 Here we go. Hello everyone. How are you all? Good afternoon wherever you may be. My name is Regina Gong and I am greeting you here from Michigan. I am the Open Educational Resources and Student Success Librarian here at Michigan State University and I am also a member of the steering committee for the Open Ed. This is our first time this year to do a community meeting so we are really so excited to welcome you and thank you for taking the time to attend this community meeting. Actually we started doing this I think in June of last year so that was like ages ago right so we started doing this community meeting and really just to build you know this community because we are starting over right and so it was really a good way for us to get to know each other and to really work towards reimagining what open education can be and so I hope you were there during the first ever Open Ed conference that we had last year and it was really historic right we had more than or probably close to 1500 attendees who who came and attended our first virtual conference so we have we have the chance again this year to make this year's Open Ed even better than than last year so so today we're just really kicking off you know the fun we just wanted to give you an updates on what we are doing members of the steering committee will talk about operations update we'll also talk about strategic planning updates that we have been engaging in or we are gonna start to to engage in and of course our call for volunteers but before that we'll have something something really really fun to kick this off Lee is going to do that the great debate so take it away Lee Thanks Regina so we're going to go ahead and do some mentee options here to kick everybody off just to introduce myself real quick Lee Miller and I'm the Director of Innovation and Compliance at Barton Community College and also a part of the steering committee for Open Ed so if you want to go ahead and scan this it is nice to be able to do it in a separate browser or a separate device it does make it a little bit easier and then you just type in that code or you'll click that scan and then there's also the option to do it directly in the chat so go ahead and do one of those and we will get you get you started give everybody a second to do that here and we'll go ahead and go to the next slide and we'll get everybody kicked off while they're doing that awesome so I noticed that some people were putting stuff in the chat already I saw one from Germany which is amazing thank you for being here so go ahead and put where you're from you can put state area region country let's see where everybody it's nice to see that we have a big group here today lots of people from Maryland Germany see you Colorado California Canada icon nice couple people to need have British Columbia taxes a couple different places for taxes all right looks like it stopped there so we'll go ahead and go to the next question which is the great cheeto debate that was started off last year so if you attended Open Ed 20 you will recognize what this is this was a big thing so by all means chime in and and we can have a definitive answer among these 47 people on what the great cheeto debate is crunchy is leading the way if you are not a gasp all cheetos are coming close none of the cheetos if you're not none of the we do have a couple people there he is leading quite largely sorry sorry Tiffany we couldn't find the right Jeff for that and it looks like we do have a current winner this obviously may change with the demographic but it is well a good solid win by crunchy cheetos so good warm up we'll have some more mentee stuff so we'll make sure to drop that chat just in case other people have chimed in here later but there will be other mentee questions here in the next little bit of this meeting and I'll turn it back over to Nicole awesome well thanks very much and Spencer wrote in the chat it's funny what sticks from conferences and it's so true and I should inform everybody that Chester Cheeto has declined our invitation to keynote the next conference but we will see what we can do about adding cheetos to the swag store without violating their trademark all right so to kick things off for the year we just want to give a little bit of an operations update I have a couple things that I'm going to cover and hand it over to my colleagues so next slide so for just a little bit of background on the conference I'm I guess I'm Nicole Allen director of open education for spark and wanted to just take a quick step back so the open education conference has actually been happening for 17 and now 18 years but the current incarnation of the conference is actually just entering its second year so at the end of 2019 a group of four organizations stepped up to support the conference for a two-year period while it goes through a transition to becoming a truly owned community owned and operated event those four organizations were my organization spark open stacks the University of system of Maryland's Kerwin Center in the Colorado Department of Higher Education OER Council so we are here today representing those organizations along with the wonderful steering committee and many volunteers who were involved in shaping and supporting last year's conference and many who will be involved again this year so as we enter our sort of second year of that two-year commitment we will once again be supporting organizing the 2021 conference as we did in 2020 but at the same time we'll be working to support a strategic planning process that will sort of decide the future governance of the conference and we'll talk about that a little bit more in a second but just sort of letting everybody know what the operating structure looks like it's going to be you know the the steering committee the four organizations and a community driven process that we'll talk a little bit more about in a minute too but first I want to turn it over to Daniel to tell us a little bit about what to expect for this year all right well thanks so much I'm Daniel Williamson I'm the managing director for open stacks and open stacks is asked acting as the fiscal and legal lead for the conference so basically we signed the checks and signed the contracts so this year I'm excited that we will remain virtual everybody loved the virtual conference last year the team did a fantastic job really turning this into probably the best virtual conference I have ever attended and said we thought why why