 My name is Glenda Cox. I'm from South Africa and I'm going to chair the session today. I think we're going to get started. I'm not sure if there was a delay after the plenary, but I think in the interests of time we should get going. And it's my pleasure to introduce a friend and colleague, fellow Goji Enno, Caroline Kuhn, to do the first presentation. The way it will work is after 15 minutes I'm going to indicate to the speaker five more minutes. We have four sessions. There is a little bit of time at the end, so if there isn't time for questions after the immediate session, we'll take some questions at the end. And I'm going to be very strict about time so we can get everything in, even though we've got a double show at the end though. Okay, okay. Over to you, Caroline. So thank you. I'm presenting with Michelle Harrison and Irwin, who is in the screen in Canada at two o'clock in the morning joining us with a blue sky. Yes. So yeah. Our presentation, we're really complementing each other very well, and I think it has been a wonderful alignment. So what we're presenting here is, as the title indicates, a cartography of an OER towards a more permeable and organic OER system. And what we're trying to do is how that system, how can we make that system organic? And what does that mean when we think about OERs? And this is us, and the presentation is in the slide, in the over connect side. So if you are interested, there it is. And if you're interested in the presentation, there is the short URL as well. And heading this slide over to my colleague Irwin. Well, hi everybody. And I'm glad I can be here. And I hope you're enjoying the weather there and having some some good times getting back together again. It's been far too long, we're even able to kind of do this kind of thing. So I wasn't able to come over, but hopefully soon I'll be able to join three dimensional human conferences again. So anyway, so if we look at this slide, here we see some depictions of the mythical ship of Theseus. And it was discussed in an old ancient Greek paradox by philosophers. And it's still used in philosophy classes and debates kind of as an interesting thought experiment. And the question is if over time the planks on the ship wrought away and you replace them one by one till at some point you've replaced the whole ship. Is it still the same ship? Is it still Theseus or is it something else? And there's many variations to this puzzle in different histories and different cultures as well too. So it's an easy problem to get tangled up in and I'm sure you can see how easy it is to get on a long tangent with philosophical debate about it. But we wonder can that metaphor help us with OER? And that's kind of what we're getting at here. Do we get trapped in thinking of an OER as a static object as something in a repository of some kind with its renewal of something outside of its original identity and meaning largely to be forgotten? Or do we want to think of it as inherently calling for its change over time? And if so, what are these processes who keeps them alive? What are their purpose? How can they be embedded most importantly in our actual teaching and learning practice? So we're investigating the idea that the meaning of an OER extends beyond its early existence as an object such as an open textbook or media piece and we want to embrace the processes of changes fundamental to the purpose and identity of OER. These are not new questions. I know they've been well debated in the literature and in communities over time, but our intention here is to explore and promote these changes in concrete ways and integrate them into examples of pedagogical activities within the setting of open educational practices. So as you can probably gather, we're kind of thinking beyond the five Rs of OER, the reuse, revise, remix, redistribute, retain cycle. And we're thinking about the ongoing process of regeneration, which is another R. And there are many Rs when you start digging into it, but that's another whole story. I'll stop here for now and hand this slide back. So yes, as Irwin said, we are really wondering, well, why are we here? And I think we're wondering really, how can we change or continue the evolution and the growth of theory and practices about OERs and about OEPs as well? So how do they integrate together and how can they be more fluid? And how can we contribute to change in our tools and practices within this open educational practices? And what does that mean? And how do the concept of sustainability and ecosystem, and I think those two things really are interesting? And how do they fit in our understanding? And avoiding this open determinism, which Sarah Lambert wrote a wonderful paper, which is linked in a resource list that we have linked in this presentation. And is this open by itself doesn't do anything? It really needs scaffolding. It needs being with those people who use the OER. How do you do it? Why do you do it? How do you change it? So it's really the scaffolding process that goes with it. And so what are we doing? So we are exploring really, how can we change? How can we make sustainable the life cycle of an OER? And what does that mean? And so it's about the regenerative process of it. More than just sustainability, what does regeneration mean? And how can we make that happen in the, you know, really in the, in real life, I would say. And with that, I give you. And we will be talking about two sort of examples. And we have this, this linkage between our two projects. We'll come back to that later. Okay, Erwin, we're back to you. Right. And so as we're leading up to or approaching OER, at least in part, is something that involves ongoing change over time. What are the systems around it? What's inherent to it? How do we look at OER in a way that change in its continuing evolution is part of what it's all about? And what it means is that rather than get too hot and bothered about the ship of Theseus paradox that we embrace it, we see that as part of the bigger picture in the story. And in the work that we've been doing, we're looking at OER in a way that iterates, that each one becomes an artifact in itself and in terms of iterations and can either feel new challenges or affirmations or they can stagnate and just reproduce old knowledge as well too. And so they need ongoing regeneration as a node in a larger learning matrix. We're not trying to solve a metaphysical problem. It's probably unsolvable unless somebody comes up with a really clever trick, but it's been