The Friday Open Ed 2021 plenary to close the conference was entitled “The Future of Open Ed.” Andrea Scott is the OER Coordinator at Salt Lake Community College and introduced the Strategic Planning Committee. Stephanie Pierce is the Head of the Physics Library at the University of Arkansas Libraries and started a Mentimeter poll. Pierce was also involved in planning OESS, I think. The first question was “What has been your favorite part of OpenEd21?” and learning was the winner followed by friendshipping, networking, and presenting. “Where are you joining from?” was the next question and that word cloud was really dynamic… though Alaska and California were well represented! There was Bangkok and South Africa… and British Columbia. Regina Gong is the OER & Student Success Librarian at Michigan State University and spoke about how the partners came together to organize Open Ed 2021. Partners included OpenStax, Sparc, the Colorado Department of Higher Education, and the Maryland Open Souce Textbook Initiative. Daniel Williamson spoke about the transition and transparency of the Open Ed conference. Ethan Senack is the Chief of Staff at ISKME and talked about conference sustainability through the living documents of Open Ed 2021 and the strategic vision. The strategic vision document is available on the website. The Open Education Project Manager at SPARC, Hailey Babb spoke about the transition process. I didn’t know this was a two-year process for the committee! Babb talked about a suggested approach moving forward: the conference creates a new “board” with half appointed from current committee volunteers and half are new community-elected members. This concept was proposed to create institutional memory. I now realize what that elections/voting form was for! Babb also explained that the task of this board was running the conference and determining a new fiscal and operational home. SPARC and OpenStax offered the fiscal structure. This operating structure was based on a two-year commitment that has ended. Amanda Larson is the Affordable Learning Instructional Consultant at The Ohio State University and used a Menti poll to ask: “What are your initial reactions to this approach?” A variety of responses came in including: thoughtful, fair, good idea, reasonable thoughtful practical, strong plan, promising… student input is needed. Jeff Gallant, the Program Director at Affordable Learning Georgia, asked “What have you enjoyed about OpenEd over the last two years that you would like to see continue?” Responses included online, accessibility, virtual aspect, diversity of attendees, drawing international presence, networking on Discord, emphasis on care and humans, keynote speakers who have bold visitors, recorded sessions… indigenous participation! I liked learning that the attendees appreciated the asynchronous sessions. Larson then asked, “What could we change about our organizing structure to make it more inclusive?” Responses included dedicated positions to elect students, invite more diverse voices, bring more languages, what about folks just getting started… create open mentors for newbies… Babb clarified that there are student representatives as part of Open Ed planning. Gallant then asked: “How do you, as community members, want to be engaged in this process?” Townhall meetings, surveys via email, virtual opportunities to contribute, bite-sized volunteer opportunities, virtual town halls… community of practice engagement. Larson then asked, “What questions do you have that we can better address in future communications?” There were questions about a 101 website, how a conference theme is selected… There were lots of honest comments and suggestions! A follow-up Gallant asked was “what else should we keep in mind as we go about the transition? Someone in the Menti poll mentioned liking Sched! Yay! I love it and have been using it to watch Lilly Conferences. The last question was… not surprising: “Is there anything else we should know?” Lots of thankfulness in the Menti responses. While some attendees asked for hybrid or in-person meetings in the future, several responses supported the asynchronous resources. Nadia Cheikhrouhou a Faculty member at the Higher Institute of Technological Studies of Beja, Tunisia, thanked attendees to wrap up. Finally, the strategic planning committee did a thirty-minute reflection and closing session. This is the last session of Open Ed 2021 that I watched. I watched over 180 sessions in the past several months… one or two a day. I learned new strategies and was encouraged by similar projects and ideas.
