Elections 2024

I am the product of OE Global’s informal mentoring leadership. In 2020 I started as a recent, first-generation graduate of Mexican American descent from Texas Woman’s University library school who received an OE Global scholarship, during the height of the pandemic, to attend a conference that she never attended in person. The OE Global conference was my introduction to “openness” and my eyes to hope for a better future. During that first conference, I was welcomed and encouraged to keep my education in openness and I completed, in the next year, my Creative Commons certification, and then the SPARC Open Education Leadership/Regional Leaders of Open Education Fellowships. OE Global helped me find my place in the United States’ Open Education and Open Texas conferences as a leader; and when I applied as an individual leader for OE Global and Creative commons Global, I was approved because of the many contributions that I completed. I am ready to lead in a global hemisphere along with my continued experience and expertise in the fields of Open Education and Open Culture. Beyond my contributions, my title at my institution has not changed. I hope to be the first Open Education Coordinator one day and my short term plans include creating the first OE Coordinator position.

Fundraising & Sustainability
Membership Growth and Engagement
Events and Services
In 2022-2023 I successfully led a group of grant writers, faculty, librarians, dean and academic staff to apply, twice because we learned what we needed to change for a second entry, to the US Department of Education Open Textbook grant. I continue to lead as a Grant Program Manager (GPM) for the Alamo Colleges OER Consortium. a three-year and $1.973 million dollar grant, that has a consortium over five community colleges in one district. In 2024 I started as a GPM and I oversee five budgets paying twenty-five faculty per year, a subscription to Pressbooks, librarians, students and an evaluator. In 2024, I am also leading, as the Open Texas Conference, as the Digital Experiences Chair, a group of OE enthusiasts to create the best experience for conference participants. I completed being the Treasurer and then President of the San Antonio College’s and District-wide Executive Staff Senates in 2023-2024. I have worked with grant and college budgets for almost 18 years for six grants. Besides creating the first Open Education Coordinator job description, I am working on creating the first Open Education badge for students to receive during their student development classes. The badge has components of Marketable Skills development for students to receive while they complete an Open Education Resource or Cultural artifact.

The future, the vision of Open Education Global begins with inclusive practices to increase more members. Embrace the adage, an Open Educator in every seat, and include individuals who values the Public Good. OE Global that embraced me, saw past my job description/title and experience. They saw my potential as an individual and invested in my future. I plan to continue with the practice of embracing individual members and enhancing the visibility of OE Global’s events and programs through their strategic plan.
OE Global’s 2021-2030 Strategic Plan aligns with my goals for the following:
1. Protect Open Cultures in the area of AI
2. Invite sustainability groups, such as H5P, to develop/define future policies on the viability of these platforms.
3. Increase Individual memberships to grow more Open leaders across the world

The OE Global Board of Directors need someone that has recent experience as a staff member that has experience in budgeting from community colleges, an individual member in OE Global and Creative Commons, and has experience in the OE Global, Open Education and Open Texas conferences. I propose that OE Global create a Marketable Skills Badge group that aligns with the UNESCO’s UNESCO ICT Competency Framework for OER. Students and educators need this group to help students identify their skills in OER work, for example, skills such as Critical Thinking, Personal Responsibility, Communication, and Social Responsibilities. Students and educators can utilize badges to help gain employment or increase their educational goals. Beyond marketable skills, I know that Artificial intelligence (AI) and OER are topics that are both futuristic and in the present a conflict with copyright and Indigenous lives. I hope to build events, more interactions with field experts and encourage indigenous co-exchange groups.

