WikiAfrica Hour – De-colonising knowledge on Wikipedia
2025-02-26 16:00 - 17:00 UTC | Online from Multiple Locations
What do we mean by decolonising knowledge? Why is it essential to document this on Wikimedia projects? What established knowledge decolonisation initiatives are inside (and even outside) the Wikimedia movement that we should pay attention to? How can we improve existing initiatives and encourage others to do the same?
This month on Wiki Africa Hour, we’re doing a deep dive into decolonising knowledge with guest host Achal Prabhala, who will lead a panel experienced in disrupting the information landscape.
Guests include:

Iolanda Pensa: a wikipedian and researcher. She has been contributing to Wikipedia since 2006, she organized in 2016 “Wikimania Esino Lario”, she is chair of the Wikimania Steering Committee, former chair and now national coordinator for GLAMs of Wikimedia Italia, scientific director of WikiAfrica from 2007 until 2011 and co-founder of Wiki in Africa. co-founder of De-colonising knowledge on wikipedia in Switzerland.
Asuru Lutherking Petercan: a research assistant in architectural history and heritage preservation. Advocating for free knowledge in Nigeria, advocating for policy change and creating awareness in the built environment and beyond about heritage and historic architectural archives, contributing to open source platforms, training more professionals to contribute and also starting an architectural heritage community to join in the contribution of Heritage architecture and GLAM related knowledge in Nigeria.
Sandra Schmitt Soster: Sandra Soster is the GLAM and Culture Manager of Wiki Movimento Brasil since 2022. She holds a PhD degree of Architecture and Urbanism by University of São Paulo (USP).
Chantal Edie Ntube: an artist whose art representation extends beyond her visual practice as a photographer and writer. Chantal has a BSC in History, a Masters I in Political Sciences, and an HND in HSC from Reading in the UK.

WikiAfrica Hour:
Wiki In Africa’s WikiAfrica Hour is a monthly live discussion with open movement advocates from around the world. The conversations discuss the WikiAfrica movement’s and Wikimedia activities across Africa and shares insight for anyone (from Africa and beyond) into the global Wikimedia movement.

Announcement of Creative Commons Open Education Platform Activity Winners!
2025-03-03 09:30 - 2025-03-07 17:00 (America/New_York) | Online from Multiple Locations
Between March 3 and 7, in honor of Open Education Week, Creative Commons will announce the winners of a community-run competition for open education activities. Run through the Creative Commons Open Education Platform, a global community group of approximately 1000 members, the competition invited community members to propose open education projects, eligible for up to US$ 5K in funding. The community then reviewed proposals and voted on their top choices.
Creative Commons will grant the community winners funding for their work in 2025, announcing the winners during Open Education Week on Medium.
See Creative Commons: We Like to Share for updates, and please join us in congratulating the winners!

Retrospective on Open Access Publishing
2025-03-03 11:00 - 12:00 (America/Edmonton) | Athabasca University, 1 University Dr, Athabasca, AB T9S 3A3, Athabasca, Alberta, Canada
“Open access (OA) ensures that scholarly research is freely accessible to all, breaking down barriers to information due to subscription costs or institutional access limitations. This democratization of knowledge fosters equity, enabling researchers, educators, policymakers, and the public worldwide to engage with research findings without financial hindrance. Open access distribution facilitates collaboration, innovation, and the adaptation of research for and from diverse contexts—empowering institutions and individuals to improve practices and outcomes. By removing paywalls, OA promotes transparency and accelerates the global exchange of ideas, vital for addressing challenges including sustainability, health crises, and education and research disparities.” (Anderson et al., 2025)
In this session, Professor Rory McGreal will provide a retrospective on OA publishing and the experience of IRRODL over the past twenty-five years as a Diamond open access journal.
Retrospective on Open Access Publishing
Dr. Rory McGreal
March 3, 2025, 11am MT
http://www.cideresearch.ca/session/mcgreal-2025
This is the first of three CIDER sessions celebrating Open Education Week 2025 and the 25th anniversary of the open access journal, The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning. These three free, online sessions exploring the critical role of openness in education will be held on Monday, March 3, Wednesday, March 5, and Friday, March 7, 2025.

