2026 Open Education Conference

Open education often emphasizes digital access and sharing, but I’ve been thinking more about the relationships that actually make openness possible. In this session, I reflect on a community Pow Wow hosted at Cambrian College as an example of “another kind of open.”

As someone working in reconciliation education, I’ve come to see the Pow Wow as more than an event. It’s a space where learning happens through connection, respect, and reciprocity, a space where social justice and intercultural exchange are lived and felt. I see Indigenous pride and allyship in action. Helpers each play a unique role in creating an inclusive space rooted in Anishinaabe culture.

The Pow Wow encourages me to question the idea that openness is primarily digital, and to think about how the ethos of open education lives in relationships and community practices. I’ll invite attendees to reflect on how these observations might influence their own work and understanding of openness beyond the screen.

Attendees of this session will be able to:

• Describe how a community Pow Wow can function as a site of relational learning and “another kind of open”.
• Reflect on how relationships, roles, and responsibilities shape meaningful open practices.
• Identify ways that openness can extend beyond digital spaces into community-based contexts.
• Consider how reconciliation education, allyship, and Indigenous-led spaces can inform their understanding of open education.
• Apply insights from this session to re-think their own approaches to openness in their teaching or work.

While open educational practices (OEP) have shaped countless classrooms in higher education, K-12, and beyond, these ideas are largely unheard of in the world of organized labour. This session presents a metatheoretical model suggesting that the scholarly processes that proliferate OEP in formal academic settings are predominantly disconnected from organized labour, yet there are existing channels to bridge the connections. The model employs a systems thinking framework with two main subsystems. First, is the prospect for OEP in union education settings. For example, in Joint Health and Safety Committee certification training programs, there are numerous OEPs that have the potential to enhance engagement and inclusion. The second subsystem comprises open labour practices (OLP), which are practices with concepts similar to OEP such as renewable content. Renewable union reports will be discussed as a manifestation of OLP with a case study of the Canadian Union of Public Employees.

Attendees of this session will be able to:

• Understand the metatheoretical model explaining why OEP practitioners are primarily present in higher education settings and absent from union education settings.
• Understand the ways that OEP can be applied to union education settings such as the Canadian Union of Public Employees.
• Understand the way that open labour practices (OLP) can facilitate advocacy for wider adoption of OEP in union settings.
• Understand the channels by which unions in higher education settings can catalyse exchange of such ideas to the broader movement of organized labour beyond academia.

As open education initiatives expand, the next challenge is connecting OER to broader institutional and statewide priorities such as student success, workforce readiness, and digital learning innovation. This session explores how open education moves beyond affordability to become an integrated part of innovative success strategies. Using statewide initiatives as practical examples, presenters will share how open education efforts can be connected to student success, institutional partnerships, and emerging innovation to expand reach and impact. Attendees will explore how positioning OER within broader student success efforts expands opportunities for collaboration, sustainability, and buy-in. Participants will explore resources and partnerships designed to support institutions as they scale open education initiatives. This session will highlight practical strategies for connecting OER efforts with broader institutional goals and ensuring open education continues to expand its impact.

Attendees of this session will be able to:

• Connect OER initiatives to broader organizational priorities, positioning open education as part of institutional and statewide success frameworks.
• Identify ways to expand collaboration across institutional units and partnerships to strengthen and scale open education initiatives.
• Examine practical examples of resource hubs, OER playbooks, and innovation frameworks that support institutions in expanding the reach of OER.
• Consider how integrating open education into student success conversations can increase visibility, sustainability, and impact for OER programs.

What would it look like if every course you taught was more inclusive, more transparent, and more centered on the learners in front of you? At a time when educators are being asked to do more with less, and to do it more equitably, Critical Open Educational Practices (Critical OEPs) offer a framework for meaningful change. This session centers the practitioner experience of seven MinnState educators who arrived at Critical OEPs through different pathways, and whose engagement with the framework affirmed their values, expanded their practice, and moved their teaching in new directions. Grounded in four pillars, collaborative dialogue, critical reflection, inquiry-based learning, and transformative action, Critical OEPs offer a path toward pedagogical transformation. This session explores how educators negotiated authority, practiced equity, and sustained change within institutional constraints. Attendees will reflect on their practice and leave with concrete ideas for their classrooms.

