Open Education Bootcamp 2025

Tuesday, May 13

Time: 11:00 a.m. (Sask/CST)

KEYNOTE: Open and the Oligarchs: Planting Seeds in a World on Fire

Speaker: Dr. Robin DeRosa

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Abstract: Dr. Robin DeRosa has been working on open initiatives, including projects around OER, open pedagogy, and open access to research, for more than a decade. She has been interested not only in the practices that animate open, but also in the values that power an open vision for the future of education and knowledge-sharing. But recently, Robin has come to question the efficacy of the work in which she has been engaged. How can such well-conceived, thoughtful praxis around “open” be gathering steam at the same time as our public educational institutions, our libraries, and our publishing models creep closer toward privatization or economic ruin? How can our community’s investments in equity and access be thriving even as global political contexts bend toward neoliberalism, plutocracy, and fascism? This presentation will reimagine the “tragedy of the commons,” not as Garrett Hardin (mis)understood it in his seminal 1968 essay of that name, but in its current state. As LA burns and Trump ascends, we will pause and ask tough questions about where open education has gotten us.

Speaker Bio: Dr. Robin DeRosa is the Director of Learning & Libraries at Plymouth State University in New Hampshire (USA). She has previously been an English professor, the chair of a customized major program for undergraduates, and the director of a faculty development center. Robin is an advocate for public higher education, and has been working on OER and open pedagogy initiatives at institutions around the world for more than a decade. You can read more about Robin at her website, robinderosa.net

Wednesday, May 14 (Dr. John Archer Library Day)

Time: 11:00 a.m. (Sask/CST)

KEYNOTE: Racing Towards a Wasted Future: Generative AI and the Resurgence of Nuclear Energy

Speaker: Dr. Marco Seiferle-Valencia

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Abstract: As the potentials and promises of generative AI sweep into the field of Open Education, educators and advocates have a holistic responsibility to think deeply and expansively about the known and still emerging environmental impacts of these technologies. Demand for energy by the hungry server farms that create so-called artificial intelligence is bringing damaging and dangerous energy practices back from the grave, including the resurrection of previously shuttered coal and nuclear power plants.

How can we as Open practitioners reconcile the long standing historical and contemporary violence of coal and nuclear power production with the desire to widely embrace and experiment with generative AI? This talk will review the most recent research on AI energy demands and the environmental impacts, as well as provide a brief history and contextualization of the current issues with nuclear waste, pollution, and accidents in North America, primarily in the United States and Canada. Attendees will be invited to reflect deeply on what we stand to lose and gain with the widespread adoption of generative AI in society, and hopefully leave inspired to mindfully use generative AI, with its current promise and future perils in mind.

Speaker Bio: Dr. Marco Seiferle-Valencia serves as Associate Professor and Open Education Librarian at the University of Idaho. His research interests span a wide range of topics, notably community archives, the history and current practices of BIPOC feminisms especially in libraries and information environments, and environmental justice. Marco is also a co-creator of the Chicana por mi Raza Digital Memory Collective, which collects imperiled histories of Chicana civil rights activism.

Thursday, May 15

Time: 11:00 a.m. (Sask/CST)

KEYNOTE: Then. Now. The Future: Directions for Open Education in the Changing World of Higher Education

Speaker: Dr. Glenda Cox

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Abstract: In this presentation, Dr. Glenda Cox will be looking back at the Cape Town open education declaration (2007) and the 10 directions suggested at the 10 year anniversary in 2017. Dr. Cox will include discussions of student protests calling for the decolonisation of the curriculum, first held in 2015 and now 10 years later where are we in higher education (HE) in South Africa.

2027 will be another 10 years will be a 20 year anniversary – what have we achieved and what needs to be added? What will HE look like to 2035? Many of us will be happily retired but the students in the room will the academics of the future. How do we take steps towards the transformation of our current neoliberal, competitive HE? What steps do we take to include students in decolonising our curricula and where does Open fit in?

Speaker bio: Associate Professor Glenda Cox works in the Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching (CILT: http://www.cilt.uct.ac.za/) at the University of Cape Town. She holds the UNESCO chair in Open Education and Social Justice and is a member of the UNITWIN network on Open Education. She is a Board member of the Open Education Global organization. She is on the editorial board of the International Journal of Students as Partners and she currently leads the Digital Open Textbooks for Development (DOT4D) initiative.

Friday, May 16, 2024

Time: 11:00 a.m. (Sask/CST)

KEYNOTE: Designing for Justice with Open Educational Practices

Speaker: Dr. Rajiv Jhangiani

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Abstract: Whereas the adoption of open educational resources can widen equitable access by helping alleviate the financial burden experienced by students, the embrace of broader open educational practices carries the potential to advance additional dimensions of social and epistemic justice. This presentation will focus on practical ways in which educators may approach learning resources, activities, assessments, and policies in service of more inclusive, supportive, and just learning environments.

Speaker bio: Dr. Rajiv Jhangiani is the Vice Provost, Teaching and Learning at Brock University, where he holds faculty appointments in the Departments of Educational Studies and Psychology, directs the Inclusive Education Research Lab, and is affiliated with the Social Justice Research Institute. The architect of Canada’s first zero textbook cost degree programs and a global leader in open education, his scholarship is supported by the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada and focuses on open educational practices, student-centered pedagogies, and ethical approaches to educational technology.