Dear Colleagues, 

We are excited to announce the third annual offering of The Open Education Talks, first offered in 2022 as The Open Pedagogy Talks, a series of lightning talks focusing on open education in postsecondary institutions. These 15-minute talks will be about facets of open education, including open pedagogy and learning, utilizing open educational resources, and integrating open strategies in higher education. 

These talks aim to create an accessible, virtual space to engage in conversations about open education. For these talks, we share our understanding of open education from the UNESCO Cape Town Declaration:

“…open education is not limited to just open educational resources. It also draws upon open technologies that facilitate collaborative, flexible learning and the open sharing of teaching practices that empower educators to benefit from the best ideas of their colleagues'' (UNESCO Cape Town Declaration, 2018).

Potential speakers are invited to submit a proposal for a 15-minute talk under the umbrella of the following streams: 

• Exploring Open Education: These talks focus on the facets of open education, why it has been impactful in higher education, and examples in higher education.

• Open Learning Design: These talks focus on integrating open learning principles into current and future program and course designs. 

• Creating Open Educational Resources: These talks focus on creating, identifying, using, and sharing open educational resources in higher education. 

• Open Scholarship and Research Practices: These talks focus on how educators and learners integrate open research into their courses and scholarship of teaching and learning practices. 

For examples of topics for the Talks for each stream, please visit The Open Education Talks website.

Important Dates: 

Proposal Deadline: December 18, 2023

Speakers Notified: January 12, 2024

Registration Open: February 1, 2024

Talks Schedule: Every Wednesday in March 2024 at 12:00 PM MST

Submission: Please submit your proposal here by December 18, 2023.

Open Education Talks Working Group: This initiative has been developed in partnership with the University of Calgary, Thompson Rivers University, and the University of Alberta.

For more information about the Open Education Talks, please connect with sarah.shaughnessy@ualberta.ca. 

Please feel free to share this invitation with your network. Thank you, and we look forward to learning alongside you in this endeavor!