Day 2 Reaction Blog
Written by Akanksha Bhatnagar, a member of the #OpenEd20 communications team.
Attending a conference in general is daunting and being one of few students in a room full of professors, librarians, academic staff, can sometimes feel even more distant. However this year’s digital #OpenEd20 has found a way to break the barrier between our job titles and passions by providing unique ways to converse over topics we are interested in! When I started in the open education movement as a third-year political science student and Vice-President Academic at the University of Alberta in Canada, I was frustrated by the cost of my textbooks - the classic catch-all way to get students interested.
“My texts were not only expensive but seemed to lack any real day application - little did I know that open education would solve more issues than just cost barriers. "As I continued to be an advocate in this world, I realized the thousands of hurdles that publishing companies had in place - barriers that disproportionately impacted QTBIPOC scholars.”
I returned to the OpenEd19 conference as President of the University of Alberta Students’ Union with my passion for this riled up. Experiences in my everyday texts weren’t even representative of the lives that were being impacted by politics. This is why today’s keynote by Maha Bali and Mia Zamora is essential viewing for students! We have to be intentional about centering equity in conversations about open, and addressing the issue of representation in academia instead of shying away from it. Always be asking yourself - as a student and as an educator - who is and who is not represented in this classroom.
Further, students are so often taken advantage of by the system of publishing and most recently taken advantage by automatic billing. At today’s session titled: “Automatic Textbook Billing: An Offer Students Can’t Refuse?”, the speakers directly address the nature in which publishers were taking advantage of this year and students Publishers had found a way toco-opt the open education communities messaging to find ways to profit. I refuse to call it “the all-inclusive model” because it is not inclusive and paints an incorrect picture of what inclusivity in education really means.
“Students, while they are a small portion of these conferences, are the epitome of education.”
Student advocacy has seen incredible success, and while I continue to attend sessions targeted at students, and ones that are not, what I continue to learn is the power of collaboration. Understanding how different advocates speak to issues, formally through sessions or informally chatting over our late night show, we are all united under one common goal. Take this energy and find people on your campus doing this work - some are doing it, but don’t classify it as open. Cost is just one of many barriers solved by open, and it’s up to us to learn from the other advocates this field so we can band together and not just work in our silos.
While I do miss those delightful (and sometimes awkward) conversations while you wait in line to check in at a conference, in just two days, I have been amazed at the calibre of #OpenEd20. Instead of hustling to find your conference room, we are scrambling to log into our zoom links and debating what type of cheetos are the best snack. (The right answer is hot and/or puffed!)