On May 5th, we hosted Dr. John Hilton III for a webcast to summarize the increasing body of research on the efficacy of OER.

Calling all OpenCon 2014 alumni! We need your help to review applications for OpenCon 2015. Last year we received over 1,700 applications, and this year we're expecting many more. This is exciting because it shows the momentum for advancing Open Access, Open Education and Open Data, but it will also take a lot of work to make sure each application gets the consideration it deserves.

Our call has closed! Thanks to all the OpenCon alumni who signed up! 

Calling all OpenCon 2014 alumni! We need your help to review applications for OpenCon 2015. Last year we received over 1,700 applications, and this year we're expecting many more. This is exciting because it shows the momentum for advancing Open Access, Open Education and Open Data, but it will also take a lot of work to make sure each application gets the consideration it deserves.

This year we've designed a two-step review process to ensure that the most dedicated and qualified students and early career academic professionals are considered for acceptance at OpenCon 2015. The first step (which is where you come in) will be rating by OpenCon alumni, who will consider each application's overall strength and applicability to OpenCon's goals. Highly rated applications will then go on to be reviewed and considered for acceptance by the OpenCon Organizing Committee.

We hope that OpenCon 2014 alumni will consider devoting a few hours of their time to contribute to the OpenCon community in this unique way. While reviewing applications will not alter the chance of being accepted to attend OpenCon 2015, it provides a unique opportunity to participate in building OpenCon 2015 into a successful event.

Alumni who join the OpenCon 2015 Application Review Team and contribute at least 100 reviews will be recognized on a special page on the OpenCon 2015 website (we expect applications to average 400 words long).

The inaugural OpenCon webcast How to Get Tenure* (*while practicing open science)” from Titus Brown provided a fresh perspective on how open research practices can benefit your career and started a lively discussion. To continue the conversation on this important topic, we’re happy to announce our first OpenCon webcasts series, “Open Research and Your Career”.

Open Educational Resources have always held the promise of saving students millions – if not billions – of dollars each year. But is cost savings the only advantage of OER?  A growing body of evidence suggests that OER produce learning outcomes that are as good or, in many cases, better than those of proprietary learning materials.

Our next OpenCon Community Webcast will delve into current research on the efficacy of Open Educational Resources and how they compare with traditional textbooks. John Hilton III, an Assistant Professor at Brigham Young University and leading expert on OER efficacy, will be joining us to address this issue. In his presentation, John will answer critical questions including if students using OER get better grades, how students and teachers perceive Open Educational Resources and what it takes for a professor to adopt an Open Textbook.

The webcast will be held on Tuesday, May 5th, at 1pm EDT / 6pm BST / 7pm CEST and last approximately 45 minutes. You can view the webcast at opencon2015.org/community/webcasts or by bookmarking the embedded YouTube link below. You can join the discussion and ask questions on Twitter with the hashtag #opencon. A recording of the presentation will be available online immediately following the webcast at the same URL.

https://youtu.be/4E2Cc2bLRyE

For immediate release: April 7, 2015
Press Contact: Ranit Schmelzer: +1 202 538 1065, [email protected]

Broad Coalition Announces 2nd Conference for Students & Early Career Academic Professionals on Open Access, Open Education and Open Data 

OpenCon 2015 to Take Place November 14-16 in Brussels, Belgium

WASHINGTON, DC — Today 11 organizations representing the next generation of scholars, researchers, and academic professionals announced OpenCon 2015: Empowering the Next Generation to Advance Open Access, Open Education and Open Data. Slated for November 14-16 in Brussels, Belgium, the event will bring together students and early career academic professionals from across the world to learn about the issues, develop critical skills, and return home ready to catalyze action toward a more open system for sharing the world’s information — from scholarly and scientific research, to educational materials, to digital data.

Hosted by the Right to Research Coalition and SPARC, OpenCon 2015 builds on the success of the first-ever OpenCon meeting last year which convened 115 students and early career academic professionals from 39 countries in Washington, DC.  More than 80% of these participants received full travel scholarships, provided by sponsorships from leading organizations, including the Max Planck Society, eLife, PLOS, and more than 20 universities.

“OpenCon 2015 will expand on a proven formula of bringing together the brightest young leaders across the Open Access, Open Education, and Open Data movements and connecting them with established leaders in each community,” said Nick Shockey, founding Director of the Right to Research Coalition. “OpenCon is equal parts conference and community.  The meeting in Brussels will serve as the centerpiece of a much larger network to foster initiatives and collaboration among the next generation across OpenCon’s three issue areas.”