there for over, you know, two millennia. So who knows. But getting to the meaning of OER as more of a process than a thing. And that's how, that's the frame that we use to approach the, some of the work that we've been involved in. And so their meaning becomes part of their use in teaching and learning. And that's the challenge that we've put in front of ourselves that we're trying to work with. Back to you. So earlier we talked a little bit about framing OER as part of in the terms of ecosystems and sustainability. And so generally from a biological perspective, we think of ecosystems as complex interactions between organisms and their environments. So if we think about the OER ecosystem, I think we're thinking at different scales. We're thinking about connections. We're thinking about networks. And so we're, you know, extending that metaphor to the terrarium. We're helping it will become sort of a self-sustaining environment for the most part. But there still has to be some, some inputs in that as well. So it's not just going to continually grow and regenerate without that. So from an ecosystem perspective, we're hoping to think about OERs from different scales, like global to local. And what that means from policies, institutions and technologies more at that large level to being able to think about the way that smaller communities can kind of take that OER on. We think a lot about sustainability and we've had lots of conversations over the last few days about what happens when your funding runs out, for example. How do you sustain that OER? And so if we think about, you know, a community sort of taking on and growing and changing and that as everyone said earlier, the artifact becomes something new. How can we introduce ideas? Not only of sustainability, but beyond that to regeneration. And so in our couple of projects, we've been talking about that quite a bit. Irwin, do you want to add anything? I think you've covered it. Okay. Okay. So here's the project that Irwin and I and Michael Pascabishis and Tannis Morgan have been working on for quite some time. And it sort of evolved out of this idea that we're well sort of focused on learning design and developing open educational practices and that we really need to sort of rethink learning design in that context. And so as we thought about right now, there's not a lot of literature or things that you might use with students that takes a critical approach to learning design. And a few resources have emerged really recently. But as we thought, well, we need this resource. It's like, well, we also want to model what opening up an OER could be. How do you actually build that in? So our project has two components and we've been thinking about the resource itself and how do you actually create a learning, a rethink learning design resource that invites more critical practice, including more student voice, marginalized voices in a meaningful way. So we've been talking about that quite a bit. And then to also, we want it to be iterative and responsive. So using a framework to reposition. So as we've developed the reader, we've actually developed a platform that we've been testing with students that embeds the student voices directly in to the resource itself. We were calling it an untext book. We sort of moved away from that. And so what we really want students to bring is to help build them new perspectives. And so when we did our call for proposals for contributions, we really framed it around using provocations as a jumping off point for whoever's going to be using the book to have students reframe, reposition and add their own voices to the resource. So Erwin will give you a couple of examples. Right. So basically the idea of it being an untext book is that it's built in WordPress and whatever it can be used in many different contexts with different types of content in it. Both Michelle and I have been field testing it in our courses. They're both graduate courses at Royal Rhodes University in teaching and learning with technology. And so and the idea is that we start off with initial provocations that can be blog posts, articles, scholarly publications, whatever we have. And then the students work with that and they we call it reflect, respond and reframe. So they write new chapters. They take it and they continue the work onwards and forwards. But they take specific perspectives that actually help enrich and improve that original document, if you can call it a document in new ways. And it also is open to different media rather than just print itself so they can do podcasts or videos or anything like that. And what you see here is an actual screenshot from the tool itself where after just behind the blog post in this particular case where the students read, they then create their own contribution by reframing that existing content from the context of various issues. You can see the list here. I can't read them all. Different role perspectives because those affect the way we review content, review it, different kinds of lenses as well and from different kinds of settings. And so they take one or more of those and they try to apply those with a sense of empathy and solidarity towards the issues and the lenses that they're writing for and the communities they're writing about and creating new content. And that falls back in to the text itself so the text keeps evolving and growing and regenerating in concert with the students. Applied to this project with a project that ended already almost a year ago and I presented in the online conference together with four researchers that we worked on this data praxis project. It's about fostering critical data literacy for educators and so the question is the resource is there which is so this is a screenshot of the site itself and if you jump so if you go to that link you will see that we have five modules we have some interactive tools for teachers to use. So this is an OER in itself with many super OERs in it. And so the question was well the project finished great we piloted it in Kenya in Taldasa University we piloted it in Spain in the Open University of Catalonia in Uruguay with Virginia Rodés in the nuclear rare and in the University of Surrey. And great it worked it was superb but what do we do now and what do I do with it and it's a pity to just leave it there to die. So what I within this project then I kind of thought well for example each of these modules have a glossary of terms. So it's the meaning for example of data agency the same thing in an indigenous