I am an Associate Professor in the Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching (CILT: http://www.cilt.uct.ac.za/) at the University of Cape Town (UCT). My portfolio includes postgraduate teaching, curriculum change projects, open education, and staff development. I hold the UNESCO Chair in Open Education and Social Justice (2021– 2025) and am member of the UNESCO UNITWIN Network on Open Education (UNOE). UCT joined Open Education Global in 2010 and I have participated in various roles, from the new members Board to conference and program Chair, hosting OE Global in Cape Town in 2017. I was a Sub-Project Lead in the Research on Open Educational Resources for Development (ROER4D) initiate, which included 26 countries and more than 100 researchers and later took on the role of Co-PI. I was a PhD candidate member of the Global Open Graduate Network (GO-GN), completing my PhD in 2016, and I am an alumnus. In 2018, I won the Best Research Paper awarded by GO-GN, and in the same year I was awarded funding from the International Development Research Council (IDRC) to launch the Digital Open Textbooks for Development (DOT4D) project. The project has since received institutional endorsement and is now a centrally-funded initiative. This work involves implementation, research and advocacy of the role of open textbooks in addressing social injustice in South African higher education, particularly as relates to the current cost and utility of prescribed textbooks. Through my internationally recognised research and community-building efforts, I was able gain the support from UCT and independent expert reviewers which led to my holding the UNESCO UCT Chair in Open Education and Social Justice at UCT. I am passionate about the role of open education in the changing world of higher education. My research includes analysing the role of open textbooks for social justice, particularly as relates to the role of students as co-creators as a means to address injustices related to epistemic representation and multilingualism. I also have a particular interest in the role artificial intelligence (AI) tools can play in addressing these imperatives. This research work dovetails with my role as an Editorial Board Member of the International Journal of Students as Partners (joined in 2022). In my work at UCT, I play a central role as a co-ordinating entity between stakeholders involved in practice and institutional management, serving on a number of key institutional teaching and learning committees with the potential to drive and institutionalise open education at UCT. At a national level, I play the role of key liaison and advocacy partner in the Open Textbooks in South African Higher Education initiative and was a co-host of the recent UNESCO Future of Open Education in South African Higher Education Symposium, held at UCT on 12 June 2024.08.25 I am currently the holder of a UCT Grand Challenges Pilot Grant focused on building capacity in simulation-based healthcare training through the use of open textbooks as part of an African Health Sciences Simulation Network initiative, which has more than 35 institutional partners institutions. This aligns with a key strategic agenda of my UNESCO Chairship, which is raise awareness of the potential of open education to address social injustice and extend the focus of DOT4D’s work beyond UCT – building partnerships between institutional, national, continental and international networks in order to leverage currently available expertise and build sustainable networks of collaboration.

3 Main Aims:
1) Bring a Global South and social justice perspective to OE Global current and future strategic plans
2) Build collaboration between UNESCO, OE Global and UNOE
3) OE Global growing the next generation of students and young researchers- representative of all knowledges.
1) Global South and social justice perspective: I believe that a demand for justice begins with knowledge and its transmission and will bring to the Board my lived experiences working in South Africa and seeing the injustices present in Higher Education. Open does not wipe away inequalities. In the pursuit of global knowledge sharing all knowledges should be valued and included. In order to move towards addressing these inequalities questions such as: Who is included and who is excluded in the geographies of knowledge? What is our current state of knowledge? How is it produced? How it is circulated and whose purposes does it serve? Whose voices are represented? This requires serious analysis of intersectionality and power. Is there a path to changing (or challenging) these hierarchies between North and South and rethinking how the flow of knowledge and education funding happens? In my work, I have been privileged to gain insight into both Northern and Southern discourses around open education, participating in conferences, panel discussions, keynote addresses and symposiums focused on both contexts. I have also had extensive experience in the research, implementation and advocacy dimensions of open education. This experience provides me with unique experience in terms of being able to straddle domains and maintain a bigger-picture perspective.
2) Building collaboration and relationships UNESCO chair in Open Education and Social Justice UNESCO has been and is a driving force of OER in strengthening universal access to educational resources. It has supported some of the most important conferences on the topic and the 2019 OER Recommendation. A significant number of UNESCO Chairs are engaged on the topics of OE and OER and have been extremely active over the years in a vibrant international community. UNOE In 2022, at a conference in Nantes, France, it was suggested that UNESCO Chairs involved in open education apply for the establishment of a UNESCO UNITWIN Network on Open Education. This is a highly competitive process and only two networks are allocated in Europe per year. After many hours of meetings and collaborative writing, the proposal was submitted in April 2023 and finally approved in November 2023. The network is formally managed by Nantes University in France and the goals are to support UNESCO-led open education initiatives, articulate an open education research agenda, raise funds and support the development of open education practice. UNOE will build on past and present activities of the member Chairs, with the goal of creating an impact in research, formal and non-formal education, community-building and software sharing. The network includes 16 representatives who have associations with UNESCO. The following countries are represented Canada, France, Spain, Brazil, Tunisia, Lebanon, Slovenia, New Zealand, Mexico, Uruguay, Morocco and Germany. The challenge in the next four years is to build evidence for the ability of open education to enable transformative justice. This network can foster research partnerships between the Global North and Global South, contributing to new ways of examining higher education. The network is still exploring a way forward and currently has no funding. We are building on our shared knowledge and will be presenting at UNESCO’s digital learning week on the potential of AI as a transformative innovation, suggesting that if it is guided by open principles, AI could sustain and promote social justice. My role in this network is to lead the research component.
3)Building the next generation of open educators Student partnerships Drawing inspiration from the UNESCO ‘Futures of Higher Education’ report (2021), there is a call to rethink education using a “radically different approach to higher education with a focus on openness, inclusivity and diversity”, “moving away from neoliberal competition towards higher education as a public and common good”. A key component of this disruption is a deliberate rethinking of existing pedagogies, moving forward from an intergenerational relationship between lecturers and students to “intragenerational” pedagogies where the presence of students is foregrounded, building a truly inclusive democratic HE system where students feel a sense of belonging (UNESCO,2021). My own research and the future research of UNOE has the underlying approach of co-constructing, co-designing and co-creating the agenda and the outputs that enables the recognition and representation of multiple voices. Student co-creation has been lauded as an important practice in higher education learning and teaching (Cook-Sather 2014). Within it, students are invited into a broad range of activities within their learning environments in which they are presented with opportunities to participate in the development and creation of resources and curriculum. With the increased interest in research around ‘students as partners’ and co-creation in teaching and learning, there have been many terms emerging in the field to refer to this work which have highlighted different levels of participation available for students. We (me, UNOE, future scenarios) want to imagine and aspire to future universities but we need to do this with our students. They are the academic practitioners and teachers of the future and it is their children who will attending these future institutions – they need to co-create the universities of the future with us.