Distributing open education to reduce inequity and transform higher education
2025-03-04 07:00 - 08:00 (Australia/Sydney) | Online from Multiple Locations
This online session puts open education and open publishing in the broader context of knowledge equity and transformation of higher education. It will feature discussion of a new open online course Distributing education and knowledge creation designed to help build capacity for distributing knowledge to reduce inequity. During the session we will hope to identify a cohort of interested people to enrol in the course afterwards to work through it together to improve and adapt it to use in their setting and to advocate for university reform.
The session will be led by E/Professor Dick Heller, Australia and A/Professor Upasana Gitanjali Singh, South Africa and will start with a short presentation followed by an open discussion.
Timing is planned to take place directly after the presentation by Cable Green https://oeweek.oeglobal.org/activity/shifting-to-community-owned-and-operated-open-knowledge/ which also identifies a broad societal context for open knowledge.

Interview: OER and Social Justice – Glenda Cox
2025-03-03 12:00 - 12:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | Vancouver, Vancouver, BC, Canada
The interview highlights the intersections of open education and social justice, emphasising the potential and challenges posed by generative AI. While AI can exacerbate the digital divide by benefiting higher-income countries with better infrastructure, open education remains a critical tool for ensuring equitable access to learning materials through OER. Additionally, the interview emphasises the importance of student co-creation in knowledge production while noting the need for government policies that promote transformational justice by integrating open education into national frameworks.

Getting Started with Open Pedagogy
2025-03-04 11:00 - 12:00 (America/Toronto) | Brock University, 1812 Sir Issac Brock Way, St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada
This resource-rich virtual workshop will introduce Open Pedagogy, a student-centered and collaborative approach to teaching and learning that foregrounds access, justice, and learner agency. Drawing on inspiring examples from a wide variety of disciplines, participants will learn how to infuse principles of open pedagogy into their learning activities, policies, and assessments.
This OEweek workshop is suited for educators who are new to open educational practices as well as more experienced open pedagogues.

Open for Antiracism: Leveraging Open Education to Support Antiracism in the Classroom, 4 years in review
2025-03-04 09:00 - 09:45 (America/Los_Angeles) | College of the Canyons, Santa Clarita, CA, United States
In this 45-minute panel discussion, we address the question: “How can the open education field engage effectively with antiracist pedagogy?” The Open for Antiracism Program (OFAR) provides an example from its four years of programming that supports. California community college faculty to transform their classrooms to be antiracist through the affordances of OER and open pedagogy. Now in its fifth year, OFAR has supported almost 200 instructors from over 40 institutions to learn to adapt and author OER, integrating antiracist activities and perspectives and co-creating materials with their students.
Two propositions inform the design of OFAR:

Academics wish to change their classroom practices to be antiracist and need guidance on promising practices and a safe place to explore with peers;
OER and open pedagogy can be effective tools to transform classrooms to be antiracist.

Program participants learn about antiracist pedagogy, OER, and open pedagogy. Participants then implement a change to their teaching by integrating OER or open pedagogy to make their class antiracist. Participants receive ongoing support through webinars, coaching, and OER support.
In this session, attendees will learn about program design and research on faculty perceptions and student outcomes. In addition, attendees will hear from one of the program’s course facilitators about the successes and challenges of leading faculty in a discovery of the intersections between open education and antiracist pedagogy.The audience will be invited to share how they can apply this work in their own context to improve student success for marginalized and underserved students.
Panelists:

Laura Dunn, Program Director, Open for Antiracism, Director of Teaching, Learning, and Assessment, Santa Clara University
James Glapa-Grossklag, Co-Director, Open for Antiracism, Dean, Educational Technology, Learning Resources and Distance Learning, College of the Canyons
Joy Shoemate, Course Developer and Facilitator, Open for Antiracism, Director of Online Education, College of the Canyons

Registration is required

The Evolution of Open and Distributed Learning
2025-03-05 11:00 - 12:00 (America/Edmonton) | Athabasca University, 1 University Dr, Athabasca, AB T9S 3A3, Athabasca, Alberta, Canada
“The rise of online education has transformed teaching and learning paradigms. These changes are fueled by advancements in technology and the demand for flexible, inclusive access to education—even in times of war and epidemic. Online educational practices emphasize interactivity, learner autonomy and self-direction, and accessibility, while theoretical frameworks have expanded to address issues such as openness, digital equity, attrition, engagement in virtual environments, and the design of learning-centered curricula. This evolution has created opportunities and challenges as researchers explore digital tools and platforms to measure if they enhance learning effectiveness and address diverse learning needs.” (Anderson et al., 2025)
In this session, Dr. Connie Anderson and Professor Emeritus Terry Anderson will review the role and impact of open and distributed learning over the last twenty-five years and explore how it may continue to evolve into the future.
The Evolution of Open and Distributed Learning
Dr. Connie Blomgren and Professor Emeritus Terry Anderson
March 5, 2025, 11am MT
http://www.cideresearch.ca/session/blomgren-anderson-2025
This is the second session in the CIDER series celebrating Open Education Week 2025 and the 25th anniversary of the open access journal, The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning. These three free, online sessions exploring the critical role of openness in education will be held on Monday, March 3, Wednesday, March 5, and Friday, March 7, 2025.

