2026 Open Education Conference

Generative AI promises to transform OER by easing creation, adaptation, and discovery, potentially overcoming traditional barriers like time. Yet faculty navigate a complex "space between" institutional enthusiasm and classroom realities. This mixed-methods study, part of the OER Research Fellow Program with Hewlett Foundation support, surveys faculty on using tools like ChatGPT for course materials and OER. Grounded in UTAUT2 (explaining technology adoption via usefulness, ease, social influence), it examines what drives or hinders adoption. Quantitative analysis reveals patterns in performance expectancy, trust, effort, and ethical concerns. Focus groups unpack nuances: How do faculty verify AI outputs? When is AI-assisted OER "good enough" for the classroom? Join as we explore these intersections. Attendees will see survey results, hear anonymized faculty voices, and discuss implications for OER programs and policy. Perfect for OER practitioners seeking evidence-based insights.

Attendees of this session will be able to:

• Identify key factors (from UTAUT2) shaping faculty perceptions of using generative AI to create and adapt course materials.
• Discuss ethical concerns faculty express about AI-generated or AI-assisted course materials, such as authorship, accuracy, and transparency.
• Describe implications of faculty perceptions for teaching centers, instructional design, and institutional AI policy.

Global contexts often present a rigid gap between the right to education and restrictive enrollment regulations. Drawing on two decades of higher education administration expertise, this session explores how systemic quotas stifle learning, offering a global perspective on a shared institutional challenge.

Designed for higher education administrators, policy developers, and open education coordinators, this session proposes a transferable 4-stage roadmap. We examine scalable solutions, including community-based learning for capacity constraints, reimagining secondary benchmarks, and institutional qualifying tracks. Attendees will gain systemic insights into shifting from capacity-based admission to an open, digital-first ecosystem. We conclude with lessons on how professional licensing maintains quality while enabling radical accessibility, helping participants navigate structural bottlenecks within their own institutions.

Attendees of this session will be able to:

• Identify the legislative and administrative bottlenecks that hinder educational equity and enrollment in traditional systems.
• Explain how "Community Schools" and decentralized models can effectively address resource scarcity and school overcrowding.
• Analyze a multi-stage roadmap for transitioning from "capacity-based" admission to a "competency-based" educational ecosystem.
• Evaluate the role of Open Education and digital production in bypassing physical infrastructure constraints for higher education.
• Propose a framework for decoupling academic degrees from professional licensing to ensure both quality and radical inclusivity.

This session presents a scalable, classroom-based Wikipedia Editathon model implemented at JSS Medical College to advance open educational resources (OER), multilingual knowledge production, and digital equity. Students contributed to underrepresented topics in communication sciences and disorders by creating and translating content into regional languages (e.g., Kannada), aligning with principles of participatory knowledge and inclusive access. The session highlights instructional design, training workflows, and assessment strategies (pre–post–delayed measures) used to evaluate student learning, engagement, and sustainability. Attendees will gain practical guidance on integrating Wikipedia-based assignments into curricula to promote open pedagogy, culturally responsive teaching, and global knowledge sharing.

Attendees of this session will be able to:

• Design a classroom-based Wikipedia Editathon aligned with OER and open pedagogy principles.
• Implement multilingual content creation strategies to support knowledge equity.

Maps and spatial data are a powerful way to communicate, connect, and visualize data across languages and disciplines. With the advent of the internet, digital maps and apps, the use of maps has become part of our daily lives and presents exciting opportunities to integrate open pedagogical practices in the classroom and beyond.

This presentation showcases activities centered on students’ collaborative mapping that foster connectedness within and beyond the classroom, how Open Street Map can be used as a critical lens to visualize openness and mapping for the public good, and the use of mapping on a community-based curriculum on environmental justice and community organizing. The case studies are drawn from the literature and the collaborative work of the presenter on her courses and with community organizations in the Bronx, NY.

Attendees of this session will be able to:

• Explain how mapping can be used in open pedagogical practices.
• Describe examples of collaborative mapping platforms.
• Explain how Open Street Map can be used in the classroom and for humanitarian purposes as a non-disposable assignment.
• Incorporate collaborative mapping activities on their own teaching or community work.

Dual enrollment is expanding rapidly, but textbook costs remain a hidden barrier that limits who can participate and which courses are offered. In many states, responsibility for these costs is unclear, creating uneven access for students and programs.

Open Educational Resources (OER) offer a powerful opportunity to close this gap by eliminating textbook costs and enabling more flexible, relevant learning experiences. Yet adoption in dual enrollment remains uneven, shaped by policy, partnerships, and faculty support.

This session shares findings from multi-state research led by MHEC and SREB, bringing together policy analysis and practitioner perspectives. Featuring both researchers and educators, we will explore how OER can bridge the gap between access and opportunity in dual enrollment.

Participants will leave with practical strategies to support adoption, strengthen cross-sector collaboration, and expand access to college coursework for all learners.

Attendees of this session will be able to:

• Understand how textbook costs impact access to dual enrollment and how OER can reduce these barriers.
• Analyze how policy and funding structures influence OER adoption in dual enrollment programs.
• Identify practical strategies to support faculty adoption of OER across K–12 and higher education partnerships.
• Explore approaches for aligning OER with dual enrollment curriculum, quality expectations, and student needs.
• Apply actionable ideas to expand equitable access to dual enrollment through OER in their own institutional or program context.

Part call to action, part practical guide, this session offers a new frame for considering open education work. Beginning with a brief overview of why values-based work matters, this session will aim to problematize some of the common working assumptions of open education and then argue for a new approach. It will highlight several key parallels between the stated goals of open education work and several of the core principles of mutual aid, including: solidarity, non-hierarchy, intersectionality, and collective action. Finally, it will invite the audience to imagine what other lessons can be gleaned from organizing and mutual aid practices that might better position open education work to continue its impact for the long haul.

Attendees of this session will be able to:

• Describe the importance of values-based work.
• Identify the ways in which open education work can prop up existing systems of exploitation and oppression.
• Recognize the overlap between the basic tenets of mutual aid and open education work.
• Devise strategies for integrating mutual aid principles and organizing tactics into open education work.

Students today engage with learning in spaces like short-form video, podcasts, interactive apps, and social media, yet many open educational resources still rely on traditional formats like textbooks and PDFs. This workshop challenges that assumption by exploring how OER can be reimagined in formats students already use and enjoy.

Participants will explore strategies for creating non-traditional OER, including social-media-style content, audio, interactive media, comics, and microlearning modules, while emphasizing practical ways to maintain openness, accessibility, and impact.

A hands-on activity invites participants to take a concept and reimagine it as a short video, microlearning chunk, podcast segment, or visual/comic resource, collaborate to share ideas, and reflect on engagement and accessibility. Designed for instructors, designers, librarians, and open education advocates, this session provides actionable ideas to create resources that truly meet learners where they are.

Attendees of this session will be able to:

• Identify non-traditional OER formats, such as social-media-style content, audio resources, interactive media, comics, and microlearning modules, and explain how these formats can increase learner engagement and accessibility.
• Take a concept or learning objective and reimagine it in a format that aligns with learners’ habits and preferred platforms.
• Evaluate how different formats support diverse learners, promote accessibility, and enhance meaningful engagement with content.
• Outline practical steps for adapting or creating OER in non-traditional formats, including starting small, layering formats, and co-creating with learners.