Tips for Designing a Satellite Event Agenda

What will your event be about, and what will participants be doing? The format for satellite events are flexible, and in the past, hosts have invited speakers, streamed online video content, hosted workshops, hackathons, and more! See detailed tips on how to design an effective program to reach your goals:

Table of Contents:

1. Choosing Agenda Items

2. Defining Goals for your Event

3. Putting the Event Together

Choosing Agenda Items

Potential agenda items could include:

	Talks Invite those who are working on projects related to Open Access, Open Data, or Open Education to come and speak about their work! Consider finding local speakers to avoid transportation costs. Ask around or do a quick google search to see if there are librarians, professors, or students who are working on interesting projects in your area. You can also browse and add speakers using the Open Research & Education Speakers Database, which can be found at this link. To use the database, scroll right to access a search bar. Different formats speakers could partake in include: Keynote Lectures: These are longer talks that usually range from 30 minutes to an hour. Lightning Talks: Lightning talks are 5-10 minute long talks where speakers talk about their area of expertise or a project they are working on. Because they are short, they are often a fun and engaging format that allowed the audience to digest a lot of information in a short period of time! Panel Discussion: Invite a few different speakers who have diverse perspectives to speak about a particular theme in a panel discussion. You’ll also need someone to facilitate the discussion (e.g. ask prompt questions, time-keep, etc…)
	Workshop Training Have your participants leave the workshop with a new skill. Through a workshop, participants could learn how to: Use software that is useful for Open Research (e.g. R, Github, Open Science Framework) Make their publications and research data openly available; then set aside time to deposit works into online repositories “Hack” an Open Educational Resource Advocate for Open Access, Open Data, and/or Open Education in their institutions and communities For more ideas, see some of the workshops that have been held at the OpenCon global meeting here.
	Unconference Sessions Unconferences allow participants to take control of the conference. Participants get to propose, vote on, and run sessions themselves. This enables peer-to-peer learning, collaboration and diverse session types and topics. Sessions can be proposed and voted on before and during the conference. Even if a session doesn’t happen, hosts will find people interested in their session to collaborate with following OpenCon. Example sessions: For ideas, see some of the unconference sessions that have been held at the OpenCon global meeting here
	Hackathon Hackathons are collaborative sprint sessions for working on specific projects. Textbook hackathon: Collaborate with invited faculty members and senior students to “hack” an Open Educational Resource (OER): work together to remix and improve an existing Open Textbook or educational tool. You can find some useful resources on hacking OER here and here. Open Research / Open Data hackathon: Bring researchers and students together to collaborate on a set of open science projects. Examples of open research hackathons can be found here and here.
	Watch Party Book a room to screen OpenCon & Other Open Content as a group. Consider hosting a group discussion afterward about the video content that you’ve just watched! Stream some of the highlights from past OpenCon meetings, or if you’re holding your satellite event at the same time as the global meeting, watch the meeting live! Stream other popular video resources for learning more about Open issues, e.g. the Internet’s Own Boy
	Advocacy Work on creating policy changes at your institution or department. Planning / Drafting an Institutional Policy: Organize a work session to draft a motion for your faculty senate or student government to adopt an institutional Open Access or OER policy. Open Access Policy Resources : A link from Harvard University on good practices for university Open Access policies can be found here and a link to downloading model policy language can be found at the bottom of this page Open Education Policy Resources: Example documents from other institutions can be found here. For more advocacy tips, download the Advocacy Toolkit from UCL.

Defining Goals

When you're thinking through agenda items, it's helpful for you (or your planning committee) to define what the goals of your event are. Here are some questions to get you started:

What will the focus of the event be? Will you focus on a breadth of Open issue areas, or specifically on Open Access, Open Data, Open Education, or Open Science?
What do you want the event to achieve? Is the goal of the event to educate and promote awareness of Open issues? Is it to
Are there any specific outcomes? After the meeting, are there measurable outcomes or final products that you want to be able to point to? Examples:
- Build an OER through a textbook hackathon
- Plan or draft a preliminary Open Access policy for your institution, department, or faculty
- Train X number of students to incorporate Open Science practices into their workflow
- Have participants leave with an increased understanding of the importance of Open Access
- Have X number of researchers commit to depositing and making their works Open after the meeting.
- Start a local meetup group from interested participants at the meeting that will convene regularly in the future (e.g. on a monthly basis)
Do you have a target audience? How will that affect the program agenda? Do you know who you will be advertising the event to? Will it mostly be students, researchers, librarians, or medical professionals? What is their baseline knowledge of Open issues? What content will they find most interesting, and most useful to their work or education?

Putting an event together:

Here are some suggestions of the types of event we’ve imagined:

Small satellite event

Space: Book a small room
Potential Agenda Items:
- Have participants learn a skill: Host a small workshop, followed by a discussion
- Put on the live stream or high quality recordings from the conference
- Invite a local speaker
- Plan a social event for informal discussions after

Size: Try to attract 15+ participants
Estimated prep time: 3 hours

Large satellite event

Space: Book a lecture room

Potential Agenda Items:
- Have participants learn skills: Host a series of workshops, followed by a discussion
- Put on the live stream or high quality recordings from the conference
- Invite a local speaker, or host a panel discussion
- Organize a session for lightning talks
- Organize a simple evening activity

Extra: Provide some food
Size: Try to attract 50 participants

Estimated prep time: 10-15 hours

Mini-conference

Space: Book a lecture room and breakout rooms

Potential Agenda Items:
- Have participants learn skills: Host a series of workshops
- Put on the live stream or high quality recordings from the conference
- Invite a set of speakers
- Facilitate a panel discussion on a themed topic
- Organize a session for lightning talks
- Plan for an unconference or hackathon
- Organize a simple evening activity

Provide food and drinks during breaks / after the event

Consider providing event swag - either sponsored or that you create
Size: Try to attract 100+ participants

Estimated prep time: 15-60 hours

Extras to improve your event

Coordinate with your local librarians—very important!
Invite local policy makers
Put on your own workshops
Try and set up a local working group to help organize the meeting
Write a blog post
Take some pictures and send them in!

Icons from Noun Project:

Lecturer by iconsphere / chart by Ralf Schmitzer / smart idea by Creative Stall / code by Ralf Schmitzer / movie reel by Josue Oquendo / contract by hans drayman