 Hello everyone, welcome to this session and it is on links between open education and DEI findings from a Latin American study and it's promising to be a very interesting session and I'm going to pass over to the presenters for today, Karina and Vivienne. Hello everyone, my name is Karina Bossou from the Open University and Viv, my project partner also will be presenting today. So as Louise commented, we will talk about diversity, equity and inclusion. It's a project that we run in Latin America, so we are going to present some of the findings and recommendations for this project. We will also talk a little bit about processes that we went through, the methodology used and what's already in place, so what's next. A little bit of the project, this is one of the presentations already we have done on this project as part of the dissemination, but it is a GoGN project and many of you would be familiar with our GoGN network. This project is funded by the Hewlett Foundation, so in this project it's really to not open up for the community that is already a diverse community but make it even more equitable and inclusive because despite all efforts, the majority of people engaged in this network, the students and advocates and researchers, they come from the global north, so what we really want is to open up these opportunities for the students in Latin America for this project and I'm going to talk very briefly the phase one was in Africa. So it's just really open up this opportunity for others in less disadvantaged places and also to incorporate the experiences, perspectives from these communities. Really the key aim of this combined these two phases is to develop a diversity, equity and inclusion guidelines for GoGN. So there is a draft already informed by phase one which was in Africa and now we are going to redevelop those with findings from phase two which was in Latin America. Well this project phase two was ran in 2020 and now first semester of 2021 and you can see we got in the middle of the pandemic so we had to make a few adjustments so we could still contact our colleagues and validate those data but we had to definitely adapt and be smart about the ways we are doing because we couldn't do exactly what it was done before. We interviewed 12 key stakeholders in Latin America and that includes Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Costa Rica, Mexico, so it was a really well represented. That's what we think really well represented study findings. So from the interviews were then transcribed, the recordings were then transcribed and categorizing any vivo. We then in March ran a online workshop with key experts, participants still from the project to validate and gather additional data. So what you are going to see it's a collection of all the data we had including the validated one. And we are trying to disseminate these findings as wide as possible including through blog posts and using also translating in Portuguese and Spanish which will be available in the last slide. Just before we talk about findings it's good to have an overview of open education in Latin America. I just want to make it clear that it is really hard to do a very general overview because the countries are very different. They speak different languages under different economic pressures and policies and deal with education in different ways. But overall we have several ongoing existing initiatives. Some of them have been going on for some time already. There is a high use reuse and development of digital resources even more so now with the pandemic. So because a lot of institutions, schools, high education institutions and really across the board had to adapt and develop resources for online learning because they couldn't have the face-to-face one. There are also many barriers in Latin America as you can imagine. Lack of knowledge of open license so a lot of those resources being developed may not have been licensed or openly licensed. There is a lack of policy and funding including open access policies and open education related resources and funding. Lack of country champions, lack of awareness raising and capacity building. Like I said a comment before countries they are very different and they have also different approaches to funding their education including school and high education. And that impact the way policies are developed and the whole range of elements of education. This is actually the next point that came out in the data as well. So there is a need to showcase more effectively the work and initiatives that is done in terms of open education and open education resources in South America to the global north. And hopefully being have a stronger engagement with GoGN, with the GoGN network, we provide resources and tools for this research to be more spread wide and disseminated. This is some of the findings. We asked our participants to actually define diversity, inclusion and equity. But you might observe that some of these elements really overlap and there is a nice definition at the end of this that really describes that overlapping nicely and was a quote from our participants. But for diversity participants believed that it includes multidisciplinary, a variety of experiences, language is something that came across all elements and we continue to discuss that in the online workshop. And representation for diverse groups within Latin America including the indigenous groups. Inclusion is about participation, integration, collaboration and feel that the work that they do is valued. In terms of equities about social distance, social justice, equal opportunity, capacity building and awareness which is one of the problems in Latin America and resources. And like I said, we believe that this is a definition actually made by one of our participants that really incorporate all the elements of diversity, equity and inclusion. And I don't want to read it out loud, but it is, we believe that this is a key one that really represents DEI in Latin America. Okay, Vive, with you now. So if we can go on to the next slide. Can you move on to the next slide? Thanks. So initially we held 12 online interviews with 12 key stakeholders of Latin America as Karina has already described, and then we held a two hour online workshop. And our findings show that out of all the participants there was only one or two and most who were aware of the existence of GOGN. Out of the participants there was another participant besides me from Brazil who already participates in the GOGN network. Another important finding was the lack of language diversity. And this came up a lot. And it is a barrier to expand the open education movement Latin America. That's because resources are predominant in English and there's a tendency of the global north to be kind of pushing OER to global south. And these OER might not necessarily meet the needs of the reality or the context in the global south. Another important finding was that additional funding infrastructure capacity building are required to foster a diverse, equitable, inclusive community open education Latin America. There is a lot of research going on in Latin America, but a lot of it is not known because it's really neither in Portuguese or Spanish and it's not widespread, it's not disseminated to the global north. But definitely Latin America needs more resources in open education to expand the movement in the region and to give voice to the global south. And from these findings, stakeholders, they suggest strategies and recommendations to develop effective ways of communicating open research activities in Latin America. So a lot of valuable data was collected throughout these interactions with the participants. Can we move on to the next, please? Okay, so from the online workshops, we had four participants out of the 12. And of course, we're not