This month’s blog post was contributed by Nancy Henke, Graduate Research Assistant at The University of Iowa’s School of Library Information Sciences.
Open Education Week (OE Week) is coming March 6-10 this year, so this month’s resource highlight offers a preview of some of the many events happening across the country that will celebrate open education and OER. In the true spirit of open education, all events are free and open to anyone who wants to learn.
Some of the many events available are linked below and organized into categories:
OER for Beginners
Iowa State University’s Open Access and Scholarly Communication Librarian, Abbey Elder, will present “OER 101: Getting Started with Open Educational Resources” as part of Open Oregon’s OE Week events. Her presentation is on Monday, March 6 at 2pm CST and you can register at Open Oregon’s OE Week website. If you weren’t able to make it to Abbey’s workshop of the same name in February, this is your chance to catch it live!
Ideas for Open Textbooks
LibreTexts, the online textbook platform, has several events for those curios about open textbooks. If you’re interested in learning about efforts to enhance non-English language OER, Dr. Delmar Larsen will present “Using Machine Translation Algorithms to Effectively Generate Non-English language OER,” on March 7 at 10am CST.
If authoring OER with students intrigues you, sign up to hear Dr. Armeda Reitzel discuss efforts to author OER with several different student groups – including incarcerated inmates in a community college program. That webinar will run on March 7th at 12pm CST.
A full list of LibreText’s OE Week events and registration links to the events listed here are on the Libretexts Open Education Week schedule.
OER and DEI
Those inspired to learn more about how OER support diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives may want to attend the presentation from Ohio State University’s Affordable Learning Instructional Consultant, Amanda Larson. Her 45-minute workshop on “Practical Tips for Incorporating DEI into Your Course Materials,” will be held on Thursday, March 9 at 2:10 CST.
If issues of labor in open education intrigue you, sign up for Dr. Jasmine Roberts-Crews’s presentation for the UC Davis Library entitled “A Call for Reparative Justice in Open Education Labor” on Tuesday, March 7 at 1pm CST.
10-Minute Challenges
If you’re looking for something other than webinars, the University of Groningen in the Netherlands will offer bite-sized challenges related to open education each day during OE week. If you sign up, they’ll send you an email with an OE challenge you can do in 10 minutes, such as learning where to find and share open materials, understanding open licenses, and ideas for open pedagogy with your students.
Learn more and register for the challenge on their Open Education Challenge website.
Help Spread the Word
You can also follow the Iowa OER Twitter account for highlights on what your colleagues across the state are doing for OE Week, and always keep in mind that spreading the word about OE Week on social media helps draw attention to the cause of open education. If you plan to attend an event or have a new insight from one you did attend, share about it with hashtag #oeweek. You can also add a splash to your online meetings while also promoting OE Week with free OE Week Zoom backgrounds from OE Global!