OEWeek Live! Socially Just Distributed Care in the Open with Equity Unbound
2025-03-05 14:00 - 15:00 (America/Regina) | Online from Multiple Locations
How MYFest and Intentionally Equitable Hospitality manifest to promote socially just care in the open
We are delighted to offer this open conversation with a fantastic team of representatives from Equity Unbound– the movement started in 2018 focused then on “equity-focused, open, connected, intercultural learning curriculum for teaching digital literacies to educators and co-learners in diverse educational contexts.”
We will learn how this has evolved and grown to now in 2025 for an open discussion on the How Mid-Year Festival (MYFest) and Intentionally Equitable Hospitality (IEH) manifest to promote socially just care in the open. As we are all witnessing, this current time is a call for much more acts of care.
How can you be part of Equity Unbound and their mission “Making Borders Meaningless”? Learn more about IEH and as well what is in store for the next round of MYFest starting in June 2025.
Joining in the conversation are:

Maha Bali (American University in Cairo, Equity Unbound Co-Founder)
Mia Zamora (Kean University, Equity Unbound Co-Founder)
Yasmine Abulfadl (American University in Cairo, Equity Unbound)
Nadine Aboulmagd (American University in Cairo, Program Manager Equity Unbound)

Watch live in YouTube and be part of the conversations are see it later:

Note the format of our OEWeek Live conversations are strongly inspired by the early efforts many here were involved with via Virtually Connecting – its spirit lives on here.
More information

Equity Unbound https://equityunbound.org/

Equity Unbound ONEHE Community Building Activities https://onehe.org/equity-unbound/

MYFest (Mid Year Festival) 2025 https://myfest.equityunbound.org/

Express Interest in MYFest25 https://forms.gle/CtXFsvSAGC5WwCXY6

Intentionally Equitable Hospitality (IEH) https://equityunbound.org/events/intentionally-equitable-hospitality-ieh/

Bali, M., & Zamora, M. (2023). Designing and Adapting for Community with Intentionally Equitable Hospitality. Learning Design Voices. University of Cape Town.
Bali, M., Station, G., Zamora, M. (2022, August 24). Online Does Not Mean Isolated. Inside Higher Ed. https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2022/08/24/building-community-online-conferences-events-opinion
Bali, M., & Zamora, M. (2022). The Equity-Care Matrix: Theory and practice. Italian Journal of Educational Technology. doi: 10.17471/2499-4324/1241
Bali, M., Caines, A., Hogue, R. J., DeWaard, H. J., & Friedrich, C. (2019). Intentionally equitable hospitality in hybrid video dialogue: The context of virtually connecting. eLearning Mag. Retrieved from https://elearnmag.acm.org/archive.cfm?aid=3331173

Emerging Technologies in International Education
2025-03-07 11:00 - 12:00 (America/Edmonton) | Athabasca University, 1 University Dr, Athabasca, AB T9S 3A3, Athabasca, Alberta, Canada
“Bridging the gap between theory and practice is essential for advancing education. While theoretical frameworks provide foundational understanding, their real-world application ensures relevance and impact. Educators and institutions are challenged to translate scholarly insights into actionable strategies that address challenges in open and distributed education. This dynamic exchange between research and practice fosters innovation, improves teaching effectiveness, and enhances learning outcomes. Extending scholarship to practice also enriches research, as practical applications often reveal new areas of inquiry, leading to a continuous cycle of knowledge generation and refinement.” (Anderson et al., 2025)
In this session, Drs. Adnan Qayyum and Levina Yuen will outline key emerging online technologies and their potential to enable and transform education on a global scale.
Emerging Technologies in International Education
Dr. Adnan Qayyum and Dr. Levina Yuen
March 7, 2025, 11am MT
http://www.cideresearch.ca/session/qayyum-yuen-2025
This is the third and final session in the CIDER series celebrating Open Education Week 2025 and the 25th anniversary of The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning.

