insights into designing sustainable governance models that bridge the gap between higher education resources and K-12 practical applications, transforming fragmented OER use into a cohesive and impactful digital learning ecosystem.

Speakers

Ken-Zen Chen

Associate Professor and Associate Director of HERO Center, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University

Ken-Zen Chen serves as an Associate Professor at the Institute of Education, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University (NYCU), Taiwan. His scholarly work focuses on digital learning ecosystems, institutional collaboration, and the practical application of Open Educational Resources... Read More →

Haoyi Chen

Postdoc Research Fellow, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University

Dr. Haoyi Chan is a postdoc research fellow at HERO Center of National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University. She specializes in learning analytics and quantitative research methods for management research.

Yun-Chia Jasmine Chang

Professor and Director of HERO Center, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University

Professor Yung-Chia Chang is a faculty member in the Department of Industrial Engineering and Management at National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University and a key contributor to the HERO Center’s work on open higher education resources. She received her B.S. and M.S. degrees in Industrial... Read More →

Wei-I Lee

Research Fellow of HERO Center, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University

Wei-I Lee is a professor in the Department of Electrophysics at National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University and has served as the director of the Research Center of Higher Educational Resources for Openness (HERO Center). He obtained his B.S. in Electrophysics from National Chiao Tung... Read More →

Friday October 9, 2026 3:00pm - 3:30pm EDT
7 DR5 MIT Samberg Conference Center, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA 02139 USA

Panel

Speaker Modality Hybrid
Track Hacking the Open Ecosystem and Praxis for the Public Good

3:35pm EDT

From Evidence to Understanding: Aligning OER Research with Disciplinary Practice

Friday October 9, 2026 3:35pm - 4:05pm EDT

3 Room I

ID: 33953

This panel brings together contributing authors from OER Research Case Studies: A DOERS Project to explore how the future of openness is being shaped through research that is grounded in disciplinary context and expressed through shared, field-specific language. As open education continues to mature, one of the central challenges is not simply generating evidence of impact, but communicating that impact in ways that resonate across academic and professional communities. The DOERS Collaborative includes state-, system-, and province-level open education leaders across North America who are committed to advancing student success through scalable, evidence-informed open education initiatives. This case study volume reflects that mission by documenting how contributors from a range of disciplines and institutional roles design and implement research on open educational resources (OER). The panel presentation will bring together authors whose work spans multiple fields and methodological traditions, each offering insight into how openness is interpreted, studied, and applied within their respective contexts. Aligned with the conference theme, Exploring Emergent Technologies and the Future of Openness, this session focuses on the future of openness as a communicative and translational challenge. Panelists will share how they frame research questions, select methodologies, and interpret findings in ways that align with the established research languages of their disciplines, including learning science, nursing, social science, chemistry, psychology, and other professional fields. By doing so, these scholars position open education not as a parallel or niche movement, but as integral to broader scholarly conversations about student success, access, and institutional effectiveness. A central thread of the discussion will be the role of shared vocabulary in advancing open education research. Panelists will reflect on how aligning OER research with ongoing subject-matter conversations and established disciplinary frameworks can bridge gaps between open education advocates and other scholars in the field. They will also share strategies for translating open practices into the language of disciplinary research, enabling broader recognition, uptake, and sustainability. Each author/panelist will offer practical insights from their chapter, including how they developed research questions within their disciplinary context, navigated methodological choices, and collaborated across roles to ensure their work was both rigorous and relevant. Rather than focusing solely on outcomes, the panel emphasizes process: how researchers adapt, localize, and communicate their work to ensure it contributes meaningfully to the scholarship of both their field and the evolving landscape of open education. Attendees will leave with concrete strategies for situating open education research within their own disciplinary and institutional contexts, using shared language to foster understanding, collaboration, and impact. The session will conclude with a moderated discussion, inviting participants to consider how the future of openness depends not only on what we study, but also on how and with whom we communicate that work.

Speakers

Kathy Essmiller

Coordinator, OpenOKState, Oklahoma State University

Jennifer Pate

Director of OpenEd, Texas A&M University

Jennifer supports student success by leading textbook affordability initiatives for her campus and supporting broader OER efforts across the A&M system. She is a Founding Fellow with the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board's OER Fellowship program, a member of the Open Education... Read More →

Friday October 9, 2026 3:35pm - 4:05pm EDT
3 Room I MIT Samberg Conference Center, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA 02139 USA

Panel

Speaker Modality Hybrid
Track Exploring Emergent Technologies and the Future of Openness

3:35pm EDT

Open as Resilience: Collaborations, Storytelling, and Solidarity in Contexts of Crisis

Friday October 9, 2026 3:35pm - 4:05pm EDT

7 DR5

ID: 33503

In challenging political climates, Open Education is more than a public good - it is an act of resilience and in some cases, resistance. By amplifying voices from disrupted and conflict-affected contexts, open practitioners can foster connection, reciprocal learning, and meaningful global support.This session explores the Open as Resilience webinar series, co-created by the Community College Consortium for OER (CCCOER), the North American node of Open Education Global, and SPARC Europe’s European Network of Open Education Librarians (ENOEL), which centers educators working within conditions of conflict and instability. Through collaborations with colleagues in Ukraine,Palestine, and beyond, this work has made local experiences more visible while building pathways for sustained, cross-organizational support.Emerging from partnerships within ENOEL, and evolving in response to the ongoing war in Ukraine, this initiative demonstrates how distributed collaboration can adapt to changing needs. Open practitioners have leveraged existing resources, formed new partnerships, and responded to locally identified priorities through small but impactful actions.Bringing together voices from ENOEL, CCCOER, as well as a new voice, who will bring the perspective from a different generation researching Open practices in emergencies, this session highlights the role of storytelling as a tool for resilience, advocacy, and connection. Building on this work, we will also share insights from our Stories as Resistance workshops, which invite participants to engage in storytelling as a reflective and collective practice. We will explore how storytelling has shaped collaborations, including MIT Open Learning’s work with Ukrainian librarians to translate open textbooks from MIT OpenCourseWare into local language.We invite attendees to commit to discussion and engagement on topics around the opportunities and challenges of storytelling in open practice, including, but not limited to, the nuances of addressing sensitive topics and approaches that respect contextual needs, risks, and cultures.

Speakers

Paola Corti

Senior Open Education Expert, SPARC Europe

Paola Corti is a Senior Open Education Expert at SPARC Europe, and she manages the European Network of Open Education Librarians (ENOEL); she supports librarians in taking action to implement the UNESCO OER Recommendation. She also works part of her time at Politecnico di Milano (Italy... Read More →

Heather Blicher

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

Adriana D’Amico

Education Policy Student - Intern Researcher @ Monash Virtual School, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

Adriana D’Amico is a postgraduate student currently enrolled in an Erasmus Mundus Master program on education policies from global development. During her bachelor in Economics and social sciences she took part in both advocacy activities, working with a team to promote pluralism... Read More →

Friday October 9, 2026 3:35pm - 4:05pm EDT
7 DR5 MIT Samberg Conference Center, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA 02139 USA

Panel