Scholarships

By Jasmine Roberts

The premise of open education is to advocate for inclusive, accessible, affordable, and equitable practices that benefit people from many different backgrounds. It is particularly important to revisit this belief when thinking about access to attend the 2020 Open Education Conference. The virtual conference broadens the reach of the dynamic sessions taking place while increasing attendance, but cost barriers still remain. The 2020 Open Education Conference steering committee and volunteers have worked very hard to minimize financial barriers that might prevent people from participating in the conference. We are eager to share what this looks like and the decision that came from doing this work. 

The diversity, equity, and inclusion committee and steering committee had multiple conversations about how to extend the conference reach. We acknowledge that historically, conference costs including registration, travel, and lodging have restricted participation to those who have the financial resources to attend. Consequently, people who are traditionally underrepresented at the conference, including (but not limited to) adjunct faculty, students, those with limited funding and resources, as well as those from outside of the U.S./Canada, have not been able to attend. Furthermore, cost barriers reinforce an overrepresentation of “the same voices” at the Open Education Conference which consequently limits the discourse and engagement. 

With this context in mind, this year’s conference decided to offer scholarships that will partially or fully cover the cost of registration. Although this scholarship process is available to everyone, we particularly encourage those who have never attended the Open Education Conference due to costs to apply. The goal of these scholarships is to remove cost as a barrier to participation, so we encourage you to select the amount that meets your specific circumstances and needs. 

As stated on the scholarship webpage, we intend to award scholarships to most participants who apply. If there are more applications than spots, the process will prioritize those who have been traditionally underrepresented at the conference, which includes students, adjuncts, PreK-12 educators, participants from Africa, Asia, and South America, those at minority-serving institutions, and participants with historically marginalized or underrepresented identities, including those who identify as Black, Indigenous, and/or People of Color. 

The deadline to submit the scholarship application is November 2, 2020. We will notify applicants within 5-7 business days of an approval, waitlist, or decline decision. The steering committee and volunteers are very proud to be able to provide this resource to the community. It is our hope that it serves as an extension of the imperative work done in open education.