GO-GN Workshop (Nijmegen, The Netherlands): February 2026

We’re thrilled to be heading to HAN University of Applied Sciences in Nijmegen, The Netherlands for our next GO-GN face-to-face event (24-26 February 2026). This will be our first stand-alone workshop and largest event to date, bringing together more than 30 GO-GN’ers plus the team.

The co-created programme combines a symposium, GO-GN regional hub knowledge exchange event and workshops. GO-GN member led workshops include:

• Dr. Bethany Eldridge (Michigan) & Ralph Spijker (OU UK; Netherlands Defense Academy) on Practicing value creation by learning photovoice methods in a social learning space.
• Dr. Paz Díez-Arcón (UNED) on Open practice in action: research, teaching, and collaboration. 
• Lance Scout (Independent) on Reclaiming Space.

We are also thrilled to be joined by special guests including Professor Maha Bali (AUC) who will be running a workshop on Challenging Academic Gatekeeping with Open Educational Practices: Questioning Soft Reform, Approaching Radical and Beyond-Reform Alternatives.

We will be live-streaming and recording the sessions shown below. If you’re a member of the network, we will be sharing more on the livestream and how to participate in a forthcoming newsletter. Selected session recordings will also be shared more widely via YouTube post-event.

All times are Central European Time (CET). Covert your timezone.

Day One: Symposium (Tuesday 24 February 2026)

Review Day One session abstracts.

Time (CET)	Activity
9.00 – 10.30	Welcome and Introductions  Lead: Rob Farrow and Beck Pitt Welcome from GO-GN including strategic review introduction.  Icebreaker.  Welcome from HAN University of Applied Sciences.
10.45 – 11.30	Research Showcase (15-minute presentations & Q&A) Chair: Beck Pitt  Rehshetta Wells (North Carolina at Greensboro): Carrying the Work: Radical Care and Diasporic Knowledge Traditions as Open Educational Praxis.  Bethany Eldridge (Michigan): “Understanding Teachers’ Engagement with Open Educational Resources “Developed by Local for Local”: A Case Study of OER for Vulnerable Students in Lebanon.
11.30 – 12.00	Research Showcase (5-minute presentations & Q&A) Chair: Carina Bossu Melissa Ashman (Athabasca): Experiences of online faculty using open pedagogy to support social justice.  Paz Díez-Arcón (UNED): Open Educational Resources for the inclusion of migrant students in rural schools.   Catherine Lachaîne (Ottawa): Imagining Futures in a World in Transformation: Possible, Plausible, and Preferable Futures of Open Education in Postsecondary Education in French-speaking Minority Context in Canada.
13.15 – 14.00	Research Showcase (15-minute presentations & Q&A) Chair: Rob Farrow Ralph Spijker (OU UK; Netherlands Defense Academy): Developing a community driven design framework for semi-open learning materials.   Gelareh Keshavarz (Athabasca): Developing Hautagogical Leadership through Gen AI: Multilingual Professional Faculty Learning Canada and East Africa.
14.00 – 14.30	Research Showcase (5-minute presentations & Q&A Chair: Saraswati Dawadi  Sonja Johnson (Southern Alberta Institute of Technology): Institutional cultural transformation through scholarly activity and open research considerations.   Xueying Liu (OU China): How Organizations Facilitate Pedagogical Knowledge Sharing Within Module Teams in the Digital Era.  Abiud Bosire (FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg): Contextualising Teacher Global Competencies for Global Education Implementation in Kenyan Secondary Schools.
15.00 – 16.15	Research Showcase (15-minute presentations & Q&A) Chair: Beck Pitt   Thi Van Dang (Hanoi University of Science and Technology): Application of Open Pedagogy in Higher Education in Viet Nam.  Igor Lesko (OU Netherlands): Driving OER Sustainability: Policy and Champions.  Leo Havemann (OU UK): Valuing open: open educational practices and institutional policy in higher education.
16.15 – 16.55	Research Showcase (5 or 10-minute presentations & Q&A) Chair: Carina Bossu  5-minute presentations:  Dong Duc Hung (University of Social Sciences and Humanities – Vietnam National University, Hanoi (VNU-USSH)): Factors affecting the development of open educational resources in Vietnamese higher education.  Nghia Le Trung (University of Social Sciences and Humanities – Vietnam National University, Hanoi (VNU-USSH)): How to assess quantitatively the OER’s competences? Lessons from Europe’s digital competency assessment.   10-minute presentations:   Vi Truong (Melbourne): Open Artificial Intelligence, Open Futures?  Joel Nakitare (Rongo University and Technical University of Kenya): Open Data vs Open Educational Resources
16.55 – 17.00	Summary and reflections Lead: Beck Pitt and Rob Farrow

Day Two: GO-GN Regional Hub Knowledge Exchange (Wednesday 25 February 2026)