Call for Proposals and Save the Date - 2023 Arizona Regional OER Conference
Matthew Bloom
2023 AZ Regional OER Conference
Showcase. Build. Connect.
Open Educational Resources (OER) and the pedagogical practices permitted by their use continue to grow in potential to improve the educational experiences of our students, from drastically reducing the cost burden associated with course materials to directly involving students in the generation of knowledge. As educators and administrators across Arizona demonstrate increasing interest in the global open education community, the opportunity to forge meaningful cross-institutional connections related to open education has emerged.
The fifth annual conference will be held virtually on March 2 and 3, 2023, just before the global celebration of Open Education Week 2023. There is no registration fee and participants are invited to join us for keynote talks, 30-minute showcase breakout sessions, and 90-minute hands-on workshops.
Event Summary
Who: Advocates, practitioners, and anyone else interested in open education. The event is open to the public.
What: A virtual experience inviting participants to showcase projects or ideas, learn from the community, build effective resources, and connect to an ongoing community of practice through the OERizona Network.
When: March 2 and 3, 2023
Where: Virtual, via Webex
Why: The Arizona Regional OER Conference seeks to support student success by promoting awareness and adoption of Open Educational Resources and Pedagogies while encouraging collaboration through institutional partnerships across the state and beyond.
How: Sponsoring institutions will be announced closer to the event
Call for Proposals
We are inviting proposals to facilitate breakout sessions and workshops about various topics related to projects, initiatives, or insights involving Open Education. Proposals should directly address one or more of the suggested breakout topics/tracks. At the same time, you are encouraged to shape your proposed breakout sessions to best communicate your unique experiences with and ideas about open education at the local, regional, national, and/or global level. Workshops should actively engage participants, ideally such that they walk away with a specific plan or material they can use.
Choose one of the following session formats:
Showcase Presentation -- 25 minutes + 5 minutes Q&A
Showcase Presentations are an opportunity to share a project, strategy, or idea.
Hands-On Workshop -- 90 minutes
Hands-On Workshops should be designed to maximize interaction and involve participants in some sort of meaningful work, whether individual or collaborative. Participants should (virtually) walk away from a workshop with something that they can use immediately in their classroom or open education initiative.
Conference Theme: Connections to Grow and Sustain Open Education
Suggested Topics/Tracks:
Opportunities for collaboration across colleges/institutions
Institutional OER initiatives: successes and lessons learned
Engagement with students about OER and textbook costs
Obstacles to OER adoption (and maybe how to overcome them)
Technologies to support dissemination of OER
Local, regional, national, and global arguments for OER
Connecting K-12, community colleges, and universities
Open education and surviving challenging times
What It Means to Be a “Leader” in Open
Hands-on workshops might be focused on any number of practical topics, such as ensuring accessibility, demonstrating/creating with specific tools, understanding licensing, and modeling best practices for attribution. The really cool idea you have that we didn’t just list is also a possibility!
Proposals (for either breakout sessions or workshops) with a commercial or product-centered focus will be considered, but only if the reviewers determine that it will be valuable to attendees. In other words, skip the sales pitch.
Call for Proposals Deadline: Monday, November 21, 2022
Submit proposals using this Google Form.
If you have any questions, please contact Matthew Bloom at matthe...@scottsdalecc.edu.