Persistence & Progress: Confronting Wikipedia’s gender imbalance (Wiki Education)
2025-03-13 10:00 - 11:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Online from Multiple Locations
As the world’s go-to encyclopedia, Wikipedia’s content should reflect the diversity of the real world, but in areas like gender representation, it can still fall short. The persisting gender gap on Wikipedia extends from its content across subjects and biographies to its content contributors themselves – a gap that individual editors, organized groups of contributors, and Wikimedia organizations like Wiki Education are tackling head on.
In celebration of Women’s History Month, join us on Thursday, March 13 on Zoom to explore the ongoing efforts to improve gender representation on Wikipedia!

Persistence & Progress: Confronting Wikipedia’s gender imbalance
Thursday, March 13 (10 am PST / 1 pm EST)
Register now

Panelists:

Caroline Smith, professor, The George Washington University
Kira Wisniewski, Executive Director, Art + Feminism
Siobahn Day Grady, professor, North Carolina Central University
Whitney James, professor, University of Notre Dame

This edition of the Wiki Education Speaker Series will be moderated by Colleen McCoy, Communications and Outreach Coordinator. The event will include a public Q&A – please feel free to bring questions for our panelists!

OE Week Reflection with Alan Levine & Equity Unbound Community
2025-03-17 21:00 - 22:00 (Africa/Cairo) | Online from Multiple Locations
We will host a post-OE Week reflection session, with Alan Levine. This will be an open conversation and reflection using the posts from the Padlet we will be collecting and curating reflections, thoughts, ideas throughout OE Week.
This session will take place on Monday 17 March at 9 pm Cairo | 7 pm UTC | 3 pm EDT. If you’d like to join us for that, please register using the registration link below.

Viquipèdia:Viquimarató Dones i Salut (Wikipedia : Women and Health Wikimarathon)
2025-03-24 08:00 - 17:00 (Europe/Madrid) | Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
Aquesta viquimarató forma part de les activitats del Projecte Dones i Salut a la Viquipèdia i els seus objectius principals són analitzar el contingut actual relacionat amb la salut de les dones a la Viquipèdia, millorar els articles existents i crear-ne de nous per cobrir les llacunes identificades. L’equip de treball d’aquest projecte està coordinat per RedCAPS encarregat de revisar i aportar informació rellevant per validar el contingut de cadascuna de les entrades en què treballarem.

Objectius

Millorar la qualitat del contingut i les referències dels articles a la Viquipèdia.
Traduir entrades ja existents en altres llengües.
Incorporar la perspectiva de gènere en els articles
Aportar imatges a Wikimedia Commons.
Completar les entrades de Wikidata corresponent

Women Visibility: How the Wikimedia Movement sheds light on women
2025-03-26 16:00 - 17:00 UTC | Online from Multiple Locations
The Wiki in Africa team is excited to invite you to the next episode of Wiki Africa Hour: Women’s Visibility – How the Wikimedia Movement Sheds Light on Women, on Wednesday, 26th March 2025, at 4 PM UTC.
March marks International Women’s History Month, and we’ll be bringing together inspiring women from across the Wikimedia Movement to explore how our communities support women—and where we can do more. In Episode 44, we’ll be discussing:

How does Wikimedia’s 2030 strategy support women?
What role do community initiatives play in empowering women?
What would 50/50 representation in all settings look like? Are there challenges to achieving it?
How do recent global policy shifts targeting DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) impact the Open Movement and Wikimedia?

Join us live on youtube or register via the events tool for an engaging discussion—and bring your own questions to the table!

Liberating Curricula: Open Education for Decolonised and Internationalised Learning
2025-04-07 11:00 - 12:00 (Australia/Sydney) | University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, Australia
In an increasingly interconnected world educational practices and materials should evolve to be more inclusive and representative of diverse voices, perspectives, narratives and epistemologies. Through leveraging open educational resources, open pedagogy, and collaborative approaches to knowledge co-construction we can challenge hegemonic narratives and biases, and create a more socially just and inclusive curriculum. This talk explores open educational practices as a transformative approach for curriculum internationalisation and decolonisation.
Register via Humantix
Presenter: Dr Surita Jhangiani, University of British Columbia

As Interim Associate Dean, Equity, Dr. Surita Jhangiani provides strategic leadership to advance the Faculty’s equity priorities, fostering transformative teaching, innovative learning and leading-edge research guided by the highest scholarship, collaboration, equity and inclusion standards.
Dr. Jhangiani is the David Lam Chair in Multicultural Education, providing support to increase interest, programming and engagement in multicultural and anti-racist education, and to assist schools to foster critical multiculturalism. She has received two Open Educational Resource Champion awards from the University of British Columbia and was recognized as the Faculty of Education’s 2023 Universal Design for Learning Fellow. She is currently involved in projects related to open pedagogy, alternative grading, and belonging in learning and teaching.

