2026 Open Education Conference

This session presents the design and development of a Spanish-language OER created as part of the Creative Commons Certificate, aimed at supporting researchers and educators in understanding and applying open licensing in practice. While OER and open licensing are often framed through English-language resources, this project addresses the gap in culturally and linguistically relevant materials for Latin America. The session will discuss key design decisions, common misconceptions around CC licenses (especially ND and NC), and the challenges of translating not only language but also legal and scholarly practices. Attendees will gain insights into how OER can function as capacity-building tools and leave with a replicable model for developing similar resources in their own contexts.

Attendees of this session will be able to:

• Identify common challenges in applying CC licenses across linguistic and legal contexts.
• Distinguish between translation and contextual adaptation in OER design.
• Analyze the implications of ND and NC licenses in educational practice.
• Apply a framework for developing OER aimed at teaching open licensing.
• Adapt OER development strategies to non-English-speaking academic communities.

Since 2013, the Global Open Graduate Network (GO-GN) has supported doctoral and postdoctoral research in open education and practices worldwide. In 2023, we conducted a 10 year anniversary strategic review (Farrow et al., 2024) with our membership and the wider GO-GN and open education communities. This review captured the network’s achievements to date and future aspirations, including exploration of a more federated approach for the network.

This presentation reports on the outcome of this work, which focused on a pilot programme to establish and evaluate four regional hubs (Asia-Pacific, Canada, Ibero-America and Kenya). We will report on the development of these regional hubs across six continents, relating insights from the evaluation and reflecting on how other open education networks might approach questions of scale, diversity and sustainability.

Attendees of this session will be able to:

• Critically evaluate the design and implementation of a federated network model (as exemplified by GO-GN pilot regional hubs) in relation to challenges of scale, diversity, and sustainability in open education.
• Analyse the role of regionalisation and distributed leadership in building research capacity, particularly in relation to equity, autonomy, and responsiveness to Global South contexts.
• Apply insights from the GO-GN hub pilots and evaluation to inform the development or adaptation of networked initiatives in open education or related fields.

This short presentation examines the instructional decisions involved in the creation of an OER for Spanish for Business Professionals at the University of Kentucky. Authenticity serves as a core principle in these decisions, as it lies at the intersection of OER practice, instructional design, and second language acquisition. Using this Business Spanish resource as a case study, the presentation will discuss its planning, development, and classroom implementation, showing how these choices are informed by instructional design and learning theories. It will also explore how authentic materials, meaningful tasks, and real-world professional contexts are integrated into the resource to support relevant and transferable learning, and it will reflect on possible next steps for further improvement.

Attendees of this session will be able to:

• Explain how OER, instructional design, and second language acquisition inform one another.
• Evaluate the role of authenticity in the design of second language learning materials.
• Analyze how learner needs and instructional context influence OER development.
• Apply practical principles for planning and developing OER in higher education.
• Identify transferable strategies for revising and improving openly licensed teaching materials.

As AI tools become foundational to education practices, we must examine how they interact with information, specifically distinguishing between misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation. This session explores the role of open education fundamentals in fostering cognitive sovereignty within the "infocracy," a regime where automated data and algorithmic narratives define the information landscape and where we propose cognitive resilience. We present the proposal of a matrix of ethical AI literacy that utilizes open principles (transparency, collaboration, and reuse) as a compass for navigating this landscape. This proposed framework aims to enable learners to move from passive information consumption to actively engaging in contemplative-reflexive narratives, ensuring that "open" serves as a framework for epistemic justice and ontological openness by introducing intentionality in human-in-the-loop supervision.

Attendees of this session will be able to:

• Distinguish between misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation within an AI-mediated informal learning context;.
• Identify how "cognitive offloading" (the outsourcing of thinking to AI) impacts learner agency and the ability to construct personal narratives;.
• Apply open education principles (specifically transparency of provenance and collaborative review) as ethical defenses against algorithmic bias, data opacity, and the lack of interpretability in automated systems;.
• Evaluate the role of "human-in-the-loop" intentionality as a mechanism for maintaining narrative agency and resisting algorithmic narratives in the infocracy.

This session explores innovative approaches to medical education through the integration of art-based methodologies, open educational resources (OER), and virtual learning communities. Grounded in the critical pedagogy of Paulo Freire and Augusto Boal, it challenges traditional technicist models by promoting dialogical, participatory, and human-centred practices. The presentation highlights how the Theatre of the Oppressed can foster empathy, active listening, and nonviolent communication among future health professionals. Additionally, it examines the role of collaborative digital environments and OER in expanding access to knowledge and enabling co-creation. Participants will engage with the concept of virtual communities as spaces for experimentation, shared learning, and the development of more inclusive and ethical healthcare practices.

Attendees of this session will be able to:

• Explain Theatre of the Oppressed can be applied in medical education.
• Identify strategies to foster empathy, active listening, and nonviolent communication in healthcare training.
• Analyze the role of Open Educational Resources (OER) in promoting inclusive and collaborative learning environments.
• Critically reflect on the limitations of traditional technicist models in health education and propose human-centred alternatives.