expecting to have that many because the time commitment was larger, right? They had to participate for two hours. But from these findings, they showed that DEI can be a political stance in Latin America. And this is because not only there's a big diversity between cultural economics, education and so on and so forth, but also politics seem to bear an impact. So there is a need to build networks and foster collaboration to reduce barriers and the implications for Gojian are that there is a need to gain more visibility. They would like to have this more visibility once they belong to the network, they find that they have more visibility. They need more support and encouragement to publish in English and also leverage from Gojian Latin American champions and members. So moving on to the next. So here are the key recommendations from Central Latin American participants to increase collaboration with Latin American universities to enhance Gojian reach, build capacity for Gojian mentors and our supervisors. These would be local regional mentors and supervisors, establish a clear objective of communication identity for the Latin American community, develop conferences, workshop seminars to build capacity and open education, including translation of content, Spanish and Portuguese, which we are already doing, and to provide small research grants to disadvantaged students from the global south. So that basically leads us to the last point which shows what Gojian is already committed to. So it is committed to informing members that diversity equity inclusion guidelines are in operation. It's committed to creating an environment which individual unique experience and contributions are recognized and valued to creating open research community that is in respect for everyone. There is a lot of exchange within the network to make available open research capacity building and development opportunities to disadvantage from the global south. And finally to regularly review all Gojian open practices and procedures so that fairness, diversity, equity and inclusion appellate can be an appellable cost. So I think that the guidelines that we've got now from both of these phases will help build on to the diversity, equity and inclusion issue. So thank you very much. I guess we're now open to questions and here you'll find the links to where all of them, the blogs that have been published on the Gojian site are great. So I can't run through that but. That's fine. Thank you so much. So we've got one question in the comments there. I don't know Viviana or Karina if you'd like to take it. It's the last one I believe from Sarah Lambert. I can read it out if you'd like. Yeah, I'm not seeing the question. Okay, it's under the comments tab. So what Sarah's asked is do you think that Latin American open education practitioners need to develop policies and strategies for translating their OER to English to raise the profile of OEP in Latin America? You know, one of the suggestions, one of the findings that they would like help proofreading and eventually translating material. So we found out that there are journals here in Latin America that are already doing that. So a researcher hands in, a researcher in Spanish, Portuguese and the journal automatically already does the translation in English. Which is something worthwhile investigated and perhaps using. So I think yeah, that would be a good policy and I think we could help them out with that. And that would definitely afford the more visibility. I agree, I agree. And during the workshop, so I remember even some of the participants proposing collaboration with South American colleagues living in the Global North and having access to, you know, engaging with English and having more collaboration within the South American or Latin American community, but those who live in the Global North. So then we can actually help to boost that publication and dissemination of findings. Thanks. Sorry, I misattributed that question to you, Sarah. I just didn't have a name for AC Page or you. I'm really interested. What you made that recommendation that there is around, you know, more dissemination of work that you're doing in South American, particularly Latin America in the Global North. How would you see that panning out? And I suppose what can we do as people working in institutions in the Global North? I mean, I'm speaking for myself, not everybody here is from the Global North. But what can we do in order to kind of help that dissemination happen, is there anything we should be doing? What we are doing for the project, for example, is to because we do have and the translation until now, it's not too big. So Vivian and I wrote the version of the blog about the project in English, then Vivian translated and we asked for a colleague to translate it in Spanish. So, but again, it's just a blog. Once it turns into, you know, bigger documents like our final report and things like that, maybe having, if the project is linked to it, if it's interest to the Global South, maybe have a strategy or some funding in then to translate some of the resources. I'm not talking about everything, we are not talking about everything, but translate some of those resources so that they can have access to. And the same when resources are developed in the Global South, we could provide that facility and resource. What do you think, Viv? I think this came also from the data, didn't it? Yeah. And I think another thing that came from the data that was important is this idea of having managers and supervisors because there are people who participated and most people who we interviewed do speak English. There were few who don't. So they would act as, you know, like go-betweens and help, you know, early career researchers and open education and help get that material translated and bring them to the GoJN seminars, the OE Global. And we've had already experienced with that, this has happened with the person from Uruguay and so I think we have to think of ways to support them. So because once they become members of the GoJN, it really is, you know, it makes a big difference because it makes their work more visible. Chris is asking a question, what is the one little thing that can be easily done and would make a big difference? Well, Chris, I can respond to that. I think that the one little thing that can be done is that we're already doing is translating. And then the next little thing that can be done is having our mentors or supervisors disseminate the GoJN network in Latin America. We need champions. That's what the participants also said. We need champions in Latin America that is linked to GoJN, to not only boost GoJN participation, but also researching open education, which needs that boost as well in Latin America. Yeah, thanks for that question. Building relationships, yes, definitely. And I think that we also have to, because Latin America already has its own network of research of open educational research, so we have to bring them to the global north. Because right now, you know, they're operating within the region, so there's a lot of exchange going on. But I think that there is a lack of exchange of research experiences and so on and so forth between the global south and the global north. So I think that's what our biggest challenge is right now, is making that bridge. Yeah, I'm afraid we're going to have to wrap up because we're out of time, but I think there's lots of food for thought here, really interesting session. We're going to continue the conversation over on Discord and maybe build up some of those relationships because hopefully we can continue to do some, continue to support you in this great work. Great. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thanks everyone. Nice to see all familiar names here. Yes. Thank you. Nice seeing everybody. Om nom nom.