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OpenCon works to make research & education more open and equitable.OpenCon is a community of emerging leaders that has advanced open policies, launched projects and organizations, built new tools, fostered the adoption of open practices, and hosted events in 44 countries & 24 languages—reaching over 9,500 participants. The community’s focus is not only on making research and education open but also on ensuring that we create a fundamentally equitable future. |
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Discover & AdvanceOver its first five years, many important discussions have happened at global OpenCon meetings. View the highlights from past years and get inspired to take action yourself. |
Organized by the Right to Research Coalition & SPARC
OpenCon is organized by SPARC, the Right to Research Coalition, and a Organizing Committee of students and early career academic professionals from around the world. You can support OpenCon by .
We’re working to make online research & educational materials free to read, share, and modify for all.
Research Papers
We believe in Open Access—the free, immediate, online availability of research articles—to ensure that anyone with an Internet connection can read, use, and build upon research findings.
Research Data
We advocate for Open Research Data so that anyone can freely download, copy, analyze and re-process data. We believe Open Data encourages transparency and collaboration among researchers, accelerates discovery, and allows the public to engage with publicly funded data.
Education
We believe in Open Education to maximize the power of the Internet to make educational materials more affordable, more accessible and more effective for learners. We advocate for Open Education so that teachers can share, adapt, and build off existing materials.
What the community is saying about OpenCon
OpenCon 2014 was the best conference I have ever been to. The presentations, speeches, and workshops as well as all the connections I made at OpenCon educated me about the exciting developments occurring not only in Open Educational Resources, but Open Access and Open Data as well. I left informed and inspired to continue on as an open advocate. Full of word class attendees, organizers, and presenters, OpenCon was a once in a life time opportunity that I will never forget.
Chardaye Bueckert, President of the Simon Fraser Student Society
OpenCon was the most energetic and intellectually stimulating conference I have attended. Meeting people so immersed in Open Access, Open Data and Open Education was inspiring and has since motivated myself and Martin Bentley to start Open Access South Africa: A Student Network. I am honoured to be a part of a community so fully committed to access to education and research across the world.
Uvania Naidoo, Open Access South Africa Co-founder, MA Candidate (UCT)
Blog and News
Upcoming Events
OpenCon 2019 Southeast Nigeria
RSVP to stay in the loop and be notified when registration opens! Please note that an RSVP is not registration; registration will open October 1.
Schedule: (subject to change)
8:30 - 9:15 - Registration & light breakfast
9:15 - 9:30 - Welcome Remarks
9:30 - 10:30 - Open for Whom?: Critical Discussion of Open Scholarship and Education
10:30 - 11:00 - Mid-morning break
11:00- 12:00 - Concurrent sessions
Track 1: Data for the People: Open Civic Data Initiatives in the Southeast Region
Track 2: Reimagining the Disposable Assignment: Open Pedagogy in Action
Track 3: Is Open Science the Future of Science?
12:00 - 1:30 - Lunch
1:30 - 2:15 - Lightning talks
Talk 1: Flip the Textbook: Science in Translation with Student-Created OERs
Talk 2: OER Beyond Textbooks: Meeting Student Needs in the Health Sciences
Talk 3: Making Open the Norm: Five Quick Language Tips for Advancing Open Access
Talk 4: Are Your Students Ready to Create Open Data?
Talk 5: Facilitating Data Discovery through an Open-Source Data Catalog
10 min break (Snacks available)
2:25 - 3:10 - Afternoon workshops
Track 1: Hypothesis: An Open Online Annotation Tool for eBooks and the Web
Track 2: Digital Assessment, OER, and Learning
Track 3: Inclusive Design for Open Access Materials: Workflows, Tools, and Logistics to Consider When Ensuring Access for Disabled Members of Your Community
10 min break (Snacks available)
3:20 - 3:50 - Concurrent sessions
Track 1: Organized for Affordability: Southeast Statewide Textbook Project
Track 2: Advancing Open Through an OA Fund: Perspectives from Two Libraries
Track 3: The Promises and Potential Problems of Creating Open Historic Data
10 min break (Snacks available)
4:00 - 4:30 - Concurrent sessions
Track 1: Providing Access to Legal Information in the Developing World
Track 3: The Impact of OER on Student Performance and Engagement
4:30 - 5:00 - Closing and Next Steps
5:15 - Tour of Imo state Library
December 2019 Librarian Community Call
For December's OpenCon Community Call (rescheduled from October), we welcome Charlotte Roh, Scholarly Communication Librarian at the University of San Francisco, and Nathan Hall, Director of Digital Imaging and Preservation Services at Virginia Tech. Both served as co-authors on the new ACRL Scholarly Communications Research Agenda, Open and Equitable Scholarly Communications: Creating a More Inclusive Future. We will discuss how we can move to more inclusive and equitable methods of scholarly communications.
If you haven't read it yet, take a look at the Research Agenda here!
This call brings together all librarians working with, or learning about, all things Open--and gives folks an opportunity to connect with each other to better their work and librarianship.
Call Agenda
You can find all the proposed agendas and minutes from the Librarian community calls in one place, right here.
Joining details
To join the conference call from your computer, go to https://www.uberconference.com/SPARCconference.
To join the conference by phone within the US, dial 855 277 1599. To join the conference by phone outside of the US, see https://www.uberconference.com/international. This page provides local dial-in numbers for 50 countries. If available, you can dial into the local number for your country then enter our conference line information when prompted (phone number: 855 277 1599). If a local dial-in number isn’t available for your country, we suggest you either login from your computer using the instructions above or dial the US number using Skype.
What to expect
Community calls are always friendly, and we love new faces. The more you participate, the more you'll get out of it! No doubt there will be a lot of this too.