Image attribution
Banner: Zoom background 2 by OEGlobal is licensed under CC BY 4.0. The image has been cropped from original.
Presenter image used with permission.

Open Textbooks Show and Tell
2025-04-09 14:00 - 15:30 (Australia/Sydney) | University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, Australia
Join us for an engaging session during UTS Open Education Week, where we showcase innovative open textbooks created by Australian academics and professionals. This event will feature presentations from authors who will share their experiences and insights on developing and using open educational resources. Attendees will have the opportunity to explore a variety of open textbooks, ask questions, and discuss the benefits and challenges of adopting open educational practices.
There are also a couple of opportunities about open textbooks for those interested:

Grants – Open Educational Resources Collective
Opportunity to play with a Pressbooks sandpit

Keynote: Open and the Oligarchs: Planting Seeds in a World on Fire (Dr. Robin DeRosa)
2025-05-13 11:00 - 12:00 (America/Regina) | Regina, Canada, Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada
Dr. Robin DeRosa has been working on open initiatives, including projects around OER, open pedagogy, and open access to research, for more than a decade. She has been interested not only in the practices that animate open, but also in the values that power an open vision for the future of education and knowledge-sharing. But recently, Robin has come to question the efficacy of the work in which she has been engaged. How can such well-conceived, thoughtful praxis around “open” be gathering steam at the same time as our public educational institutions, our libraries, and our publishing models creep closer toward privatization or economic ruin? How can our community’s investments in equity and access be thriving even as global political contexts bend toward neoliberalism, plutocracy, and fascism? This presentation will reimagine the “tragedy of the commons,” not as Garrett Hardin (mis)understood it in his seminal 1968 essay of that name, but in its current state. As LA burns and Trump ascends, we will pause and ask tough questions about where open education has gotten us.
Speaker bio: Dr. Robin DeRosa is the Director of Learning & Libraries at Plymouth State University in New Hampshire (USA). She has previously been an English professor, the chair of a customized major program for undergraduates, and the director of a faculty development center. Robin is an advocate for public higher education and has been working on OER and open pedagogy initiatives at institutions around the world for more than a decade. You can read more about Robin at her website, robinderosa.net
Date: Tuesday, May 13, 2025
Time:11:00am – 12:00pm
Time Zone:Saskatchewan Time

Keynote: Then. Now. The Future: Directions for Open Education in the Changing World of Higher Education (Dr. Glenda Cox)
2025-05-15 11:00 - 12:00 (America/Regina) | University of Regina, Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada
In this presentation, Dr. Glenda Cox will be looking back at the Cape Town open education declaration (2007) and the 10 directions suggested at the 10 year anniversary in 2017. Dr. Cox will include discussions of student protests calling for the decolonisation of the curriculum, first held in 2015 and now 10 years later where are we in higher education (HE) in South Africa. 2027 will be another 10 years – a 20 year anniversary – what have we achieved and what needs to be added? What will HE look like to 2035? Many of us will be happily retired but the students in the room will the academics of the future. How do we take steps towards the transformation of our current neoliberal, competitive HE? What steps do we take to include students in decolonising our curricula and where does Open fit in?

Speaker bio: Associate Professor Dr. Glenda Cox works in the Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching (CILT: http://www.cilt.uct.ac.za/) at the University of Cape Town. She holds the UNESCO chair in Open Education and Social Justice and is a member of the UNITWIN network on Open Education. She is a Board member of the Open Education Global organization. She is on the editorial board of the International Journal of Students as Partners and she currently leads the Digital Open Textbooks for Development (DOT4D) initiative.

Date: Thursday, May 15, 2025
Time: 11:00am – 12:00pm
Time Zone: Saskatchewan Time (CST)
via Zoom

Keynote: Designing for Justice with Open Educational Practices
2025-05-16 11:00 - 12:00 (America/Regina) | University of Regina, Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada
Whereas the adoption of open educational resources can widen equitable access by helping alleviate the financial burden experienced by students, the embrace of broader open educational practices carries the potential to advance additional dimensions of social and epistemic justice. This presentation will focus on practical ways in which educators may approach learning resources, activities, assessments, and policies in service of more inclusive, supportive, and just learning environments.

