Open to Change: OEGlobal Executive Director search now on!

In February, the OEGlobal Board announced the intention of current OEGlobal Executive Director, Paul Stacey, to begin a year-long process to transfer his skills and knowledge to a new Executive Director. In partnership with the global recruitment agency Mission Talent, the OEGlobal team is excited to share the next phase in this process – the call for applications is now out!

Be at the forefront of the open education movement. Drive positive change for education across the globe. Guide a constantly innovating community of educators. 

About the Role

The new Executive Director will provide strategic vision and guidance to the organization and oversee the continued implementation of the 2021-2030 strategic plan: Open for Public Good. As part of the role, the Executive Director will lead a small, globally-dispersed team and provide an inclusive and caring management style to support diverse staff, members, and key stakeholders worldwide. The Executive Director will communicate with current donors while developing and executing a fundraising strategy and advocating to represent the Open Education Community before a wide range of stakeholders worldwide. 

Duties and Responsibilities:

Leadership

  • Implement the recently developed strategy for 2021-2030; 
  • Support the organizational vision and mission in accordance with the new strategy;
  • Identify challenges and opportunities to advance and support OEGlobal’s mission;
  • Act as the key spokesperson and thought leader for the organization, including giving speeches, workshops, and presentations at international conferences and meetings around the world;
  • Develop and maintain partnerships and strategic relationships with partner organizations, donors, governments, and international agencies;
  • Model and support a culture of care within the organization and the community;
  • Demonstrate the highest standards of integrity, inclusiveness, and transparency.

Operations

  • Develop operational plans in support of OEGlobal’s 2021-2030 strategic plan: Open For Public Good;
  • Oversee the efficient and effective operation of the organization;
  • Oversee the technology and infrastructure used by OEGlobal to ensure efficiency and productivity of operations;
  • Manage human, financial, and other resources to achieve and comply with  organizational objectives, including the development of talent and the overall organization growth strategy;
  • Mentor, manage and support a small, high performing team:
    • Identify opportunities that strengthen cross-organizational collaboration and teamwork;
    • Model collaboration, effective decision making, creativity, innovation, and learning;
    • Build a caring culture of diversity and inclusivity across cultures and languages;
    • Maximize team building, virtually and in periodic face-to-face meetings;
  • Ensure the organization’s operations and policies comply with all applicable laws, including registration, annual tax filings, and labor law compliance;
  • Liaise with the Board of Directors, including meeting preparation, communications, and agenda-setting.

Planning and Fundraising

  • Develop and execute new strategies to provide base OEGlobal revenue stream and fundraising efforts in close collaboration with the Board of Directors;
  • Identify key funders and potential donors;
  • Write proposals and draft reports aligned with funder goals and funded initiatives;
  • Cultivate strategic and mutually beneficial relationships with foundations, donors, corporations, and other key stakeholders;
  • Ensure effective financial stewardship and long-term fiscal sustainability for the organization.

Skills and Experience

  • International leadership and management experience, preferably in a small nonprofit;
  • Understanding of open education landscapes around the world;
  • Track record of leading successful collaborations with nonprofit organizations, donors, and governmental and intergovernmental organizations;
  • Experience with organizational and strategic planning; 
  • Solid financial management and fundraising experience;
  • Highly developed cross-cultural communication skills, respect for diversity, and ability to lead multicultural and globally distributed teams;
  • Excellent speaking and writing skills in English. Additional language is highly desirable;
  • Creative problem solving and adaptability to respond to and anticipate developments related to openness in education;
  • Strong public speaking and representation skills.

Open Education Global’s Culture 

OEGlobal’s culture is rooted in the principles and practices of “openness”. 

The culture is shaped by its vision and mission:

  • Promote, support and advance open education around the world.
  • Believe in empowerment through education. 
  • Envision a world where everyone, everywhere has access to the high-quality education and training they desire; where education is seen as an essential, shared, and collaborative social good.

Transparency is OEGlobal default position.

Be the next CEO of @OpenEdGlobal – Be at the forefront of the #openeducation movement. Drive #positivechange for education around the globe. Guide a constantly innovating community of educators. Interested? Apply now https://mis.tl/oeg-ed

OEG Voices – Latest Podcasts

OE Global Voices

Welcome to the home of podcasts produced by Open Education Global. These shows bring you insight and connection to the application of open education practices from around the world. Listen at podcast.oeglobal.org

OEG Voices 074: Tony Bates and A Personal History of Open Education

Join us for a wide ranging conversation with Tony Bates covering his long and on ongoing span of being active in open and distance education. We start from his being part of the very first days of the Open University through his years based in Canada but working globally being integral to the development of online learning through the web. He has long been publishing open textbooks and sharing his perspectives on his own website. We go right up to present day where Tony is active in exploring the role of artificial intelligence.

