EDI Latest Updates: bootcamp in Spain, new publication, and attending Hewlett EDI group

This post is by Paco Iniesto and Carina Bossu

The EDI strand of GO-GN had a productive and rewarding year in 2023. We presented at several conferences, were invited to speak at different events, and were even nominated for an award (OEAwards nominees 2023). In this blog, we would like to reflect on some of the highlights of last year.

Bootcamp: Building the future of education together

In late October, we were invited by colleagues from TEC Monterrey (Mexico) to present about the GO-GN EDI project results and next steps at the two days bootcamp titled “Building the Future of Education Together: Innovation, Interdisciplinary Research, and Open Science Training for Researchers in Educational Innovation and Sustainability” in Comillas, Spain. The event was organised by the Institute for the Future of Education and Innovation Hub Europe. There was a total of 74 face-to-face and 178 online participants from different countries, including Spain, Mexico, Uruguay, Peru, UK and the Netherlands.

The objectives of the Bootcamp were to share diverse perspectives and challenges in educational research at the frontier of knowledge, to increase research capacities by incorporating new knowledge and experience and to create interdisciplinary and open networks to build solutions to address society’s holistic challenges and needs. In order to facilitate participants’ engagement during the bootcamp, participants were asked a set of different questions after each session. Our session was titled “Openness and networks for sustainability to support researchers and practitioners” (Martinez-Arboleda et al., 2023) and in order to gather feedback related to the EDI project and guidelines, we asked two questions to participants (face-to-face and online). The first question was:

• Which region do you think we should focus the EDI in Open Education research on during the next phase?

Four options were discussed including Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Oceania (South Pacific). Most participants considered that the next steps of the EDI project should focus on the Middle East and Asian contexts. Considering the current conflict in the Middle East, we are already planning to investigate EDI in open education in the Asian region. This coincides with internal GO-GN plans and development for the EDI project. The second question we asked participants was:

• What are the opportunities and challenges of incorporating Equity, Diversity and Inclusion in your research or teaching?

Some of the opportunities identified included the benefits of raising awareness (common understanding) about EDI to improve the quality of learning communities. However, the majority of the discussion was about the challenges and concerns identified by participants, including lack of recognition/rewards, funding, and time to learn and push for a more inclusive and equitable research and teaching environment.

The event was a great opportunity to meet Spanish-speaking colleagues from Latin America and Spain and strengthen the relationships for future research in Open Education. Several GO-GN members attended the bootcamp.

Equity, diversity, and inclusion in open education: A systematic literature review

To help us with the development of the EDI guidelines, we also conducted a systematic literature review (Iniesto & Bossu, 2023). This review has been instrumental in assisting us to understand two key aspects of EDI in Open Education. We asked:

• What is the current state of EDI in open education?
• What are the suggestions for EDI implementation in open education?

These two questions are answered in detail in our paper, which was published in the Distance Education journal as open access late last year. We believe that this review contributes to the future development and adoption of EDI in open educational contexts. We hope this publication can be helpful to the GO-GN community!

Hewlett EDI group meeting

In December (14^th), we were invited by colleagues from the Hewlett Foundation open education EDI working group to speak about our systematic literature review (Iniesto & Bossu, 2023) as part of their monthly online meeting. The Hewlett open education EDI working group is made up of a variety of Hewlett open education grantees. They meet once a month to discuss relevant issues related to EDI and open education representing a variety of Hewlett funded open education projects such as BCcampus, the Rebus Foundation, CCCOER, OE Global, AACU, ISKME, New England Board of Higher Education and many others.

Although there were only about 12 attendees, the discussions that took place were rich and insightful, which have helped to consolidate the work done so far and confirmed that there is still a lot to be done to progress EDI. We were grateful of the opportunity and hope to continue collaborating with these colleagues in future.

As we look ahead into 2024, we know that it will be another busy and productive year for the EDI strand – and we look very much forward to it.

References:

Bossu, C., Iniesto, F., Vladimirschi, V., Jordan, K., & Pete, J. (2023). GO-GN Guidelines for Equity Diversity and Inclusion in Open Education with a focus on Africa and Latin America. https://go-gn.net/gogn_outputs/edi-guidelines/

Iniesto, F., & Bossu, C. (2023). Equity, diversity, and inclusion in open education: A systematic literature review. Distance Education, 1-18. https://doi.org/10.1080/01587919.2023.2267472

Martinez-Arboleda, A., Van Wezenbeek, W., Bossu, C. & Iniesto, F. (2023). Openness and networks for sustainability to support researchers and practitioners. Building the future of education together: innovation, interdisciplinary research and open science. Training of Researchers in Educational Innovation and Sustainability. Hub Europe, Cátedra UNESCO Movimiento educativo abierto, University of Leeds & Tecnologico de Monterrey. Comillas, Cantabria, España. https://repositorio.tec.mx/handle/11285/651302

Photo credits: Carina Bossu (group selfie) and Bootcamp organisers (all other photos)