Celebrating Una Daly as she looks towards her “rewirement”

After 12 years of dedication to OE Global and specifically as the Director of CCCOER, Una Daly is embarking on a personal and well-earned “re-wiring” (Una’s term for it).

Una Daly has directed the Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources (CCCOER), since 2011. CCCOER is a regional Open Education Global (OEGlobal) hub that promotes open educational policies, practices, and resources.

Una played a pivotal role in developing and supporting the 101 member community colleges that hail from 35 states in the USA and two provinces in Canada. Una has driven the CCCOER vision to raise awareness and encourage the adoption of open educational initiatives throughout the region. Una’s stewardship of CCCOER has led to innovative support programs for faculty in their open education application through such initiatives as CCCOER’s monthly webinars and the former Regional Leaders of Open Education (RLOE) program.

Her dedication to equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) within the community college system has seen the development of innovative programs such as the Open For AntiRacism (OFAR) and the Summer EDI Book Club, among others. She has been dedicated to walking the talk by implementing internal additions to CCCOER’s advisory structures and creating an EDI committee to guide EDI programs.

Collective action, partnerships, and collaboration to activate change towards open education change have been an effective part of Una’s strategy for CCCOER. This has resulted in the California Consortium for Equitable Change in Hispanic-Serving Institutions OER Project, the California Zero Textbook Cost Degree initiative, and the Achieving The Dream OER Degree program.

Listen to the history of CCCOER from Una’s perspective and the thoughts of incoming program director Heather Blicher in the OEG Voices podcast, Looking Back and into the Future of CCCOER with Una Daly and Heather Blicher.

Before joining OEGlobal, Una was director of College Open Textbooks and the ePortfolio Coordinator at the California Virtual Campus and Foothill College, where she taught in the Computer Technology Information Systems department. She holds a Masters in Teaching and Learning with Technology from Santa Clara University and an @One Online Teaching Certificate. Her initial career was in the computer industry, where she was a software engineer and manager at Apple, 3Com Corporation, and Motorola.

We will miss you Una! We know that the CCCOER community will do too!

The CCCOER Community’s wishes for Una

The staff at OEGlobal have set up a KudoBoard to share our experiences of Una and our wishes for her rewired future. Here are a few of the snippets from this board.

“Thanks for being a guiding light in the ever-changing world of OER. You were there facilitating every CCCOER webinar when I first started focusing on open and you grew and developed the community that I depended on to develop my work. Now I’m in the unique position to continue your work and I won’t let you down! Many hugs to you for the times you reached out and offered me the chance to be on a panel, a webinar, or write a blog post. It meant the world to me when you feel so isolated in certain positions. Enjoy your re-wirement and I hope to visit you on the West coast one day soon!”

Heather Blicher on Una’s Farewell KudoBoard

“Una, how will we feel your absence when your presence is so intrinsic to the field of Open Education that you helped to create? The presence of care, consideration, and kindness. The presence of wit and wisdom and whimsy. The creativity that arises from studying math and computer science. The workshops that once attracted single attendees and are now standing room only. The giant leaps that come from dreaming big. The goodness and kindness, as well as the stubbornness and determination, that you embody are so firmly the foundations of the field, that your absence won’t cause a collapse. Your presence will live on in thousands of future students who find a place in education because the door is open more widely, who see themselves in their learning materials, who are welcomed and supported by teachers who co-create with them, and who are inspired to learn their whole lives long. You will be present with us and with future generations of learners, in our minds and in our hearts.”

James Glapa-Grossklag on Una’s Farewell KudoBoard

“You have such a gift of bringing people together to share their strengths – which you did so beautifully in bringing the professional learning network around OER that CCCOER is. The relationships that you fostered, the knowledge you shared and the projects you have led, have created the foundation of much of OER in the community colleges. I feel so fortunate to be able to have worked with you but even more importantly to be able to call you a friend.”

Lisa Young on Una’s Farewell KudoBoard

“It was wonderful to work with you at OE Global! Thank you for all of your support and guidance for the RLOE program, and everything you built for the CCCOER. You have truly set the stage for the CCCOER to move into a bright and creative future!”

Karen Cangialosi on Una’s Farewell KudoBoard

“You have made an indelible mark on CCCOER and the broader open education community. You have been a source of inspiration for so many. I am deeply grateful that I got a chance to work closely with you these last few years on the CCCOER Executive Council. I’m thrilled that we saw one another again in Edmonton. Wishing you all the happiness and fulfillment in the next chapter of your life. With deep gratitude,”

Shinta Hernandez on Una’s Farewell KudoBoard

Share your wishes for Una’s Re-wirement!

Please add your experiences and stories of Una on the Farewell KudoBoard.

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

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OE Global Voices
OEG Voices 079: Significant Impact OER Award Winner Confident Supervisors
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OEG Voices 079: Significant Impact OER Award Winner Confident Supervisors

We continue to catch up on highlighting last year’s Open Education Awards for Excellence. In this episode we hear from five of the 31 authors of chapters in Confident Supervisors: Creating Independent Researchers which was recognized with a 2024 Significant Impact OE Award. The significant of this resource was not only its filling a gap of open education resources (OERs) for supporting graduate supervisors but also for its focus on smaller universities and universities in less developed countries with limited access to resources and support for this topic.