mess that up so save the date we will be having the conference October 18th through 22nd of this year it will be virtual the proposal call for proposals will be out by the end of April and then registration should be open by June so everybody put your calendars save the date get your favorite bag of cheeto put it aside maybe eat it because that seems like a while but I'm sure they're indestructible and we will see you between now and then but also we'll see you October 18th through 22nd and now I will turn it over to MJ who is our quote local host for this year hi everybody I'm MJ Bishop I direct the Kerwin Center for Academic Innovation out of the university system in Maryland and I was going to change my clothes before this call but then decided why would I do that this is the perfect outfit for for welcoming you virtually at least to the state of Maryland for the open ed conference this fall October 18th through 22nd I think you're right Daniel it's been great to have this virtual done virtually and man what an amazing event last year that was hosted by Colorado but you are going to miss the crab cakes so I you know I do think there's a bit of a downside on this a little bit but we're thrilled to to be able to provide some additional logistical support and to have been able to help create this bridge for the conference and for this community over the last couple of years so thanks also to the great job Colorado did last year big shoes for us to fill but we're looking forward to participating and also a huge thanks to Spark and particularly also OpenStacks for making it possible for all of us to do this and and for the risk to some degree that OpenStacks takes on and in being the fiscal sponsor here for the last couple years so thanks thanks to my colleagues as well yes absolutely and I guess I'm turning it over to Spencer thanks MJ yeah super excited for for the conference this year Maryland themed I think you had put in the chat there perhaps some old bay Cheetos I'm thinking we need to work on that sounds like something we should work on certainly so just a little bit more information on the strategic planning process that's that's really happened with the community focus this is a group of community members and stakeholders began as the future planning group and they're now working to establish strategic planning and governance model for this conference and this is really driving the vision for sustainability for this community and for this event in particular so it's super exciting for open education the conference but also for the field of open education as you all know it so I'm super excited about that work and as you know sustainability and vision executing visions and plans really important to maintaining the momentum and the the progress and the growth in this field so this process as I mentioned is running March through September and has and has been brewing for some time now and Haley has more information to share on kind of the commitment and some of the partnerships so Haley kicking over to you great thanks Spencer so I'm Haley Bab I'm one of the project managers at Spark so I've been helping to support our strategic planning committee to I guess kick off this process of figuring out you know what is the future of the open education conference past this year so I'm very excited to share that we have partnered with Franklin Street Studio who is a consultancy based out of Denver Colorado and I'll just link a quick sort of announcement that we've put out about that we haven't shared it too widely yet but we will be so we're thrilled about this partnership we're really really excited for what they're going to bring to the table to be able to sort of help us go through the process of envisioning you know like a mission vision goals for the organization a strategic plan going forward it's going to be an incredibly collaborative process so keep an eye out for you know invitations to participate on our email list or via social media or wherever you can find us we are still very early days of the partnership so we're still actually looking to plan our first kickoff meeting with the strategic planning committee so more information and more opportunities to submit your feedback on the future will be coming soon so do keep an eye out for that and I think that's all yeah um winning so uh we have launched our call for participation we have a call for committee members and just general volunteers for the conference the interest form is already out on our website as well as being linked into the chat the deadline for committee roles so that's the committee positions that will be playing an active part in uh in you know behind the scenes of the conference is due on march 19 so that's in seven days and april 30th will be the deadline for proposal reviewers so those will be the individuals who will review the call for proposals that we received this year and help determine what the program will look like for 2021 so that will be on april 30th so you can check out the link in the chat and i'll go ahead and pass it along to amy hi everyone i'm amy tan and i'm at houston community college where i'm the dean for english and communication and we just want to um take a moment to get some feedback from the community and and to think about the future of the conference um as well as um what you hope the conference this year will look like so we have a few questions if you want to go to the next slide we're thinking about so for so what what do you want to get out of open ed 21 and we are also thinking about you know moving as we move forward and the hope that we will be able to gather together um you know maybe by the end of this year um so what does that look like you know how do you see that how do you envision that um but also you know what what do you want to get out of a virtual conference this fall um so we we are looking for some some ideas from the community and i see cheetos is at the top of the list i'm just waiting for wine to show up next models for sustainability that is huge that's huge long lasting friendships yes the intersection of oer and dei social more social events i really think that social events and the networking helped to create that feeling that we were together um even though we couldn't be in person um best practice for the future of education relationship building networking opportunity state of the field of oe um and maybe also thinking about you know our relationship to the regional at oer um you know how how can we um support that how can we bring it in you know how can we work together network let's see um i saw something or gary does yes i am i'm on board for that discord bring discord back that was really an amazing find really truly created um that that social platform for interactions i think the people who participated there really got a lot out of it um i certainly learned a lot about discord how to and practical information sorry sounds like my dog wants to um have some feedback for you um understanding how to incorporate oe into my life once i graduate fantastic third party resources how this is great these are so so wonderful so keep them coming as we go on to the next question continuation of social justice the so what opportunities do you see for open education to have an impact i know i'm gonna see like this is where we really can make an impact on equity social justice i think for many of us that's the driving reason you know why we come to open ed is to is to have that impact on social justice and equity representation and research and course content yes decolonizing the curriculum um slow and resist the privatization of public education finding gaps in the open textbook market for sure yes we we we talk about that a lot how there's spaces where it's much easier to develop the oe r and and how can we support our colleagues who um who are looking for oe r but but don't know where to start don't really have any have any um thing to build on expanding public education as a public good updated and relevant resources with student contributions open pedagode oe r can connect human definitely expanding to k-12 we really want to bring our partners in k-12 we want this we want we want we want to have everyone at the table we want everyone part of this conversation academic freedom education as a social good a practical session on grant writing i think that's a possibility open ed as a tool to dismantle the harmful legacies of higher education uplifting underrepresented people in pse increasing students present these are fantastic more international connections i missed it it moved just as i started reading it lower barriers of entry for new members of the community absolutely these are all all wonderful comments and we're going to be sure to review them as we do our strategic planning and as we look to start creating the program okay and i think we have two more questions so we really want to hear from you what do you think the theme of open ed 21 should be last year it was reimagining what would you like to talk about this year what would you like to create as our overall theme okay come on somebody didn't put cheetos okay i'm sorry i'll be serious there it is thank you um equity for sure connection it's all connected that might be our tagline the landscape of open ed with an s reemerging the public good open ed e for everyone it is okay just to be open ed i think a theme helps center us helps focus us but we for sure um want to make sure that there's space for for all the the perspectives and all the tracks and all the conversations to happen progression perseverance flipping the thinking of the academy access and affordability a second for it's all connected open in action open for everyone wonderful okay so we're going to keep these in mind as we as we're talking about the program and our strategic planning so our final question what else would you like to say what would you like to share with us what do you want us to know nicole i saw you unmute did you want to say something or just prepping oh no i i didn't mean to yeah yeah but i think for this um you know for this question we just want to leave space for anything um uh anybody here would would like to to say this is a open space pets of open ed round two yes yes you must start your cat conference sweater collection absolutely we're absolutely involving students in the planning presenting process announcements on that forthcoming i think everyone here um thank you for taking this on i think everyone here would tell you that this is um one of their favorite themes right for me it's uh i i'm actually looking forward to to when i can step away and i can be part of this group so um thank you for being here and for for contributing to the process because it can't happen without the community i still love the decentering from open ed stars with keynotes etc as we discussed last year focus on closing the digital divide please okay i saw something about keeping the program better curated okay not overly stuffed can this group help normalize open ed again definitely looking to include more k through 12 voices excitement yes the best virtual conference ever the sequel coming to you pets of education and more outreach to k12 more cheetos was that supposed to be m o e r yeah i think we're we definitely need to work on getting a um some relationship with cheetos going micro credentials okay long term sustainability of the conference what happens after this year definitely and and that's if you if you have time to check out the blog on strategic planning you can read more a little bit more about that but this year's focus is is on cleaning the conference but also on what is the future of the conference how should it be structured and who should be um responsible for what part and and so those are those are conversations that will happen this year so look for more information on that okay this is wonderful information and we really appreciate all of you coming to to share your voice and we take it seriously and i will pass it on to um i forgot i'm passing it on to winnie to wrap it up nicole and winnie well the next meeting the next community meeting we'll be gathering some more feedback from the community on the direction of open ed 21 will be on april 9th at 1 p.m edt and 1700 utc so we'll send out a reminder but this will be when the next meeting is and we also have all of our social media active at hey open ed and our official hashtag for open ed 21 will be hashtag open ed 21 so if you have thoughts from this meeting things you want to share with us they're starting what you want to start a conversation um use the hashtag open ed 21 and follow us on all of our social media platforms excellent and so i think that's a wrap on the sort of official programming of this meeting we are conscious that it is the friday before spring break for many people so we don't want to keep you longer than next necessary so um i'm going to pause the recording here