OE Global performs a fundamental role in the open education ecosystem. As an organisation (from and outside perspective) the organisation seems to be growing and building momentum. There is growing awareness of open education. There is still more work to be done especially in under resourced parts of the world were OER are needed the most. The conferences bring together so many new and experienced practitioners and help to build collaboration and networks. There is currently so much conversation about the Future of education and universities, especially in relation to world’s global challenges, like climate change, countries at war and displaced people. Now more than ever OEGlobal must take a stand for social justice against big tech monopolies and competitive Neoliberal systems that continually marginalise and silence voices.

Strategic thinking about the role of OE Global and the future of open education

Events and Services OE Global, National events, UCT events, Project leadership roles, chairs of various committees at UCT, the organising committee of the UCT Teaching and Learning conference and my experience as the conference and program chair in 2017 OE Global Cape Town have prepared me well to support the area of ‘Events and Services’. Strategic thinking about the role of OE Global in the future of Open Education My work in open education has increased my international visibility and global network. I have built a reputation as a leader in open textbooks and open educational practice, leading to my appointment as a UNESCO Chair in Open education and Social Justice. The work done in the DOT4D project has been praised internationally and nationally, resulting in my Chair role and numerous international invitations to present in person and online at numerous events (see CV attached). In 2022, I collaboratively published five journal articles (two as first author), I have since first-authored one book chapter and co-authored two more articles. I have presented internationally, nationally and at institutionally. In 2022 I gave includes eight presentations, seven panel contributions and four workshops. The UNESCO Chair has also enabled international collaborative paper writing and has opened doors to new networks and audiences. I was invited to be a visiting scholar for one week by the Worcester Polytechnic Institute in the USA in January 2023. In 2023, I was also invited to give virtual seminars to audiences in Nigeria and Poland. I have developed considerable expertise in the field of open education through my work on my PhD and my project leadership in the ROER4D and DOT4D initiatives. These projects dovetail around the theme of open education and social justice. My recent focus is on open textbooks and the co-creation of teaching materials with students. My appointment with my student Christine Immenga to the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Students as Partners (IJSaP) (discussed further in Management, Leadership and Administration) is fortuitous as I am now embedded in a new area of literature and have found a potential space to further extend my research on open textbooks and student as co-creators – an area of study I view as a future imperative for higher education. Strategic thinking about the role of OE Global in the future of Open education. I have presented at various UNESCO and other events focused on ‘futures’ thinking and building communities around imagining the future of open education. These include imagining Global HE and OE futures and National South African futures Global and local events: The importance of OER for sustainable development. UNESCO chair seminar. Harnessing new and emerging technology for sustainable development in Africa. (30 November 2023) Open Education and social justice. Visions of education 2050. UNESCO chairs in Open, digital and distance education in the construction of the future. Hybrid event hosted at the Spanish National University of Distance Education (UNED), CUED. (19 December 2023) South African event: The future of Open Education in South African higher education symposium, which included academics and students at this hybrid event and we spent the afternoon looking at the future using a Three horizons methodology. (12 June 2024) UCT University of the future panel invitation. The guest keynote: ‘Creating Universities of the Future’ by Prof Ulf-Daniel Ehlers (14 August 2024) Looking ahead at the rest of 2024, I have been invited to speak in a panel: Global perspectives on the futures of higher education, I will take part virtually as this is a hybrid event held in Germany and managed by the University of the future network: “The future of the university: Global, sustainable and inclusive”. At the end of September 2024, I will be attending “Transforming knowledge for Africa’s future” hosted in Ethiopia by the French UNESCO commission. At the end of October, I will be representing UNOE at the Co-creating solutions through interdisciplinary collaboration for the future of education: Strategies for global funding Bootcamp in Bilbao in Spain.