Attendees of this session will be able to:

• Identify the four pillars of Critical OEPs and connect them to their own existing teaching practices.
• Describe how educators negotiated authority, equity, and learner agency within real institutional constraints.
• Articulate at least one concrete next step for deepening their engagement with Critical OEPs in their own classroom.

U.S. higher education recognizes a “hidden curriculum” that students experience alongside their disciplinary studies, which include norms and practices that are unexpected and often unstated. The college and university community has implicit and established structures and processes in place that students, especially new students, may not be aware of or may not have experienced before. Navigating the course material and textbook landscape requires a keen understanding of faculty expectations, academic bureaucracy, and self-advocacy that students learn and develop over time. As students experience the hidden curriculum, they learn from faculty, student advisors, and student affairs staff, but most prominently, students learn to navigate the hidden curriculum from their peers. This presentation explores opportunities to close the space between open education practitioners and others within the institution actively working to mitigate the effects of the hidden curriculum.

Attendees of this session will be able to:

• Define the hidden curriculum.
• Contextualize open education as part of the hidden curriculum.
• Identify potential campus partners.

This session examines how intentional, multi-sector stakeholder partnerships drive the design, implementation, and scaling of open educational resources. Drawing on a multi-institutional engineering initiative, participants will explore strategies for engaging faculty, industry partners, and students throughout the project lifecycle.

The session will highlight structured approaches to stakeholder involvement, including advisory boards, workshops, peer review processes, and continuous feedback loops that inform content development. Emphasis is placed on how stakeholder input enhances relevance, accessibility, and adoption of OER materials.

Attendees will gain tools for integrating stakeholder engagement into project planning, sustaining collaboration across institutions, and leveraging partnerships to support dissemination and long-term impact. Common challenges such as coordination, incentives, and maintaining engagement will be addressed with actionable, experience-based solutions.

Attendees of this session will be able to:

• Identify key stakeholder groups essential to the development and adoption of open educational resources across academic and industry contexts.
• Analyze effective strategies for engaging stakeholders throughout the OER project lifecycle, including planning, development, evaluation, and dissemination.
• Evaluate different models of stakeholder collaboration (e.g., advisory boards, workshops, peer review) for their impact on OER quality and adoption.
• Apply practical frameworks to integrate stakeholder feedback into OER design and continuous improvement processes.
• Develop an actionable plan for building and sustaining strategic stakeholder partnerships to support scalable and equitable OER implementation.

The open education literature details how OERs positively impact college student success. This literature also documents the value of student voice and participation in open pedagogy projects. However, less attention is paid to how students can benefit as ‘Third Space’ professionals outside of their disciplinary silo as they learn about OERs, collaborate on open projects, and develop career skills (Whitchurch, 2012). This case study will demonstrate how a Students as Partners (SaP) framework can be used to craft sustainable learning environments that can prepare students for complex workplace demands. Meaningful faculty-student partnerships can help student workers develop confidence and transferable skills. Session attendees will take away lessons learned from both the faculty and student perspectives about partnering in open education work in the library. Recommendations on how to design and plan a more holistic OER and open education working environment will also be provided.

Attendees of this session will be able to:

• Explore the concepts of Students as Partners (SaP) and Third Space collaboration to enhance working with with students on open education projects.
• Consider how a Students as Partners (SaP) approach to student collaboration in OER work can be used by students and faculty in ways that promote informal engaged learning and development of transferable skills beyond the open education experience.
• Examine new strategies to help student workers learn about open education and OERs by ‘doing’ OER design and development, becoming a co-author, and mentoring other student workers.
• Envision how a Students as Partners model could be used in their OER work context to create a more sustainable and collaborative third space.