Speaker bio: Dr. Rajiv Jhangiani is the Vice Provost, Teaching and Learning at Brock University, where he holds faculty appointments in the Departments of Educational Studies and Psychology, directs the Inclusive Education Research Lab, and is affiliated with the Social Justice Research Institute. The architect of Canada’s first zero textbook cost degree programs and a global leader in open education, his scholarship is supported by the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada and focuses on open educational practices, student-centered pedagogies, and ethical approaches to educational technology.

Date: Friday, May 16, 2025
Time: 11:00am – 12:00pm
Time Zone: Saskatchewan Time (CST)
via Zoom

Open to All: Accessibility in the LibreVerse
2026-03-03 10:30 - 11:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | Davis, United States, Davis, CA, United States
Open education only works if everyone can access it. That’s why LibreTexts is currently conducting a comprehensive accessibility audit of our platform and features, with the results shaping both our updated conformance documentation and a clear roadmap to remove barriers for students and content authors alike.
Our goal is to meet or exceed the Revised 508 Standards and WCAG 2.1 AA because accessibility isn’t a checkbox, it’s a core part of what it means to build education that truly belongs to everyone. Accessibility conformance documentation is already available, and we encourage anyone who encounters an accessibility concern to report it directly to us. We also provide a full suite of authoring tools to help content creators build with accessibility in mind from the start.

Open Education Book Fair
2026-03-03 11:30 - 13:30 (America/Vancouver) | Nanaimo, Canada, Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada
Think Scholastic Book Fair vibes — but everything is free.
The Open Education Book Fair invites you to browse openly licensed textbooks and course materials, learn how Open Educational Resources (OERs) make learning more affordable and accessible, and explore Vancouver Island University’s Zero Textbook Cost Pilot Program.
Chat with folks from VIUSU, BCcampus, VIU Librarians, and VIU CIEL Staff to discover tools and resources you can use right away, and enjoy free snacks as you browse. All materials are free, available from day one, and require no access codes or extra costs. Come for the nostalgia, stay for the savings.
See Also

VIU Students’ Union host free open textbook fair (CHLY Radio)

Be the change you want to see: Applications of Seamless learning. Research projects from the International Research Network for Innovative Sustainable and Seamless Education (IRN-ISSE)
2026-03-04 14:00 - 15:00 (Europe/Stockholm) | Lund, Sweden, Lund, Sweden
The International Research Network for Innovative Sustainable and Seamless Education (IRN-ISSE) is a global research partnership that began at mLearn 2018 at Concordia University in Chicago. The vision of IRN-ISSE is to build an international community of practice, inviting researchers and specialists to collaborate for the greater good, with a specific focus on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4): “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.” The mission of IRN-ISSE is to study, support, inform, share, and implement research globally to improve access to and quality of education worldwide. The goal is to stand together and learn with and from each other, striving to remain at the forefront of innovative, sustainable, and seamless educational practice
The community has a global reach, including Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, South America, and India. The partnership is working on several initiatives, such as:

The Seamless Learning Experience Design Model, which identifies five themes relevant to designing a seamless learning experience: 1) seamless learning concepts, 2) positive concepts, 3) practical concepts, 4) human concepts, and 5) design concepts. Based on these five concepts, a Seamless Learning Experience Design (SLED) framework was developed.
Research and ongoing work include the “Be the change to see the change” (this was the theme for interviews and larger podcasts) initiative, and on-demand, driven learning.

What you can expect:
During this webinar, you will meet some of the partners in IRN-ISSE. You will hear about their research and ongoing initiatives. You will have the opportunity to discuss with the team and the audience the interesting changes in education, including those brought about by the AI era. You will also learn how you can become involved in the IRN-ISSE partnership.

