About the OpenEd20 Program
by Mo Nyamweya
The program for the 2020 Open Education Conference is now up online! Featuring more than 150 live sessions, 100 asynchronous contributions, and many networking opportunities, it’s shaping up to be an exciting and engaging virtual event.
Like every part of this year’s conference, the program was designed through a community-driven process. It started with community input during the conference’s open monthly meetings, drew more than 300 submissions with over 600 unique speakers, and involved more than 100 volunteers and 300 hours of work to review, select, and finalize.
In unveiling this year’s program, we wanted to take a moment to tell the story of how it came to be.
Developing the Call for Proposals
The process of developing the Call for Proposals started with data collected at the June 2020 conference community meeting, which asked two important questions about attending the conference: what do you want to learn, and what do you want to share?
The theme “Reimagining Open Education” grew out of the clear need for timely and equity-centered conversations given the events of 2020, which have exposed, underscored, and intensified urgent challenges that open education could help address. In reviewing the data submitted by community members, members of the program team identified eight key topics to invite for sessions:
Open Education 101: The Basics and How to Get Started
Applications of Open Education During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Creative, Innovative, and Effective Open Education Practices
What Isn’t Working: Barriers, Challenges, and How to Overcome Them
Strategies, Policies, and Best Practices for Sustainable Open Education Efforts
Applications of Open Education in Social Justice, Inclusion, and Anti-Racism
Exploring Intersections and Collaborations Across Borders and Contexts
The Evolution and Study of Open Education as a Field
The session topics are intended to apply across various contexts, stakeholders, and practices, spanning higher education, K-12, and international collaboration. In the spirit of “reimagining,” there was also an option to propose sessions that didn’t fall clearly into one of these topics, although all submissions ended up falling into one of these topics.
The CFP invited proposals for synchronous and asynchronous virtual sessions and provided descriptions for each session category. Of the more than 300 submissions received, most ended up being 25 minute presentations, with the second most common category being 10 minute asynchronous lightning talks.
The Review Process
The process for proposal review was broken down into three stages: the initial rating by proposal reviewers followed by two rounds of review by the Program Team. The goal of this three-step review process was to ensure that all proposals were reviewed by multiple perspectives and that all accepted proposals aligned with the criteria.
The criteria for proposal review specified in the CFP were:
Relevance of topic - Relation to the use, practice, creation, evaluation, research, or critique of open education (or drawing a connection between open education and a related space) and alignment with the conference theme and/or topic(s).
Value to attendees - Concrete learning outcomes or key takeaways that will meaningfully contribute to attendees’ understanding of open education and that are consistent with the session described.
Quality of proposal - Clear, coherent written description that communicates to prospective attendees what the session will cover in alignment with the submission requirements.
Diversity - Extra consideration was given to proposals that provided especially strong evidence of contributing diverse programming and/or supporting diverse voices.
Significance - Extra consideration was given to proposals that provided an especially strong, innovative, and/or timely alignment with the conference theme and topics.
The first stage of review was the most in-depth. Proposal reviewers received training through a video and guidance document, then rated 10-20 proposals—with each proposal ultimately being rated by 3-5 community members. Once that process was complete, the 18-member program team reviewed the comments and recommendations in small groups in order to make initial decisions.
Once the entire set of proposals had preliminary decisions, the program team went through it again to make final decisions, considering factors such as the contribution of diversity to the conference, significance or uniqueness of the topic, and representation across various types of institutions and geographic locations. Members of the DEI team also contributed input on evaluating and prioritizing diversity.
Onwards to the Conference!
The call for proposals and selection of this year’s program is the result of the hard work of more than 100 volunteers who worked on a very tight timeline. From submission deadline to delivery of notifications, the process involved an estimated 300 hours of collective work in a 29 day period—including some very difficult decisions.
With less than a month to go before the conference, it is exciting to see the inspiring, thought provoking, and information-packed set of proposals on the final schedule.
Visit the program now to see what’s in store, and register or apply for a scholarship today!
Mo Nyamweya is Open Education Coordinator at SPARC and a member of the OpenEd Conference Program Planning Committee.