community in New Zealand or in a rural community in Kenya or even in South Africa or in Amelia or in Colombia so what is the meaning of data agency for those communities can they write this resource which is again embedded in the bigger module in their own terms and what would be the learning that they get from it. Another thing we have is a podcast series so we interviewed experts in data and different aspects of open data but are those the experts that maybe are meaningful for again people in Kenya or people in yeah or people in Namibia or people in Colombia well not necessarily so they can take this idea of having a podcast series but interviewing the people that for them is meaningful and with the concepts that for them are meaningful to discuss instead of taking what is there which in a way is inert for them it's not meaningful so how can that be meaningful for them then we have activities and challenges but I guess that if we're analyzing a social reality and looking at the politics of data within that reality that reality looks different again if you look at from data feminism it's different if you look at from an ethnic minority it's different if you look at it from so many different lenses that were in the slide that we just showed before well then how those activities are framed and they will be different and I think and we were discussing this quite so the recommended reading list what's a reading list that is meaningful for situations that needs to be addressed in Venezuela New Zealand Australia within Australia again in your little localities and so what we were thinking here is that this resource which is a work press site that has then many different tools that you can use in your classroom it can be really regenerated and be recreated in a way that makes sense for those who use that resource and I think there are more things to say but although we have I think maybe four or three minutes I would love to leave the three minutes to see if someone has any input any idea any suggestion and I think with this if I'm not wrong yeah I'll finish so how how does that resonate with you and have you had any situation where you think oh I don't want this oh we are to die and I cannot keep it alive and thank you very much I think for the attention yeah if anything pops in your yes yeah how about combining your work press for material with a wiki like in the end to make a little difference possible for the audience yeah wiki is a brilliant tool so this is also a multi site so you can create multi each one can create a site for their own open educational resource which I think is quite handy because it gives you also this literacy can I create my own site but the wiki is more I would say more open yes and more the ethos is more open so yeah although wordpress is open so you know it's again open it's a good suggestion thank you so thank you I really loved your presentation and and sustainability is really close to my heart and there are all sorts of definitions now you're talking about keeping something really valuable alive and I love the the idea of building on that another aspect of that is if you want to make those connections of those other living objects and connect them and create a collection and curate that who is going to fund you or who is going to make sure that that system which you will grow and I really hope this grows right who's going to take the responsibility of that are you going to be there or is it somebody else and and how can we make all of what we are doing so if we build this kind of infrastructure or and these collections I think it's really important that we think about when we put seed funding into things and develop things how are we going to sustain how are we as a community going to help sustain financially also right so the work the systems because they need maintaining I'm not sure whether you've thought about that I know it's probably a way off from now but you know we talked about brilliant we did talk a bit about this so for one of the things we've been thinking about is so the platform itself will be shared in a it's called open etc and it's a community supported platform it's for specifically British Columbian British Columbia so it's there to support smaller institutions who may not have the kinds of supports so there are already some collectives started that can help support this work as we know it is our you know our salaries if we're lucky enough to have those positions are are funded and so I think it's part of as as you're teaching with the materials your you sort of take it on you and your students would help would be one way um and then we're hoping you know once you take that artifact as an instructor that you know you're helping to grow it with your own network so I still think it takes care and it takes time and it's not always going to be funded um Irwin do you want to add anything yeah just just to extend the idea of students to working on it too because as part of their work rather than you know the idea of non-disposable assignments we're not just throwing the work away but they're actually making contributions to this as part of their coursework and learning so I mean in both Michelle and my situation you know we have students actually writing and contributing to this and then it's up to the instructor as to how much you want to bring forward and the tool allows you to um select the pieces that you think might be helpful in the next time around in a different course and also because it's being hosted as Michelle said in a um in a province wide and it can be any kind of jurisdiction that we're talking about here where we're looking at cross institutional platform support rather than giving it all over to private industry um or institutions do this as a as a cooperative um then it's available freely it's open source tools people can continue to evolve it with the expertise that they have in tools such as wordpress but also um importantly it's not just about tools about practice and about the vision of what it's all about and I think that that comes through you know of teacher faculty learning and and development and growth in how to use open educational practices and tools so it's all part of the picture I'm afraid we have to end the session and I'm sorry I know you can't see you so I'm really sorry to have interrupted you okay we need to close and thank you for this and we will have maybe a little bit time at the end if you stick with us or you can go to sleep if that is what you'd rather do thank you