2024 Open Education Conference

The Teaching and Learning Center at the CUNY Graduate Center supports doctoral students who teach 150,000 undergraduates each year. It has been built intentionally as a manifestation of the open education movement: in dialogue with and responsive to its constituents; imprinted with the values of openness, sharing, access, and care; and focused on building sustainable communities of inclusive practice to make life, work, and learning at the university more just. This presentation will demonstrate how various projects at the TLC encode the values of openness, including open access publishing and OER initiatives, institutes and focused inquiry groups, a major multi-campus project exploring open education at community colleges, and various collaborative programs to build open infrastructures. We’ll detail the life cycle of projects, highlighting how open practices infused each, and engage attendees in a discussion of how these practices are adaptable to different contexts.

Attendees of this session will be able to:

• Describe the values and practices that are necessary to build sustain communities of care;
• Articulate how programs on their own campuses align with open practices;
• Imagine revisions to existing or new programs that meet the needs of their constituents while prioritizing communities of care;
• Connect with colleagues elsewhere to build networks of solidarity around infrastructure and strategies for open practices.

In this talk, I will explore the process of developing social media campaigns on X (formerly Twitter), Mastodon, and LinkedIn to encourage platform users to engage with open access texts and provide visibility to those who choose to make their work publicly accessible. In my role on the community team for Knowledge Commons, I've collaborated with both students and full-time team members to develop campaigns highlighting the works our users have added to our open access repository. The session will delve into the creation process for developing such campaigns, which have included a regular monthly spotlight as well as special virtual event features. Topics covered will include the pros and cons of various social media platforms, suggestions for managing workflows in a small team, and creative ways to celebrate openly published texts. This presentation is suitable for anyone interested in learning more about using social media to reach a wider audience for their open work.

Attendees of this session will be able to:

• Explain the connections between the current social media landscape and open education
• Describe the challenges of identifying a suitable platform for making connections with social media users
• Develop a social media campaign highlighting open publishing
• Implement basic and recurring social media campaigns to promote the values of open publishing

Adapted open content is challenging the way we think about higher education and the impact on pedagogy. Course content creation is central to this movement spurring innovative strategies to empower students as creators. But what should students know about authoring content designed for open education? Seasoned-pros and new-to-the-profession participants will find the answer in this highly relevant “train-the-trainer” session. Participants will explore how open content impacts pedagogy with particular attention to the Social Justice Framework, disposable to renewable assignments, and privacy considerations with openness. Participants will also be introduced to how Creative Commons Licenses (CCL) may be applied to open content, learning firsthand the benefits to reevaluate any apprehension they may have. They will also be able to extract new and creative applications of these concepts for use in their own instructional activities to empower students as creators of their own learning.

Attendees of this session will be able to:

• Identify how adapted open course content impacts pedagogy.
• Apply CCLs to open content.
• Extract new and creative applications of CCL concepts for use in their own instructional setting.
• Have an open and freely licensed CCL activity template that they may implement in their own instructional setting.

At many institutions, budget cuts, hiring freezes, and the push to increase class sizes leads to many core courses shifting to an asynchronous online model. Faculty facing this teaching shift may feel intimidated to attempt open educational practices within this asynchronous modality. Presenters will share and compare survey data across different cohorts of students, comparing student engagement and perception of an open pedagogical assignment between those enrolled in a face-to-face course and an asynchronous, online course. Specific attention will be given to student interaction with project materials, and tutorials on openness; providing insights into perceptions of asynchronous instructional materials and an open pedagogy project. Presenters will explore challenges and opportunities involved in adapting an open pedagogy assignment to an asynchronous course and share insights into what they would have done differently to foster student success and engagement.

Attendees of this session will be able to:

• Understand the significance of open pedagogical approaches in fostering student engagement and ownership of learning.
• Reflect on the importance of instructor flexibility in adapting open pedagogical strategies to meet the diverse needs of learners in asynchronous settings.
• Identify potential challenges and opportunities associated with adapting open pedagogical approaches to asynchronous course formats, and develop proactive strategies to address them.