2024 Open Education Conference

Beyond Cost Savings: Open Education as Resistance

Coming together for this first hybrid Open Education Conference provides an opportunity to celebrate the community’s accomplishments while also reflecting on where we are now: gathering amidst crises of climate change, wealth gaps, and declining trust in education and democracy. We will recall the early goal of Open Education to “have the freedom to use, customize, improve and redistribute educational resources without constraint.” (Cape Town Declaration, 2008) Today, in the face of platform capitalism and open-washing, this type of freedom can seem far away. By highlighting the Open for Antiracism Program and other community efforts to re-tool the master’s tools, we will show how practicing Open Education can be an act of resistance, driving social justice and crafting a community-informed vision of the future.

All in-person attendees are welcome to gather in Narragansett Ballroom to mark the end of day one with a reception and poster session. The reception offers hors d'oeuvres and a variety of beverages (one drink ticket per attendee). Attendees can grab refreshments and browse the 10 poster submissions while also connecting with other attendees and having fun. The poster session ends at 6:30pm, although the reception may go on a bit longer.

The reception portion is generously sponsored by OpenStax.

A pioneer in open education, Dr. Richard G. Baraniuk is professor of electrical and computer engineering at Rice University and founder and director of OpenStax. He launched Connexions in 1999 as a platform for open knowledge sharing, which evolved into OpenStax, the world’s largest OER publisher with more than 70 digital textbooks used by 7 million college and high school students this school year. He also leads SafeInsights, the US National Science Foundation’s national infrastructure for education research. Baraniuk has been active in AI theory research and education applications for 15 years, and is a member of the US National Academy of Engineering and American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a fellow of the US National Academy of Inventors, AAAS, and IEEE.  He has received numerous research and education awards, including the IEEE James H. Mulligan, Jr. Education Medal and the Harold W. McGraw, Jr. Prize in Education.