Speakers:

Helga Hambrock. Dr. S Africa, Co-ordinator
Ebba Ossiannilsson, Prof. Dr. Sweden
Ioana Andrea Stefan, Dr. Romania
Karen Ferreira Meyers, Prof. Dr. Eswatini

… even more members from IRN ISSE

Contact: Ebba Ossiannilsson, Prof. Dr. Sweden
Ebba.Ossiannilsson@gmail.com
Microsoft Teams meeting
Join: https://teams.microsoft.com/meet/32914498970710?p=EBrRzeuucxkYlwaZtL
Meeting ID: 329 144 989 707 10
Passcode: [REDACTED]

Open Education as Anti-Fascism: Building Democratic Resilience
2026-03-04 16:00 - 17:00 (Europe/Berlin)
Across the globe, higher education is facing growing authoritarian, exclusionary, and anti-democratic tendencies, not only in politics, but also in digital infrastructures, platform economies, and dominant narratives about technology and innovation. At the same time, Open Education is often framed primarily as a technical or economic solution, i.e., more efficient content production, wider access, lower costs.
In this session, we will discuss how openness can function as a form of democratic resilience in times of polarization and techno-fascism.

Open for Antiracism: Trauma informed approaches to open education
2026-03-04 10:00 - 10:45 (America/Los_Angeles)
Open for Antiracism is a special project of OE Global that has been providing professional development programming across California Community colleges on OER and Open Pedagogy for over 6 years.
In this 2-part session, you’ll first hear from our program directors, Laura Dunn and James Glapa-Grossklag, on how the antiracism and equity landscape has changed since the program’s beginnings in 2020, the impact that OFAR has had on students and faculty, and how OFAR is applied in the classroom.
In the second half of our session, OFAR coach, past participant, and professor of child development at Cerro Coso Community College, Tyrone Ledford shares how he has adapted OFAR’s program in his trauma informed approach to teaching child development. Tyrone will be presenting how to blend anti-racist curriculum and trauma informed teaching strategies to create classroom environments that are empathetic and inclusive to students of diverse backgrounds who have experienced trauma.

Tyrone Ledford is an educator and equity advocate committed to student success and community empowerment. An award-winning Umoja Counselor and two-time Faculty of the Year at Cerro Coso Community College, he created the Trauma-Informed Care specialization program to better support students impacted by trauma. Beyond the classroom, Tyrone advances equity through his family-owned community garden, where he provides students with access to fresh food, education, and hands-on experience growing their own food while promoting food security, sustainability, and self-sufficiency.
Laura Dunn is the director of Open for Antiracism and faculty of religion at the University of Hawaii. Laura’s current research examines how indigenous knowledge systems intersect with cross cultural contemplative practices as a means to reclaim identity in post- and neo-colonial contexts. She is an award-winning writer and scholar, Newhall Fellow, Interreligious Collaborative Research Fellow, and recipient of the National Endowment for the Humanities Association for Asian Studies Publication Grant.
James Glapa-Grossklag is Dean, Educational Technology, Learning Resources, and Distance Learning at College of the Canyons (USA). He serves as Technical Assistance Provider for the California Community Colleges’ Zero Textbook Cost Degree Program, the largest-ever public investment in OER. He co-directs the Open for Antiracism Program, is an OER Fellow for the Michelson 20MM Foundation, and co-leads, with Carnegie Mellon University, a national training program to help faculty from broad-access institutions learn to teach with generative AI. James is past President of Open Education Global, the Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources, and Directors of Educational Technology in California Higher Education. James served as a trainer on OER for the US Department of State in the Middle East and North Africa and was Innovation Scholar in Residence at RMIT University in Australia. He held the appointment of Global OER Ambassador for ICDE 2017-21. In 2019, he received the President’s Award from Open Education Global for “advancing open education around the world through his exceptional dedication, outstanding contribution, and exemplary service.”

You can watch our OE Week session here.
Session Recording Available

Sowing the Seeds of a Global Movement: Stories from California Trailblazers of Open Education
2026-03-04 15:00 - 16:00 (America/Chicago) | Austin, United States, Austin, TX, United States
Join author Barbara Illowsky, Ph.D., editor Judith Sebesta, Ph.D., and contributor James Glapa-Grossklag for an exclusive webinar launching their new volume, Sowing the Seeds of a Global Movement: Stories from California Trailblazers of Open Education.
Published in Pressbooks under the auspices of College of the Canyons, which serves as the Technical Assistance Provider for the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office Zero Textbook Cost Degree Grant Program, this powerful OER chronicles the California origins, evolution, and future impact of OER and Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) programs through the words of visionary leaders who made it happen.
Attendees will gain invaluable insights into the strategic foundations, key partnerships, and transformative vision that propelled a grassroots effort into systemic transformation of the U.S.’s largest system of higher education and has inspired open educators across the globe.
The volume includes interviews with the following trailblazers, all based in California:

Cathy Casserly
Una Daly
James Glapa-Grossklag
Gerry Hanley
Barbara Illowsky
Martha Kanter
Gary K. Michelson
Lisa Petrides
Hal Plotkin

Whether you are an educator, policymaker, administrator, or philanthropist, discover the critical factors that led to California’s historic investment in ZTC pathways and the enduring power of collective action in making knowledge a public good.

