540 people from 54 countries came together for the online portion of the 2021/22 Open Education Global (OEGlobal) Conference from Sept 27 – Oct 1. This year OEGlobal is trying something new and is focusing the entire conference on the UNESCO OER Recommendation, with each day of the five-day conference focusing on a different action area of the UNESCO OER Recommendation – Capacity Building, Policy, Access, Sustainability, and International Cooperation. Meeting in Zoom and on OEG Connect, OEGlobal’s discussion forum, participants attended a total of 24 webinars in 5 of the 6 official UNESCO languages (English, Spanish, French, Arabic, and Chinese) each one focusing on a different action area.
Video: Open Educators reflect on the UNESCO OER Action Area: Building Capacity
While the webinars were planned to work for people located in several different timezones, asynchronous and pre-recorded presentations allowed for even more participation around the clock. A couple of the most popular entries are below:
Peacebuilding Within High-Risk Communities In South Africa
International collaboration within the Open Education for a Better World #OE4BW mentoring program in 2021 shared their online training course that aims to help inspire aspirant peacebuilders.
Using offline tools to build open content and introduce to open knowledge movement
“Offline” refers to situations and places with little to no connectivity – parts of the world where internet access is restricted, expensive, or unavailable: including schools, clinics, prisons, refugee camps, disaster areas. This presentation gives an overview of offline tools and resources available.
Being Social
One hurdle with online conferences is the difficulty of connecting with others. OEGlobal21 participants connected by sharing their pets and the list included reptiles, mammals, and amphibians! Pedagogy at OEGlobal21 – Share your pet pic
A virtual talent show, hosted by Judith Sebesta (Digital Higher Education Consortium of Texas), and Paul Stacey (OEGlobal) was a showcase of online conference attendees’ talents. Talents were either shared during an interactive session or videos were posted on OEG Connect. OEGlobal 21 Talent Show
UNESCO OER Implementation award
On the final day, it was announced that the winners of the UNESCO OER Implementation award for the OE Award 2021 is every one of the 293 presenters who participated in the OEGlobal 2021 online conference! View all of the winners and learn more on the 2021 UNESCO OER Implementation Award page.
2021 marks the 10th anniversary of the Open Education Awards for Excellence and we are planning things differently. Winners will be revealed progressively and by categories, leading to a closing celebration on December 7th, 2021.
What Happens After the Conference?
All of the webinars were recorded and are available on YouTube and via OEG Connect under a CC BY license and open to all.
In addition, in order to bridge last week’s online conference with the 2022 Congress in Nantes, open education advocates from all over the world were enlisted as rapporteurs. They attended an action area webinar and published a Rapporteur Report, all of which are posted on OEG Connect.
The OEGlobal 2021 Online Conference organized by the University of Nantes and Open Education Global, and was supported by: