Open Conference on Open Education



A group of staff at La Trobe University came together to organise a 1 day open conference about open education on 12 March 2013 - in line with Open Education Week (11-15 March 2013). Below are the notes, recordings and findings from each session. We're working on making recommendations La Trobe University administration, based on the findings from this event.

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Proceedings

 * /Planning/ - In the lead up to the conference, the organising committee met regularly, to plan and prepare the conference. The minutes of their meetings are recorded on the discussion page of this wikiversity page. We have summarised the key outcomes and discussion points of these planning meetings here.
 * /Introductions and agenda/ - We met in the new LIMS building, on the second floor, room 205. There was tea and coffee, and time to mingle and settle in. Ruth Jelley began the day with some background on how this all came about, supported by John Hannon who explained how things would pan out for the day. Both Ruth and John situated where we thought La Trobe University was in relation to open education resources and practices.
 * /Who's doing what/ - We began the business of formally getting to know each other's work. This session was a more fast paced series of short presentations from the people in and outside La Trobe who are working in the open education space. We heard from the University of the Third Age, Wikiproject Medicine, the Marco Polo Project and a range of staff at La Trobe University already working in the open education space to different degrees.
 * /Critical ideas/ - This session attempted to raise hard and prickly questions about the open education concept. Questions such as what is "open", what's the history? What's the new history? What might some unintended consequences be?
 * /Lunch and open networking/ - We had an hour to eat and discuss what's been looked at so far. Please use this page on the wiki to add any note you wish subsequent to the conference.
 * /Examples of assessment in open education/ - This was a scheduled event with the Scholarship of Learning and Teaching (SoLT) network at La Trobe University. Leigh Blackall gave a presentation followed by an open discussion in the room.
 * /Producing OERs/ - This was a round table discussion mostly between people who are producing Open Educational Resources. We talked about the La Trobe Uni iTunesU channel, as well as the work of those in Wikiversity. We discussed issues of copyright, format and platforms, and the sorts of policies and procedures that help and hinder this work.
 * /Practical steps, getting started/ - Moving straight out from the round table discussion on Open Educational Resources, this session was meant to be an opportunity for people to get hands on. It resulted in more continued discussion however, with some practical questions and answers.
 * /Recommendations/ - This session is ongoing. We're attempting to distill the findings of this conference and use them to make recommendations to La Trobe University executive. We hope to find ways to dissolve the boundaries between what La Trobe people do, and what our guests are doing. We hope to offer alerts to possible issues and risks. We hope to suggest solutions to those issues and risks.