2026 Open Education Conference

This session will describe the development of an OER by collaborators in India and Canada. The original idea for this project arose out of a thought that, like common journalists, teachers and students are not capable of reporting, writing and analyzing the news information they want to share with the academic community.

The team engaged in a joint collaboration on an Open Education for a Better World (OE4BW) project in 2021-22. The OE4BW project involved the creation and delivery of a MOOC in Educational Journalism. This then led to a collaboration by the three participants in the development of an open resource through the Pressbooks platform.

One of the goals of the project was to create a more accessible and interactive resource for educationists/academicians in educational journalism.

An additional goal of this presentation is to describe the best practices for selection of cross-cultural teams, digital tools, interactive multimedia and strategies for maintaining openness.

Attendees of this session will be able to:

• Describe the challenges involved in cross-cultural open education collaborations.
• Identify strategies for addressing challenges to maintaining downstream openness.
• Explore processes for identifying appropriate digital tools for open content development.
• Identify the skills needed to pursue cross-cultural open content creation projects.
• Gain insights into how to create effective cross-cultural teams for open educational projects.

OER funding decisions at the university level are often driven by a narrow ‘return on investment’: how many dollars saved, how many students reached. But meaningful open education work—especially projects with ripple effects beyond our campuses—generates value that is qualitative, communal, and long-term. This session explores the “space between” quantitative and qualitative ROI in OER grant project evaluation, sharing a tool and strategies for making multi-dimensional impact visible and actionable for grant makers and practitioners alike.

Attendees of this session will be able to:

• Generate and prioritize examples of non-monetary ROI geared to their respective institutions.
• Construct a customized copy of the shared rubric for non-monetary ROI.
• Incorporate elements of non-monetary ROI in their grantmaking work to illuminate the broader and deeper impact of funded OER projects.

Many English majors at the University of New Haven aspire to careers in the publishing industry. This presentation will describe how we are building competencies for a range of careers in publishing with our university’s first open publishing press, OpenKeep. Emerging from the open pedagogy movement and built in partnership with our library, OpenKeep’s mission is to transform the ecosystem of educational publishing by helping faculty produce OER that invite students into the creation of new knowledge. We do this sustainably through a practicum that runs every semester, empowering students to edit learning resources authored by faculty. Our student team has expanded beyond English majors to include film and graphic design students, who produce videos and design book covers. Our authors are experts in their fields who are ready to tackle pressing issues with students in and out of the traditional classroom. We feature perspectives from the editorial team and our editorial advisory board.

Attendees of this session will be able to:

• Understand the challenges facing faculty who want to author OER.
• Envision an open publishing initiative that doubles as an experiential learning opportunity for students.
• Recognize the expertise of student editors.

Are you using Section 121 of the Copyright Act (the Chafee Amendment) as a tool for meeting the Title II Digital Accessibility Mandate? Academic libraries typically rely on fair use analysis or pursue permissions from publishers when creating accessible formats of copyrighted materials. But these tactics can cause delays that leave students without the materials they need.

With Section 121, libraries are given explicit statutory permission to create accessible formats for patrons with print disabilities--no fair use analysis is required, and no publisher permission is needed. Unlike fair use, market impact doesn't matter: libraries can create accessible versions even when publishers sell their own "accessible" products.

Through real scenarios--urgent textbook needs, inadequate publisher "accessible" versions, and institutional transition planning--attendees gain confidence using Section 121 to serve students legally and effectively while building sustainable, proactive accessibility.

Attendees of this session will be able to:

• Distinguish between fair use analysis and Section 121 authorization, identifying when each applies to creating accessible formats and why Section 121 provides clearer legal protection for libraries.
• Explain how Section 121 authorizes libraries to create accessible formats without publisher permission for patrons with print disabilities, supporting Title II Digital Accessibility Mandate compliance.
• Apply decision frameworks for library accessibility work: prioritizing born-accessible acquisitions, evaluating vendor accessibility claims, and using Section 121 when accessible versions are unavailable or inadequate.
• Develop library policies integrating Section 121 into reserves, interlibrary loan, and special collections while avoiding common mistakes that forfeit legal protection.

This panel explores the “space between” OER adoption and increasing the relevance of OER through localization—the intentional adaptation of open materials to reflect local cultures, curricula, communities, and learner experiences.

The session draws on Recentering Relevance: Exploring the Role of Academic Libraries and Library Consortia in Supporting OER Localization, a 2023 IMLS grant awarded to the University System of Maryland. Panelists will highlight project components, including a national forum of OER library leaders and a national survey, followed by lessons learned: how localization is understood in practice; the gaps between values, policy, and impact; and the strategic roles libraries and consortia can play in bridging them.

Participants will gain an understanding of localization, glean practical takeaways for how libraries and consortia can support localization as a community-centered practice, and assess their readiness to embark on or deepen OER localization efforts.

Attendees of this session will be able to:

• Define localization.
• Connect institutional mission and priorities to specific localization use cases.
• Articulate unique library/consortial contributions to localization efforts.
• Assess their current institutional and library/consortial priorities for OER vis-a-vis localization.
• Assess readiness to embark on or deepen OER localization efforts.

We discuss how building a modular design into OER can facilitate its downstream adaptation and localization. As a case study, we examine the development of our recently published textbook, The Craft of Sociological Research (https://viva.pressbooks.pub/sociology-research-methods). This OER was designed with a special structure: modular sidebars embedded throughout the text that describe notable examples of research, present interviews with prominent researchers, discuss local issues that past research has illuminated, and cover advanced methodological topics. The use of these modular sidebars makes updating the textbook’s research examples easy and assists other authors in revising its content to better connect with their own target audiences. It allows instructors to customize the course to match the skill level and interests of their students. And it presents an opportunity for open pedagogy, providing opportunities for students to write short-form content for an OER’s sidebars.

Attendees of this session will be able to:

• Apply a modular design to their OER content that makes it easier for other authors to update, localize, and customize that content, expanding its adaptability and thus its potential reach.
• Insert different kinds of supplemental modular content into their OER, such as Q&As, sidebars with examples and discussions of issues tailored to specific communities, and optional advanced material.

Open education's foundational promise is access. But access to a system that normalizes particular ways of knowing is not equity; it is assimilation. As AI tools enter open education, they inherit and amplify this problem: adaptive learning systems, AI writing assistants, and OER generation tools are trained on dominant epistemological frameworks and optimize toward measurable outcomes. Queer pedagogy offers a different orientation: valuing friction, centering non-normative knowledge formations, and refusing the smoothing work of optimization. This session introduces queerness as a practical framework for AI use in open education and draws on Bernard Stiegler's concept of the pharmakon to argue that AI in open ed is both remedy and poison. Attendees will leave with concrete strategies for designing AI encounters that interrogate what counts as knowledge, who AI is built for, and how to treat productive friction as pedagogy rather than a problem to fix.

Attendees of this session will be able to:

• Outcome 1: identify how AI tools deployed in open educational contexts normalize particular knowledge formations and marginalize others.
• Outcome 2: recognize moments in their own practice where AI smooths over productive friction that should be preserved pedagogically.
• Outcome 3: apply a queer pedagogical framework to redesign at least one AI encounter in their courses so that students engage friction critically rather than resolve it.

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.