We were inspired to have these conversation having seen where Tony has been publishing on his blog his “personal history” now up to it’s 26th installment:

I am writing an autobiography, mainly for my family, but it does cover some key moments in the development of open and online learning. I thought I would share these as there seems to be a growing interest in the history of educational technology.

Note that these posts are NOT meant to be deeply researched historical accounts, but how I saw and encountered developments in my personal life.

Tony Bates blog

In the OEGlobal Voices studio with Tony Bates (left) and Alan Levine (right)

Listen in for Tony’s insightful energy, critical perspective, and humor as well as his lived stories of experience through a long era of online and open education. Plus, you will find a surprising bit of extra history on how he might have influenced some other students he knew in primary school who went on to be famous.

In This Episode

FYI: For the sake of experimentation and the spirit of transparency, this set of show notes alone was generated by AI Actions in the Descript editor we use to produce OEGlobal Voices.

Podcast Show Notes: OE Global Voices Episode 74: Tony Bates

In this enlightening episode of OE Global Voices, host Alan Levine is joined by the remarkable Dr. Tony Bates, an influential figure in the realm of open education.

Episode Highlights:

  • Introduction to Tony Bates: Discover the journey of a legend in open education, from his beginnings in England to key contributions at the Open University and beyond.
  • Open Education Insight: Tony discusses the limitations and potential of open education resources today, sharing insights rooted in his extensive experience.
  • Founding of the Open University: Gain behind-the-scenes knowledge of how the Open University was envisioned and established, expanding access to higher education with innovative methods such as integrating print, radio, and TV.
  • Role in Online Learning: Learn about Tony’s pioneering role in developing online learning approaches and his transition from traditional educational systems to digital landscapes.
  • Publishing and Open Resources: Tony candidly shares why he embraced open publishing, emphasizing accessibility and the benefits of keeping educational resources current.
  • Reflections on Artificial Intelligence: Tony offers a balanced view of AI’s potential and risks, particularly concerning big tech companies’ influence.

About Tony Bates:
Tony Bates has been a transformative presence in education, contributing through teaching, leadership, research, and writing. He’s known for his candid take on the state of education, often sharing personal anecdotes from his storied career.

Get Engaged:
Listen as Tony Bates reflects on a career filled with innovation, humor, and lasting impact. Follow up on our discussions about educational technology and AI.

This episode is accompanied by the musical track “Distance” by Anitek, fittingly chosen to reflect the expansive themes of Tony’s work. Visit OEGlobal Voices for more episodes and join our community discussions at OEG Connect.

Don’t miss this journey through impactful education landscapes with Tony Bates. Subscribe and engage with us for future insights and conversations.

(end of AI generated show notes)

Additional Links and Quotes for Episode 74

What happened was that I actually saw the internet for the first time in Vancouver when I was visiting a friend. I thought this is the best way to use computers in education, not this, programmed learning stuff, which I didn’t really like because it wasn’t in my view, achieving the higher level cognitive skills that you’d want from university students. It’s all about memorization and so on.

So I thought, yes, we can use computers for communication between students and between students and instructors, that’s great. And a colleague, Tony Kay and I we tried this out on a social science second level course called DT 200.

Tony Bates on early vision for online education

From very interesting things like audio, we found that generally, you know, this is a generalization, doesn’t apply to everybody. But most people that we researched found audio more personal, that they felt they got closer to the lecturer through listening to an audio, a radio broadcaster or an audio cassette. The other thing was that we found that cassettes, actually changed the design principles because students could stop and start. You could build that into the design of a cassette. And then the learning effectiveness went right up.

We had a perfect laboratory situation where we had exactly the same program in audio and radio and exactly the same as a recording. Then we could look at what students learn as a result. We could then change the design of the cassettes and see what happened then and look at the results. Because we had such large numbers of students, we got very statistically significant results.

Tony Bates on early research on use of audio for learning

My take on it, I’m fairly pessimistic. Mainly because my real concern these days is about the power of the big tech companies. I fear it will be taken over by the big tech companies. We’ll see their share prices and stocks go up and the money will go to the venture capitalists. And we’ll all be worse off as a result.

That’s the negative part about it. Now on the positive side, I think yes, in medical research, in legal affairs, it will be very good. I met a colleague, a good friend of mine actually, who’s trying to do research on whether AI can actually improve on the instructional design process.

Tony Bates on Artificial Intelligence

We are counting on more blog posts from you, Tony!


Our open licensed music for this episode is a track called Distance by Anitek licensed under a Creative CommonsAttribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License. Like most of our podcast music, it was found at the Free Music Archive (see our full FMA playlist).

This was another episode we are recording on the web in Squadcast. This is part of the Descript platform for AI enabled transcribing and editing audio in text– this has greatly enhanced our ability to produce our showsWe have been exploring some of the other AI features in Descriptbut our posts remain human authored unless indicated otherwise.