I actively work on the digital transformation of the diploma, on open recognition (open badges, verifiable credentials) and educational identity (distributed systems) at the university of Lille, France (80 000 students, 6 500 staff). I have been advocating for Open Education at the French Ministry for Higher Education and at European level in the Peer Activity Group for digital skills and competences, after having served a the Digital University for Health and Sport Sciences as general secretary from 2009. I have been elected Director of Open Education Global in 2020 where I have launched and am still hosting the Open Education Global Francophone community together with benevolents from Camerun, Canada and Tunisia. I hold a Master degree of the university Paris Saclay in Law and a L.LM. degree of the university of Potsdam, Germany (suma cum laude). I have been a lawyer in merger and acquisitions at the Paris bar from 2002 to 2009.

I have been elected President of the board of directors on September 2023, 1st. I have worked together with Lisa Young and Connie Blomgren, vice-presidents, mainly on the chairing of the board and the co-executive committee (together with Marcela Morales and Igor Lesko). We have been also in charge of hiring and supervising the executive directorship and the fiduciary oversight. I have chaired the bylaws and policies committee and will take care of the warm welcoming of the new Directors. From September, I am setting up an “OpenEdLab” Committee to propose new tech ideas for a better impact of OER. I will also attend the Unesco Digital Learning Week in Paris in September 2024 and the Open Education Global Conference in Brisbane, during which I will be participating at the Unesco regional consultation (Europe and North America).

Open Education Global gives support and visibility to a wonderful community of teachers, engineers, students and learners, technologies lovers and many other staff in Higher Education, who believe in sharing education and scientific values, making all material accessible in many ways. I love the powerful idea of intellectual property law and technologies allies to improve the quality of educational material anywhere, including in regions with poor access to digital tools. With OpenEdLab, we wish to find ways to push the OER towards anyone, from teachers to learners, and make the movement better usable.

Fundraising & Sustainability
Membership Growth and Engagement
Events and Services
Operations including Legal & Finance
Passion, joy,
ideas and projects,
French as a language,
France and Europe as a region

Fundraising and Sustainability: having held various positions at French and European level and with connections outside the university thanks to a personal initiative called RedBay, with OpenEdLab Membership Growth and Engagement: as president, I am part of the committee on membership.
Events and Services: I host Open Education Global Francophone, a monthly webinar and participate to many conferences Operation including Legal & Finance: as a former lawyer, I was glad to lead the Bylaws & Policies committee, for example.
Other: I answer and share my knowledge to anyone and I have been succesful in convincing my vice president and many other to draft a strategy, which is currently being written at French level, as the pedagogical strategy vs the French strategy on Open Science.

It’s me Nawaraj Ghimire from Nepal, I am currently working an Assistant Professor and Head of the ICT Education Department at Tribhuvan University, Sanothimi Campus. My study focused on educational Technology with a strong focus on leveraging technology to enhance academics. My experience in creating digital content, organizing workshops, promoting educational events, promoting ORE resources, and FOSS activity. My potential excels in marketing, outreach, and collaboration. I am commitment to academic initiatives and professional development makes my a valuable asset to any educational community.

