We are just ramping up the social media and announcement machines for next week, but as posted Wednesday we have already opened the Open Education Week site for those ready to start sharing their events.
For those that run event calendars, it seems that it’s information, data that ought to be well structured– title, link, description, start and end time etc, should be easy to manage. But when you factor in the complexity of time zones, it gets complicated!
We’ve been pleased with the system we implemented in our new site starting in 2024, in that it automatically detects your time zone, so you can enter date/times for event you submit using your local time (internally it is converted to a single reference time zone). And this also means, when you visit the calendar, it automatically presents events from around the world converted to your local time.
But we have listened to your feedback and comments, and have made some minor adjustments in 2026 that hopefully makes it easier to navigate the hundreds of calendar items we try to put into one.
Events as “Things You Might Put Into Your Own Calendar” vs Ongoing Activities
Many items on the calendar are what you expect- a presentation, a workshop that starts and ends at specific times in a day. But we also receive (and want to make available) activities that are more ongoing over an extended period of time, like the SUNY Online entire program for a full week as well on-going activities like the We Like Sharing photo contest that goes on for weeks.
What is the problem? Well activities that span longer periods of time will show up every day of the time frame they are active, and push further down the list, ones happening at a specific time. And we collect many many items we try to get into one calendar.
For 2026 we are going to separate these events. Think of the ones on the main calendar as something that you might want to insert into your own calendar, a specific keynote address, a lunch time talk, an online workshop. And in fact, that’s what we hope you do, since all events have a button built in that lets you add them to your own personal calendar.
Longer spanning events we are calling “Campaigns” or “extended activities” and live on a separate listing page (if you are reading this you have an early peak since its not yet added to the site).
You do not have to worry about making a designation when you add an event, we will take care of this for you!
Public vs Limited Participation Online Events
We noticed and registered feedback last year when participants saw an online event of interest, only to find when trying to register that it was limited to people at a single campus or with access to a platform. To make this more clear, when you enter an event, under Event Mode we ask that you indicate if it is an online event open to the public or not.
Mapping the Event Organizers, not the Location
Our calendar offers a map view of events, which we appreciate as a way to show the global reach. However, the calendar tool we use is designed to map the specific location when an event is happening (down to the detail of street address).
This has presented issues previously, as where to you map an online discussion with panelists from different continents? The software was forcing us to pick a physical location calling for gimmicks like a generic location in the middle of an ocean to represent “online”.
The solution for 2026 is that we are not asking you to indicate where an evident is taking place. Instead, we ask to indicate the organization that is hosting the event, and with that information, along with a web address, we ask for just a city and country which workls good enough to provide a geolocation on a world map.
The map represents the places in the world participating in Open Education Week, not where the events are physically taking place.
It May Not Be Perfect!
We have made these changes based on problems we saw and the feedback participants gave us. If you are new to adding events for OEWeek or need a refresher, see our comprehensive guide for contributing events. For planning purposes, we offer a link to copy a Google Doc version of all items requested on the event form, so you can organize your information in advance.
If you encounter problems with adding events, need help in modifying submitted events, or just have questions, please contact us at hello@openeducationweek.org
We hope you fill the calendars in 2026!
Featured Image: Composite of Papercamp schedule flickr photo by Matt Biddulph shared under a Creative Commons (BY-SA 2.0) license and “Lifelong Learning”, 2 Franklin Town Blvd.(the Fountains at Logan Square, 18th and Callowhill St.) flickr photo by MikeLeone shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND 2.0) license plus the OEWeek 2026 sticker by Mario Badilla/OEGlobal shared under a Creative Commons (CC BY) license.