Designing With, Not Around, Disabled Learners: A Screen-Reader Demo Experience
2026-03-05 20:30 - 22:00 (Africa/Cairo) | Cairo, Egypt, Cairo, Egypt
This session from Equity Unbound will demonstrate why screen-reader access is important when designing learning materials, especially Open Educational Resources. Have you ever wanted to know how people who are visually impaired or totally blind access your content? Come to this session and I, a visually impaired screen-reader user and an accessibility expert myself, will demonstrate for you the experience of a blind person navigating websites and digital materials.
We will begin with a TRIZ Liberating Structures activity in which participants will intentionally design the worst possible experience for someone using a screen reader. As we name common mistakes and exclusionary practices first, we will surface the barriers that disabled users encounter every day.
Through screen-reader demonstrations on JAWS, NVDA, and Voiceover, participants will experience how everyday design choices shape who can participate fully in learning spaces and who is required to work harder to feel “included” because the design was not made accessible from the beginning. Participants will see concrete examples of inaccessible practices, such as poorly structured documents, missing alt text, cluttered layouts, and excessive emoji use, and how these choices interfere with learning and participation.
The session will connect these examples to the four principles of accessibility: perceivable, operable, user-friendly, and real. We will also discuss reasonable accommodations and why accessibility must be built into course design rather than added later. Throughout the session, participants will be invited to reflect, ask questions, and rethink their own materials. By the end, they will leave with practical strategies for creating learning spaces that are genuinely inclusive for screen reader users.
Recording Now Available

See also the presentation slides and an anonymized chat log from this session

Bridging knowledge gaps through collaboration: Wikimedia in South Africa and the UK
2026-03-24 12:00 - 13:00 (Europe/London) | Leeds, United Kingdom, Leeds, United Kingdom
This Knowledge Equity webinar focuses on advancing knowledge equity through Wikimedia initiatives and open education, with a particular emphasis on South African and UK perspectives. During this session we will explore how collaborative efforts between Wikimedia communities, Open Education and Open Research networks can:
• Empower local knowledge creation and representation.
• Address systemic barriers to access and participation in digital knowledge platforms.
• Highlight successful models of community engagement
• Foster cross-regional collaboration to build inclusive, sustainable knowledge ecosystems.
The session will look at practical strategies for increasing the reach of Wikimedia, the importance of language diversity, and the ethical dimensions of open knowledge production. We will also reflect on how global partnerships can support local and regional initiatives.
Tuesday 24 March, 12:00 – 13:00 GMT / 14:00 – 15:00 SAST

Guest speakers:
Herschal Jackson is the inaugural Executive Director of Wikimedia South Africa (Wikimedia ZA), leading the chapter’s transition toward greater professionalisation of its operation, strategic growth and the amplification of its presence within the global Wikimedia community.
Previously serving as Executive Coordinator of Wikimedia ZA, he strengthened organisational systems, advanced program delivery, and facilitated the 2023 Strategic Planning Meeting. He has played key roles in major initiatives, including co‑organising WikiIndaba 2024 and leading on SWiP Phase 2, a multilingual knowledge‑equity project supporting student contributors across South Africa and neighbouring SADC countries, working in their own languages.
Herschal was instrumental in guiding the development and ratification of Wikimedia ZA’s 2024–2026 strategy and established governance subcommittees to support its implementation. His leadership continues to shape a resilient, collaborative, and future‑focused chapter for Wikimedia ZA.
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Lucy Crompton-Reid joined Wikimedia UK as Chief Executive in October 2015, where she has spearheaded a focus on equity and inclusion on Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia projects. Lucy leads the charity’s work in advocating for a healthy online information ecosystem, and promoting Wikimedia as an important tool in the development of vital media and information literacy skills.
Lucy sits on the British Library Advisory Council, the Board of Advisors for the Khalili Foundation and the External Advisory Board for AI For Collective Intelligence (AI4CI), a UKRI National AI Research Hub. She also Chairs the local arts charity where she lives in rural Scotland.