If elected to the board of directors for Open Education Global, I aim to increase the availability and accessibility of open educational resources (OER) worldwide, ensuring inclusive education for all. I plan to strengthen partnerships among global educational institutions, organizations, and stakeholders to promote the sharing of resources and best practices. Additionally, I will focus on developing and supporting professional development programs that enhance the skills of educators and administrators in effectively implementing OER. By leveraging emerging technologies, I hope to create innovative educational tools and platforms that support open education. Lastly, I will advocate for policy changes that sustain the adoption and integration of OER in curricula globally.

My vision for Open Education Global involves expanding the reach and impact of open educational resources (OER) to foster a more inclusive and equitable educational landscape. I aim to enhance global collaboration by building stronger partnerships between educational institutions, organizations, and communities, facilitating the sharing of knowledge and best practices. Additionally, I plan to support professional development initiatives that empower educators and administrators with the skills needed to effectively integrate OER into their teaching. Leveraging emerging technologies, I envision creating innovative and accessible educational tools that cater to diverse learning needs. Finally, I will advocate for policy changes that promote and sustain the adoption of OER, ensuring that open education becomes a fundamental aspect of global education systems.

Fundraising & Sustainability
Membership Growth and Engagement
Events and Services

I bring extensive expertise in educational technology, with a strong focus on leveraging digital tools to enhance learning outcomes. My background includes creating and managing open educational resources (OER), conducting professional development workshops, and leading academic initiatives. As an Assistant Professor and Head of the ICT Education Department, I have experience in curriculum development, instructional design, and integrating technology into education. Additionally, I have a proven track record in marketing and outreach, particularly in promoting educational events and initiatives. My skills in collaboration, communication, and project management enable me to work effectively with diverse teams to achieve shared goals.

Muhammad Hassan is the Executive Director of Nancy Thompson Learning Commons and a newly minted doctor in Educational Leadership. He is a visionary leader passionate about Open Access and dedicated to reducing equity gaps and making education more accessible. Since 2019, he has been leading the efforts of Open Educational Resources (OER). With over 15 years of dedicated service in Higher Education, Muhammad brings a wealth of experience to his role. He has consistently demonstrated his commitment to advancing learning and academic excellence for Kean University and the broader educational community through various leadership positions and contributions to the field.

If elected to the board of directors for Open Education Global, I would focus on increasing awareness and advocacy for Open Education by highlighting its critical role in promoting equity and inclusion across various educational levels. A key priority would be fostering strategic relationships between research-intensive universities and resource-constrained institutions, creating opportunities for resource-sharing, collaboration, and bridging educational gaps. I would work to expand international collaboration on OER projects, ensuring that open educational materials are globally accessible and culturally relevant. Supporting capacity building for educators would also be a priority, focusing on training and empowering them to implement and create OER effectively. I would promote innovative research and the dissemination of best practices within the Open Education community, encouraging the sharing of insights and success stories through conferences, publications, and digital platforms.

– Establish an “OER collaboration Network” where larger, resource-rich universities collaborate with smaller, under-resourced institutions to co-create open educational materials. This network would promote the sharing of expertise, technology, and content development to support equity in education and enhance the quality of resources available to all.
– Collaborate with multiple institutions in the network to investigate the impact of OER adoption on student performance and retention rates across diverse institutional types, with a focus on how OER reduces financial barriers and contributes to improved academic outcomes, particularly for underserved populations. This research could provide valuable insights into the long-term benefits of Open Access in closing equity gaps.

Membership Growth and Engagement
Events and Services

With extensive experience in higher education leadership, I have developed a strong skill set in membership growth, engagement, and events and services. As the Executive Director of the Nancy Thompson Learning Commons at Kean University, I successfully restructured the Learning Commons, leading a team of 80 staff to deliver impactful teaching, learning, and research support. My ability to foster collaboration and engagement is demonstrated through the implementation of faculty liaison programs and the development of faculty-focused communication strategies. Additionally, my role as an Open Educational Resources (OER) ambassador has involved engaging faculty and librarians across New Jersey in OER training and resource development. In terms of events and services, I have led the expansion of Learning Support Services, enhancing tutoring, writing, and academic coaching both in-person and online. I have also coordinated large-scale initiatives such as establishing an immersive learning studio and implementing digital repositories like the Digital Commons. I have also collaborated with many units on campus to successfully hold OER conference at Kean University. These efforts have contributed to increased engagement within the Kean community while also promoting the adoption of innovative learning resources and services.

