Hello! My name is Lauren Collister and I’m thrilled to tell you that I’m going to be the host of OpenCon 2016 Live. I bet you already have questions, including the following:
What is OpenCon Live?
OpenCon Live is a full slate of remote events surrounding the OpenCon conference designed to connect you to the conference. People attending OpenCon 2016 in person are expected to learn, build their network, and take action - and we want to enable the same for remote participants. We’re planning to have interactive keynote watching sessions, exclusive Q&A sessions with presenters, collaborative blog posts, and more. Join us for a few hours, or a few days, from wherever you are to become an expert in Open Access, Open Data, and Open Education, build your network, and help advance progress. Read more and RSVP for OpenCon Live.
Why are you posting on this blog way before OpenCon?
We want to hear from you about how you’d like to engage with OpenCon. We have a huge virtual community and we have some ideas about how to bring OpenCon to that community, but this is all about you. Please check out this short survey and let us know the kinds of events you’d be likely to participate in (or not) and share with us your vision for your OpenCon Live experience.
You can also tweet at us @open_con or using the hashtag #opencon to ask questions or share your thoughts at any time.
Who are you, anyway?
That depends on what hat I’m wearing! I am a scholar in the field of Linguistics - I’m either known for writing a dissertation about World of Warcraft or writing pop linguistics articles about emoji and text messaging. Professionally, I’m the Scholarly Communications Librarian at the University of Pittsburgh where I advocate for and facilitate open access, consult on copyright, help faculty and students share their work, and a bunch of other stuff. I’m an OpenCon 2014 alum and I’ve been having fun hosting the OpenCon Early Career Librarian Community Call for the past few months. The OpenCon organizers thought I could use more fun in my life, so I get to be the OpenCon Live host for this year’s conference.
I look forward to getting to know you before and during OpenCon. Say hello by tweeting me @parnopaeus!