While this podcast was recorded back in October of last year, featuring this work now is appropriate as the process for nominations for the 2025 will begin in the next few months. The team’s pride in their award was reflected in the update of the OER’s cover image added shortly before we went into the recording studio.

Confident Supervisors: Creating Independent Researchers

And what we were really looking for was to provide supervisory practice information to very much be a get up and find what you need to know to supervise, maybe in five minutes, with somebody who you’ve got an issue with, or work with a supervisor who perhaps you wanted to invite onto the team, but you’re not sure how to make that happen.

So each of the chapters begins with, three sort of, or three to five points saying, “why would you read this chapter? Whatcha gonna find out?”, a little video that just introduces the author and tells you a little bit about it, an introduction, some crunchy content, and then each chapter finishes off with some resources…. different sorts of things all aimed at helping supervisors, supervisor developers, and leaders of supervision within universities and within research centers to be able to build these collaborative cultures where supervisors feel supported, feel enabled, and build capacity to create the next generation of researchers.

Confident Supervisors Editor Susan Gasson

This conversation was coordinated by project lead and editor Susan Gasson and we were joined from authors/editors of Confident Supervisors from several Australian universities.

In the podcast recording studio with clockwise from top left, Susan Gasson. Claire Ovaska, jill Blacker, and Alan McAlpine. Not pictured but part of the conversation was Santosh Jatrana.

In This Episode

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

In this episode, hosted by Alan Levine from Open Education Global, we dive into the “Confident Supervisors” project, a significant OER (Open Educational Resource) recognized with an Open Education Award for Excellence in 2024. The project brings together a diverse team who created an open access book aimed at empowering higher degree research (HDR) supervisors with practical tools and strategies to support international and non-English speaking students.

We kick off with insights from several key contributors:

  • Susan Gasson shares her journey and inspiration behind the book, emphasizing the collaboration and global impact it has achieved.
  • Jill Blacker highlights her editorial experience and collaboration efforts.
  • Santosh Jatrana discusses the challenges and solutions for supervising international students, particularly from non-English speaking backgrounds.
  • Alan McAlpine offers insights on career support for HDR students, stressing the importance of providing effective career advice.
  • Claire Ovasca provides an overview of the open access movement and the library’s support in the project’s success.

The episode also explores future plans for a second volume that will address diversity, equity, and the use of different methodologies. The team discusses the impact of making such high-quality educational content freely accessible, showcasing a spirit of openness and collaboration.

This episode encapsulates the spirit of sharing knowledge, enhancing supervisory practices, and fostering a more inclusive and supportive academic environment globally. Tune in to hear the team’s passion and dedication towards making HDR education more accessible and impactful for everyone involved.

(end of AI generated show notes)

Additional Links and Quotes for Episode 79

So how can we best up skill supervisors to have conversations that are beyond their own experience? … we’ll give advice, all well-meaning and all very well, but not necessarily something that is overly helpful or opens up the options for that student that’s sitting in front of them.

So the chapter provides some tools and helping them to help the student think and be empowered to take control of their own destiny. And not necessarily to get into that advice giving type model, but more how to ask questions that give the students choice, that empower the student to go and find out more information, to empower the student to actually think about what’s the right decision for them.

And in doing that we create far more useful educated people back out into society. Whether that be within the academy or outside the academy, it doesn’t really matter. But these are students, are individuals that we are educating to a really high level. So that’s really what motivated me to get involved.

Alan McAlpine

It just makes total sense for me to make such a fantastic resource well known and well received. And so looking at our metrics, I can confidently say that we are getting users from those countries that we were hoping to reach. We have strong use in Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, India. And believe it or not, America and the United Kingdom are also strong users.

So we just cannot assume that every university in, what is supposedly a first world country, has the resourcing to support their supervisors, to support their HDR students.

Claire Ovaska

Working with Abbe, Susan and the rest of the team to develop style guides and to connect with the authors. to connect with people that I hadn’t worked with before and broaden my own network ,that way was really helpful. Developing some tools we had a very big spreadsheet which was the heart of everything we did and everything was tracked in that spreadsheet.

So it’s a little bit old school, but it really was the thing that kept us all on track. We could really see where everything was at, and it allowed us to stick to our schedule, building slippage time, and meet our really idealistic goal of getting it done by the end of last year, and we were able to do that.

Jill Blacker

We hope this conversation not only inspired you to review Confident Supervisors: Creating Independent Researchers but also to start tihnking about OER you have co-created or put to use in your own open education efforts that shoul;d be considered for a 2025 Open Education Award for Excellence. Stay tuned to the OE Awards web site to learn when nominations open.


Our open licensed music for this episode is a track calledConfidence by 1st Contact shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Like most of our podcast music, it was found at the Free Music Archive (see our full FMA playlist).

Finally, this was another episode we are recording on the web in Squadcast, 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 except where indicated otherwise.