• I have a PhD in German language and literature and a post-bacc diploma in instructional design. I have been an instructional designer at NorQuest College in Canada since 2016. During this time, I have led open initiatives at the college, including the adoption of open images in courses and the development of our college’s Open Education Reimagine Higher Education plan, which envisions Norquest as a largely textbook cost-free institution by 2030.
• I am co-director of the Open Education Alberta steering committee, which oversees the development of OER using the Pressbooks platform.
• I was a conference program committee co-chair for OE Global 2023 in Edmonton. This position provided me with good insight into conference and program organization, the United Nations sustainability goals and the UNESCO OER recommendations.
• I have a strong interest in building open connections. In 2023, I participated in a Global Affairs Canada Faculty Mobility scholarship project investigating open practices in Uruguay. This was a wonderful opportunity to exchange knowledge and build partnerships with the University of the Republic in Montevideo and Plan Ceibal, a teacher support organization. I will be presenting at OE Global 2024 in Brisbane and look forward to the opportunity to expand connections and partnerships with other open educators.
• I am a member of the Membership and Communications Committee for the Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources (CCCOER). This committee seeks ways to expand membership and keep members informed of membership benefits.

• First, I hope to fulfil all of the duties of a board member, from supporting OEG in its mission and purpose to setting board policies, to monitoring the ethical and legal integrity of the organization etc.
• I am excited by the role of OE Global as a connector between administrations, governments and educators and its role in promoting knowledge exchange about open education. I look forward to expanding global connections between all stakeholders in the OE ecosystem.
• OE Global is a wonderful conference and I am proud to have served as a program co-chair. This experience showed me that more can and should be done to encourage greater participation from the Global South. I would like to initiate discussions about grants and scholarships to support conference attendees facing financial challenges.
• I want to help OE Global support the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and the UNESCO OER Recommendations. Universal access to high-quality education will help to reduce inequalities and poverty, promote responsible consumption and provide decent work opportunities for everyone etc. Encouraging international and national OER policies and international cooperation between OER stakeholders will enhance the growth of open education.
• I want to assist OE Global in promoting the integrity of local cultures; for example, ensuring the availability of OER in local languages.

• I would like to support OE Global in its mission as a connector, an organization that facilitates partnerships and collaboration between different actors in the OE ecosystem. I would like to further expand open education networks to include other institutions involved in learning, for example, libraries, museums, galleries, as well as K-12 and post-secondary.
• I would like to support OE Global in expanding awareness about the social justice function of open education. I would like to push for more inclusivity at OE Global and Open Education Week by having more participation from the Global South. As mentioned, I would like to initiate discussions about possible funding opportunities for conference delegates facing financial challenges.
• I would like to promote open pedagogy as a way for OE Global to support UN SDG 4 — “inclusive and equitable quality education.” Open pedagogy empowers students and provides them with 21st century employment skills in researching, digital literacy, critical thinking etc.

Membership Growth and Engagement
Events and Services

• As a member of the Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources membership and communication committee, I have contributed to raising awareness about the benefits and activities of this organization.
• As Co-Director of Open Education Alberta open publishing I have worked to expand our scope of our activities and our membership.
• In terms of events and services, I organized the 2019 Alberta OER 2019 Spring Summit at NorQuest, a one-day conference for PSIs across the province involved in open education.
• More recently, I was a program co-chair for Open Education Global 2023 in Edmonton. This experience gave me experience in event organization, including conference theme and program creation, sustainable practices, timetabling and scheduling. We managed to create a unique co-governance model between the Indigenous House of Learning and the Faculty of Research and Academic Innovation. Our organizational efforts resulted in NorQuest receiving the City of Edmonton Business Event of the Year award.

María Soledad Ramírez-Montoya is a research professor at EGADE Business School and the Institute for the Future of Education, Tecnológico de Monterrey (Mexico). Level 3 in the National System of Researchers (Mexico). She coordinates the Interdisciplinary Research Group Scaling Reasoning for Complexity for All, as well as the Educational Technology Research Unit, with the implementation of training systems supported by Open Science and Technologies 5.0 strategies, linked to projects that apply the quadruple helix (university-industry-government-civil sector) and solutions for sustainable development. As Coordinator of the UNESCO and ICDE Chairs: “Open Educational Movement for Latin America”, she mobilizes, through networks, training, production and research initiatives for open education. In academic activities, Dr. Ramírez-Montoya trains talent for education with an emphasis on innovation and educational entrepreneurship.

