Navigate OER26
Openness Reimagined: Continuity, Change and Shared Vision
Sustaining the Ethos and Values of Open in a Changing Landscape
Open education has always been both a practice and a proposition. It is grounded in enduring commitments to access, equity, collaboration, and the sharing of knowledge as a public good. Over decades, these commitments have taken institutional and technological form through open educational resources, open pedagogy, open research, open access publishing, and global networks of collaboration. Openness has expanded participation, reshaped practice, and challenged assumptions about who education is for and how it should be delivered.
Yet openness is not static. It evolves alongside the social, political, and technological conditions in which it operates. The rapid development of AI systems, platform-based infrastructures, shifting policy environments, new economic pressures, and renewed global debates about equity and justice are reshaping the terrain of open education. In this context, openness must be revisited, reinterpreted, reimagined, and perhaps reconfigured.
OER26 invites delegates to reimagine and re-theorise openness while recognising the enduring ethos that has sustained the movement from its earliest days. We seek to examine openness as a living project that must continually negotiate continuity and change.
OER26 positions openness as an ongoing collective endeavour requiring critical inquiry, practical innovation, and sustained ethical commitment. We are particularly interested in contributions that explore how the ethos of openness is sustained, challenged, institutionalised, or transformed in the current moment.
Themes and Areas of Interest
While the overarching theme is intentionally broad, contributions may engage with (but are not limited to) the following areas:
Cluster 1: Openness as a project of social transformation
This cluster invites contributions that examine openness as a vehicle for systemic change.
- How has open education reconfigured existing educational hierarchies?
- How does openness interact with broader social movements?
- Does openness inevitably become absorbed into prevailing systems?
- What models of sustainability might preserve openness as a public good?
- What (if anything) is the end goal of open education?
Cluster 2: Reimagining openness: theory, technology, and futures
This cluster foregrounds critical, and future-oriented engagements.
- How might openness evolve in response to new technologies?
- Can AI-aligned technologies be genuinely open?
- Can open and participatory approaches offer balance to the extractive nature of generative AI?
- What sociotechnical imaginaries are embedded within open education movements?
- Do we need new theories of openness? What emerging practices are not yet fully theorised?
- What futures of open education are desirable? How can new educational forms be open?
- What conversations are we not yet having (but should be)?
Cluster 3: Openness as justice
This cluster invites contributions that interrogate the equity claims of open education
- What can be learned from transnational perspectives on openness?
- How do power, privilege, and governance structures influence who benefits from openness?
- What does it mean to decolonise open education in theory and in practice?
- In what ways do language, accessibility, and digital infrastructure shape participation?
- How can open education operate responsibly in fragile, conflict-affected, or highly unequal contexts?
- How can open practices complement indigenous, land-based and traditional approaches to community knowledge?
Cluster 4: Open Practices and Pedagogical Innovation
This cluster focuses on implementation, experimentation, and reflection within teaching and learning contexts.
- What institutional conditions enable or constrain open practice?
- Case studies of Open Educational Resources (creation, adaptation, reuse, sustainability) and Open Educational Practices (OEP)
- Pedagogical innovation, curriculum design and institutional implementation strategies
- Accessibility and accommodating learner diversity
- Impact studies of open programmes or initiatives (assessment, credentialling, platforms and repositories, recognition)
- Practitioner-led reflections
Cluster 5: Openness as Care
This cluster explores openness as a relational and ethical practice grounded in care, responsibility, and mutuality.
- What does it mean to practice openness as an ethic of care?
- Who performs the often invisible labour that sustains open systems and how is that labour recognised?
- How might maintenance, curation, and stewardship be valued alongside innovation?
- How might care reshape our understanding of sustainability in open education?
Cluster 6: Open Minds (Wild Card)
Openness has always involved creativity, experimentation, risk, and imagination. This cluster creates space for work that does not sit neatly within established categories but nevertheless expands the field.
Formats for Participation
We encourage submissions from researchers, practitioners, educators, students, policymakers, technologists, librarians, instructional designers, and community organisers.
- Research Papers (20 minutes)
Presenting completed or near-completed research studies (empirical and theoretical). - Workshops (60 or 120 minutes)
Interactive sessions focused on tools, practices, methods, or collaborative exploration. - Panels and Symposia (up to 90 minutes)
Curated discussions bringing together multiple perspectives on a shared issue. - Posters
Visual presentations of emerging research, projects, or initiatives. - Lightning Talks (5 minutes)
Short presentations highlighting new ideas, provocations, or initiatives. - Experimental Formats
Innovative or non-traditional formats that embody the spirit of openness, including collaborative design sessions, multimodal contributions, artistic interventions, and community-led dialogues.
International and Inclusive Participation
Open education is a global endeavour shaped by diverse cultural, linguistic, and institutional contexts. We welcome submissions from all regions and sectors, including higher education, further education, schools, vocational education, professional development, corporate training, community education, and informal learning environments.
We particularly welcome perspectives that foreground underrepresented voices, challenge dominant paradigms, or extend the boundaries of what counts as open education.
We are committed to fostering an inclusive, equitable, respectful, and accessible environment for honest dialogue.
How to Submit Your Proposal
Submission Deadline: 13 April
Submission link: https://app.oxfordabstracts.com/stages/81712/submitter
All proposals will be reviewed by the programme committee, and notifications will be sent following the review period.