GO-GN Workshop and #OER22

It’s been a couple of months since our first face-to-face event, and for many the first in-person conference, since the pandemic began. The fantastic OER22 and our GO-GN workshop took place in April – in this post we share a little more about these events and hear from some of the awesome GO-GN’ers who participated.

GO-GN Workshop

GO-GN were thrilled to be co-chairs for this year’s OER conference which took place face-to-face in London, UK and online 26-28 April 2022.

We were also delighted to have eight GO-GN members and alumni from around the world join us for our first face-to-face workshop in over two years. The one-day workshop provided an opportunity for participants to share their current or doctoral research in a supportive space. We also spent time in the afternoon discussing forthcoming GO-GN collaborative publications before heading to the OER22 social in the evening.

A major highlight of the workshop was listening to other GO-GN members from different parts of the world and learning about their PhD research and dissertations.

Olawale Iyinolakan, GO-GN member, University of Ibadan, Nigeria

Read more of Olawale’s reflections in his blog post #OER22 and GO-GN Workshop – Post Conference Reflection – My first conference since the pandemic.

#OER22

On Tuesday we headed over to Resource for London for the first day of OER22. With 79 presentations, four plenaries and around 200 participants online and face-to-face across the three days, this year’s conference was a great opportunity to hear from, and connect with, open practitioners from around the world. This year’s conference themes included Pedagogy in a time of crisis – what does an ‘open’ response look like?, Open in Action: open teaching, educational practices and resources and Open textbooks: making the most of their potential.

GO-GN had a fantastic presence across OER22 including:

• A total of 29 sessions which featured GO-GN team, members and/or alumni
• 25 non-team sessions including the conference plenary and GO-GN showcase
• 20 individual GO-GN’ers listed as (co-)authors on presentations.

We were particularly thrilled to have the opportunity to share GO-GN research during our showcase lightning talk session. A massive thank you to our five members – Gabi, Vid, Olawale, Marjon & Anuradha – who shared overviews of their research in record time!

We were also delighted to have Angela DeBarger from The Hewlett Foundation with us for the conference’s closing plenary. GO-GN was honoured to close the conference with reflections from Angela and some of our GO-GN members and alumni – Kathy Essmiller, Leo Havemann and Verena Roberts – who shared experiences of their doctoral journeys and GO-GN. Watch the plenary recording on YouTube.

Needless to say, it was great to reconnect face-to-face and online with both GO-GN’ers and colleagues at OER22. But don’t just take our word for it! The final, and most important, reflections come from some of our wonderful workshop participants:

OER22 marked the end of the covid-19 hibernation period for me. I felt holed up at home working at my PhD for the past two years, and although there were some great activities and meetings organized online, actually having real-life contact with peers makes all the difference.

The small-scale GO-GN seminar and the conference provided a profound sense of being part of this amazing open community. It felt so good to really just be there, have small-talk with peers and likeminded professionals. It provided me with a bucketload of renewed energy, inspiration, and perspectives thanks to all the amazing presentations. I am grateful for this and it will definitely help me to tackle the final phase of my PhD.

Marjon Baas (@oerbaas), GO-GN member, Leiden University

OER22 felt friendly and cosy – I had never been to an academic conference before, but it was small and not overwhelming. All throughout I felt very welcomed. There were lots of very different people at different stages of careers, different ideas, different projects, and opinions.

Vidminas Mikuconis, GO-GN member, The University of Edinburgh 

It was exciting and energizing to meet so many scholars whose work I have admired. I came away with new ideas, new collaborative opportunities, and am refreshed and ready to continue the work!

Kathy Essmiller (@KathyEssmiller), GO-GN alumni, Oklahoma State University

OER22 was an intoxicating mix of two of my favourite things in the open world – the OER conferences and GO-GN! These communities have done so much to support and sustain me and help me to think out loud, in order to think through, ideas that are developing within my doctoral research and towards publication. This year was no exception as I managed to involve myself in no less than 5 sessions across the three days, which is testament to how difficult it is to say no to collaborating with the members of these communities.

Leo Havemann (@leohavemann), GO-GN member,

Thank you so much to all our members and alumni for their participation either online or face-to-face at OER22 and to ALT for all their support throughout. Extra special thanks also to our eight GO-GN workshop participants for all their contributions and work to make the workshop so special.

More:

• Catch-up on available/recorded GO-GN presentations via our curated playlists
• More resources from the conference via ALT’s Voices of #OER22 blog post
• Read more on #OER22 from the wider ALT and open education community over on the ALT blog
• Doctoral student working on an open education topic and not yet a GO-GN member? Join the network!