1. Research & Networks

Expertise expanded:

11 years ago I lead the ICDE OER chair in Latin America, mobilising open education activities for distance learning environments, contributing to the development of open education in Latin America. For 9 years I have been coordinating the UNESCO Chair Open Educational Movement mobilising open education in Latin America. I collaborate with the main open education networks in the world and we carry out growth actions, linked to UNESCO’s goals. I have trained human resources in areas of open education, more than 30 PhDs, more than 200 researchers through research groups that I direct. I have coordinated more than 20 open education and open science projects in collaboration with academic communities on five continents.

As an open education enthusiast, I carry out collaborative projects that broaden their horizons in international environments, with a special interest in the growth of the Spanish-speaking community. Participating in the board is strategic to contribute to the direction of OEG, to promote its actions (conferences, projects, activities, documents) and to be a network for global collaboration. The LATAM node needs to continue to grow with the support of networks, UNESCO chairs and ICDE, in order to be a benchmark for open education, through training, research and innovation. My motivation and action goes in that direction and it will be an honour to renew my seat on the OEG board.

Concrete actions of the ideas and collaboration to further consolidate OEG are: (a) connecting UNESCO initiatives (such as the OER recommendations) with the OEG vision in order to foster actions for the global drive for open education. (b) linking the initiatives of large networks in which I participate (ICDE; WUN; Open Education Unitwin, J-WEL-MIT, KEN) to foster international partnerships that contribute to increasing an open culture. (c) to plan training activities (bootcamp, workshops, micro-courses) that enable the co-creation of open practices, open science, open infrastructures, open policies and open networks. (d) promoting OEG functions at conferences and events, with the aim of raising awareness of its activities, promoting the growth of its members and the impact of its actions (e.g. awards, conference). (e) encourage the promotion of OEG academic activities, networking, dissemination of open education research results, publications and fundraising to sustain OEG project activities.

OER author since 2006. Content creator with student participation to include a US History textbook. Presented research at 18 regional, state, national, and international conferences and workshops over the years. OER leader at Houston Community College.

Expand accessibility to low-income and visually-impaired consumers. Engage potential consumers at the macro level to include the use of student content and community involvement. Provide community access through more regional workshops and conferences.

I would like to see OEG becoming more holistic among its various arms. Working more closely and smoothly together in the promotion, development, and expansion of OER devotees.

Membership Growth and Engagement
Events and Services

My expertise includes content creation, remix, and reuse with student and community content. Broadly engaging the community in what is OER, why OER can benefit them, and how to use and even create their own OER. Providing support and services to the community. State committee member in the establishment of the state’s annual conference.

Dr. Takaya Yamazato is a professor and Deputy Director at the Institute of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Nagoya University in Japan. He earned his Ph.D. from the Department of Electrical Engineering at Keio University in Yokohama, Japan, in 1993. From 1993 to 1998, he served as an Assistant Professor at the Department of Information Electronics at Nagoya University. During 1997 to 1998, he was a visiting researcher at the Research Group for RF Communications at the University of Kaiserslautern. In 2006, he received the IEEE Communication Society’s Best Tutorial Paper Award. Dr. Yamazato initiated the Nagoya University OCW in 2005 and has been involved in its management and operation since then. He has been a board member of JOCW since 2005 and is currently a board member of OEJ. From 2016 to 2017, he was a member of the Board of Governors (BoG) of the IEEE Communication Society and was the Director of the Asia/Pacific Board. Additionally, from 2009 to 2011, he was the editor-in-chief of the Japanese Section of IEICE Transactions on Communications. He also chaired the IEICE Communication Society editorial board from 2020 to 2021. Dr. Yamazato’s research interests encompass visible light communication (VLC), intelligent transport systems (ITS), stochastic resonance (SR), and open educational resources (OER).

I have been one of the founding members of OEJ (formerly JOCW) and have been on the OEJ Board since 2005. Next year, in 2025, we will celebrate the 20th anniversary of open education in Japan. I am looking forward to using this milestone to further develop open education!

If possible, we would like to organize an OEG event next year to celebrate the 20th anniversary of open education in Japan. Such an event would give us the opportunity to look back at the progress we have made and to think about the future of open education.

Events and Services

I have organized numerous international conferences and symposia. However, most of them are in my field of research, and I must confess that I have little experience in organizing events in open education.