OpenCon 2015’s three day program will begin with two days of conference-style keynotes, panels, and interactive workshops, drawing both on the expertise of leaders in the Open Access, Open Education and Open Data movements and the experience of participants who have already led successful projects.  

The third day will take advantage of the location in Brussels by providing a half-day of advocacy training followed by the opportunity for in-person meetings with relevant policy makers, ranging from the European Parliament, European Commission, embassies, and key NGOs. Participants will leave with a deeper understanding of the conference’s three issue areas, stronger skills in organizing local and national projects, and connections with policymakers and prominent leaders across the three issue areas.

Speakers at OpenCon 2014 included the Deputy Assistant to the President of the United States for Legislative Affairs, the Chief Commons Officer of Sage Bionetworks, the Associate Director for Data Science for the U.S. National Institutes of Health, and more than 15 students and early career academic professionals leading successful initiatives. OpenCon 2015 will again feature leading experts.  Patrick Brown and Michael Eisen, two of the co-founders of PLOS, are confirmed for a joint keynote at the 2015 meeting.

“For the ‘open’ movements to succeed, we must invest in capacity building for the next generation of librarians, researchers, scholars, and educators,” said Heather Joseph, Executive Director of SPARC (The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition). “OpenCon is dedicated to creating and empowering a global network of young leaders across these issues, and we are eager to partner with others in the community to support and catalyze these efforts.”

OpenCon seeks to convene the most effective student and early career academic professional advocates—regardless of their ability to pay for travel costs. The majority of participants will receive full travel scholarships. Because of this, attendance is by application only, though limited sponsorship opportunities are available to guarantee a fully funded place at the conference.  Applications will open on June 1, 2015.

In 2014, more than 1,700 individuals from 125 countries applied to attend the inaugural OpenCon.

“As an organization that represents more than 11 million students across 39 European countries, the European Students’ Union is committed to advancing openness in research and education,” said Erin Nordal, Vice-Chairperson of the European Students’ Union (ESU). “ESU is excited to help organize OpenCon 2015 and ensure the next generation is at the forefront of the conversation around Open Access, Open Education and Open Data—in Europe and beyond.”  

This year, an expanded emphasis will be placed on building the community around OpenCon and on satellite events. OpenCon satellite events are independently hosted meetings that mix content from the main conference with live presenters to localize the discussion and bring the energy of an in-person OpenCon event to a larger audience.  In 2014, OpenCon satellite events reached hundreds of students and early career academic professionals in nine countries across five continents.  A call for partners to host satellite events has now opened and is available at http://www.opencon2015.org/satellite.

OpenCon 2015 is organized by the Right to Research Coalition, SPARC, and a committee of student and early career researcher organizations from around the world. A variety of sponsorship opportunities are available and will be critical to ensuring that dedicated students and early career academic professionals across the globe are able to attend. For more information, see www.opencon2015.org/sponsor.

Applications for OpenCon 2015 will open on June 1st. For more information about the conference and to sign up for updates, visit www.opencon2015.org/updates.  You can follow OpenCon on Twitter at @Open_Con or using the hashtag #opencon.

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The Right to Research Coalition is an international alliance of graduate and undergraduate student organizations, which collectively represent nearly 7 million students in over 100 countries around the world, that advocate for and educate students about open methods of scholarly publishing.  The Right to Research Coalition is a project of SPARC.

SPARC®, the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, is an international alliance of academic and research libraries working to correct imbalances in the scholarly publishing system.  Developed by the Association of Research Libraries, SPARC has become a catalyst for change.  Its pragmatic focus is to stimulate the emergence of new scholarly communication models that expand the dissemination of scholarly research and reduce financial pressures on libraries.  More information can be found at www.sparc.arl.org and on Twitter @SPARC_NA.

Contact Information for Organizing Committee Members

Belgian Medical Students’ Association
Koen Demaegd, National Officer on Research Exchange
nore [at] belgianmsa [dot] com

This post was originally made on the Right to Research Coalition website, but for archival purposes has been posted here

Announcing OpenCon Community Webcasts!

We’re excited to announce our new OpenCon Community Webcast series, which aims to inform and engage the growing OpenCon community by showcasing an individual, project, or success story each month. Ranging between 30 minutes and an hour, these webcasts will provide a regular opportunity for the OpenCon community to hear from those leading the charge for Open Access, Open Education, and Open Data.

In the run up to OpenCon 2014 we wanted to ensure everyone attending already had a basic, if not very good understanding Open Access, Education and Data.

To make these easier to watch, and compile all the resources associated we’ve combined them all into a bumper blog filled with all the bios, video, slides and more.