Members Pack

Welcome to the GO-GN! This is a global network of doctoral researchers in the area of Open Educational Resources and Open Educational Practice, funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and organised by a team at the Open University in the UK. In this pack we’ll give you some information about what we do, how you can engage, and some resources you may find useful.

There are two types of GO-GN membership: Researchers and Friends. Researchers are those who are actively engaged in Doctoral research (or are alumni having completed such). Friends are those who are supervisors, researchers, practitioners in the area of OER. Some of the support we offer, such as attending face to face seminars or fellowships, is only open to the researchers, but in general what we do is of interest and open to everyone.

Below we set out the various outputs, activities and communications we undertake. In short, our role is to foster and support a global research community in the OER/OEP community. The primary activity we undertake is to bring around 15 researchers together for a two day seminar to develop their research. This usually coincides with the OEGlobal conference. Obviously this has been impacted by the pandemic in 2020. We also produce reports, organise regular webinars, share news, conduct research and encourage connections and networking within this network and with other groups.

As a global network we try to actively support diversity and inclusion, and encourage applications from the Global South. You can see our guidelines on this here: https://go-gn.net/research/diversity-inclusion-guidelines/

The GO-GN is highly valued by its members, and you can hear them talking about their research and what it means to them in this playlist.

We hope you find membership of the network useful and rewarding.

Martin Weller (Director, GO-GN)

Get Involved! 

We love to share what our members, friends and alumni are doing. You can let us know by tweeting @GOGN_OER using #GO_GN or send an email to us at gogn.oer[at]gmail.com. You can also share news via our website: https://go-gn.net/news-announcements-you-want-us-to-share/

In addition to Twitter, you can find us on Facebook and we have our very own YouTube channel. Be sure to subscribe to them all! And don’t forget to follow the adventures of our GO-GN penguin on Instagram. Remember to keep your profile updated on the website and keep your eyes peeled for our regular newsletter with all the latest GO-GN news and opportunities! We also have a Whats App group for members – if you’d like to join the group, get in touch.

Fancy showcasing and sharing your research with the network via our blog or monthly webinars? We’d be delighted to hear from you. Please email us at gogn.oer[at]gmail.com and let’s get the conversation started!

Don’t forget that we also support our members to participate in a major open education conference and our annual seminar each year. In 2020 we’ll be doing this virtually but you can hear more from participants and find out about our recent adventures at OER19 in Galway or OE Global in Cape Town

We also have regular mini-seminars, webinars, online events and drop-in sessions to support our members. Check out our past events and catch up our YouTube channel: https://go-gn.net/outputs/webinars/

As you near the end or complete your studies, we also have fantastic fellowship opportunities for GO-GN’ers. The first call has now closed but there will be 2 further calls during 2021 and 2022. Find out more: https://go-gn.net/gogn/go-gn-fellowship-programme/

If you are interested in what fellow members are up to, you can:

Resources for and by GO-GN 

GO-GN regularly co-develops and produces a range of outputs with our members. You can find them listed here https://go-gn.net/project-outputs/. During 2020 we published our Methodology Handbook https://go-gn.net/gogn_outputs/research-methods-handbook/ which aims to demystify different methodological approaches and the first of our OER and OEP research round-ups, which reviewed the latest journal papers in the open education field https://go-gn.net/gogn_outputs/research-review-summer-2020/. Look out for up-and-coming calls for members to get involved in future publications! 

If you’re new to open education and openness, you should also check out our Openness and Education: A Beginner’s Guide https://go-gn.net/gogn_outputs/openness-and-education-a-beginners-guide/

We have an array of CC BY licensed images for you to use on your own work and add to your presentations to show you’re a member of the network. These include:  

Additional Member Benefits 

We have joined the Association for Learning Technology in the UK as an organisation. This means that all GO-GN members can join ALT as Associate Members for free!. You need to choose GO-GN from the associated organisation dropdown list. Once you have joined you can select things like mailing lists you wish to subscribe to and a list of benefits

We think that it is important and useful for doctoral researchers to develop their online identity. As a means of helping members do this, we offer a free 2 year account with Reclaim Hosting. Find out more about this opportunity

Other Useful Resources

There are a range of other useful resources on open education and open research available from the OER Hub/GOGN team at The Open University, these include our: 

css.php