GO-GN Collega mentoring program

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What is GO-GN Collega? 

The conceptualisation of the GO-GN Collega mentoring program emerged mostly from the recommendations of Phase 2 of the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) project, which investigated EDI in Open Education (OE) in Latin America. Participants’ recommendations were that more effective communities of practice around OE in Latin America should be created, enabling a broader dissemination of their open practices and research to Global North and beyond. This would help Latin American scholars in OE to produce high quality pieces of work in English. More about the EDI projects can be found: for phase 1 in Africa and for phase 2 in Latin America. 

Therefore, GO-GN Collega was established to address the recommendations above by pairing experts in OE from the Global North and South as mentors and mentees. In addition to being an OE expert, mentors would need to be proficient in English and in either Spanish or Portuguese. Mentees would also need to be working and/or researching OE and would need be either Spanish or Portuguese native speakers. 

What is the goal of this program?

The key goal of the program is to assist Latin American colleagues researching in OE to disseminate their work in English. Examples of dissemination could be a conference paper or presentation, journal article, book chapter, a blog post and so forth.  

Collega is a Latin word for ‘colleague’. Thus, we would like to encourage colligability between mentors and mentees so that collaboration and future partnerships can be built. 

Who can participate? 

We would like to invite you to be a mentee in the GO-GN Collega mentoring program if: 

• You have been engaged in open practices and/or OE research; 
• You speak either Spanish or Portuguese in addition to a bit of English (to complete the paperwork) 
• You would like some assistance in getting a publication or a piece of work developed in English with the help of a mentor 
• Would like to be part of a Latin American community of practice in OE within GO-GN. 

We would like to invite you to be a mentor in the GO-GN Collega mentoring program if: 

• You are engaged in open practices and/or OE research; 
• You speak either Spanish or Portuguese in addition to be proficient in English; 
• You would like to support a fellow Latin American colleague to get a piece of their work disseminated in the form of a conference paper, presentation, journal article, etc; and 
• Would like to be part of a Latin American community of practice in OE within GO-GN. 

How can I participate? 

To participate as a mentee, please complete the mentee application form.

To participate as a mentor, please complete the mentor application form.

After receiving the applications from mentees and mentors, we will then pair them up according to areas of interest and communicate it to each individual pair. Please note that places are limited, so please apply as soon as you can to guarantee your place. Please also note that all contributions made by mentors and mentees to the program will be on a voluntary basis (no payment involved).

What are the benefits for mentees and mentors? 

Benefits for mentees include: 

• Opportunity to develop a publication, a conference presentation or paper (it will depend on the activity chosen from the list provided, which will be shared with the mentor); 
• Which in turn would help to disseminate the mentee’s work; 
• Opportunity to collaborate with a colleague in your field of research (OE); and
• Opportunity to present at the GO-GN Collega mentoring online event about your experiences in the program. 

Benefits for mentors include: 

• Opportunity to collaborate with a colleague in your field of research (OE); and  
• Opportunity to present at the GO-GN Collega mentoring online event about your experiences in the program.

Expectations

As a mentee you are expected to choose a dissemination activity, which will be communicated to and achieved in collaboration with your mentor. The timeline of the program is short, so it is important that you choose a realistic activity that could be completed by the end of the program. You are also expected to attend the meetings arranged between you and your mentor. We expect you to have your activity completed by 10^th December 2022. After that, we will ask you to complete a short report and/or respond to a short online survey so that we learn about your experiences in the program and receive some feedback on how to improve it. 

As a mentor, we expect you to meet with your mentee as arranged by you both, to provide advice, feedback and expertise as needed. We also expect you to respond to a short online survey so that we learn about your experiences in the program and receive some feedback on how to improve it. 

Mentees and mentors are expected to attend the end of GO-GN Collega program online event at the end of the year. Date and time will be communicated with participants as soon as arrangements are made. 

Activities should be discussed and agreed between mentees and mentors, as should expectations about the amount time one can allocate for the meetings, frequency of meetings, prefered technology and the type of support given (e.g. meet monthly, for approx. 30 minutes, via MS Teams). Please note that the work undertaken by mentees and mentors are completely voluntary. However, the GO-GN Collega team will be available to support mentees and mentors so that activities can be successfully completed. 

Program Timeline 

• Program launch 7^th March – Open Education week 
• Registrations for mentees and mentors close on 25^th March 
• Program starts on 1^st April 
• Initial progress review in June 
• A follow up progress review in September 
• Program ends on 10^th Dec 2022 (7 months) 
• A online program event to be organised in Dec 2022 to present activities and achievements (TBC) 

For more information about the GO-GN EDI project and Collega program visit our page and for any further questions please contact carina.bossu@open.ac.uk or francisco.iniesto@open.ac.uk