UKSG Open Educational Resources online seminar 2025

This seminar takes place over one day looking at how resources are being developed and promoted, and how others have approached the creation and management of OER policies. We welcome speakers from the UK and USA to this session.

When

Where

Wednesday, May 7, 2025 – 10:00 BST
to 16:30 BST

Online
United Kingdom

About the Event

Registration is now open, please click here to register

UKSG membership rate: £70+VAT

Non-membership rate: £82.00+VAT

Details of membership can be found at  https://www.uksg.org/join


The next few years will see a continual increase in the amount of materials created by educational and aligned organisations, much of which will be accessible to peers, students and the general population across the globe. The opportunities for sharing Open Education Resources are greater than ever. This widespread change has led to many ethical and practical questions around ownership, hosting and copyright. This seminar explores the current OER landscape, looks at how some of these issues are being addressed, and highlights the opportunities presented by the growth of OER resources.


Delegates will have a chance to hear from a variety of different perspectives, which will include how open resources can support teaching and learning, how resources are being developed and promoted, and how others have approached the creation and management of OER policies. This course is aimed at anyone who is keen to understand more about Open Educational Resources, with a view to creating them, making use of them for teaching and learning, or creating policies around them. 

DO NOTE:  We welcome participants from all corners of the globe to join our seminars, however speakers and topics for this event are generally UK focused and times are in BST, if you have any doubt about the suitability, please don’t hesitate to contact us. 


The seminar will be of interest to those working across the scholarly information industry, including publishers, librarians, teachers, lecturers, learning technologists, research support staff, other aligned professionals and students.


At the end of the course participants will:

  • Gain a wide overview of the current OER environment across the UK and US
  • Learn about the opportunities and challenges of implementing an OER policy at an organisational and national level
  • Discover benefits and opportunities of engaging with the creation of OER content

The webinar tool we use is Go to Webinar.   To test your system ahead of time visit https://support.goto.com/webinar/system-check-attendee


The sessions will be recorded and available to all registered delegates after the event, so if you unable to join us live or want to review any presentation this will be available.


UKSG wants to provide the best possible experience for all our delegates, making presentations as accessible and inclusive as possible.  Our intention where possible is to strongly encourage our speakers to provide auto generated closed captioning for both live and recorded events as well as to make sure their slides as easy as possible for all people to read. In addition, we can provide auto generated transcripts post event for each of the recorded sessions.

If you have particular accessibility needs or questions about this seminar, we welcome you to contact us directly at events@uksg.org prior to booking your place.


Programme

  • Morning session
  • Afternoon session

Time

Programme

Speakers

10:00

Welcome and Introduction
Note: All times BST

See Biography

Klara is the Journals and E-Resources Librarian at the Royal College of Art. She has responsibility for managing and developing the RCA’s online collection of journals and databases, as well as maintaining the current and archived print journal collections. She also contributes to the work of a number of committees across the library sector.

See Biography

Ai is the Assistant Director (University Collections and Digital Services) at the University of Essex. She oversees the University Collections including University’s Special Collections, Archives, and Art Collections, while also leading the development of digital infrastructure and services. She previously worked as the Academic Liaison Librarian (Business and Law) at the University of Essex. Her contributions include initiatives such as Decolonising the Library, Skills @ Essex, and the Race Equality Charter.


10.05

Session 1: The Death of the Textbook

As an educational tool, the commercial textbook in its traditional form is obsolete and yet the sector remains wedded to an outdated paradigm that serves neither the needs of the student or the academy. What are the alternatives? We present the results of a pilot programme at Coventry University where the commercial textbook has been discarded in favour of a shift to Open Content. Is this the beginning of a (re)new(ed) paradigm or a Canutian exercise in futility?

Phil Brabban

See Biography

Having initially trained and worked as a Secondary School English and Drama teacher, Phil swiftly made the decision to alter course, changing career to follow a life of excitement and high adventure in Librarianship. He began his career at Durham University in 1999 where he worked for several years, most significantly as an ‘accidental’ Systems Librarian. Phil has worked at the University Library at Coventry since 2007 in a number of leadership roles and was appointed University Librarian in 2014. Now, as Chief Librarian, he carries responsibility for the operational and strategic direction of the service across the entire University Group. Phil has been a member of SCONUL’s Executive Board since 2022 and is co-Chair of the SCONUL Content Strategy group.

See Biography

Dal is the Head of Learning Resources and Student Experience at Coventry University, focusing on Open Educational Resources. With a career in academic libraries spanning nearly three decades, Dal began as a library assistant in 1996 and has since held various roles, including Project Manager for one of Europe’s largest textbook schemes. Passionate about accessible learning, she is dedicated to enhancing student experiences through innovative resource strategies.


10.40

Session 2: Taking a strategic approach
to embedding the institutional use of OERs

In 2022 the University of Sheffield approved an OER policy, supporting the re-use, re-purposing and adaptation of existing OER, and the creation of new OERs. To implement the policy, a proactive approach was taken, with the formation of a cross-faculty OER Working Group. This group was tasked with promoting policy awareness, fostering an OER community, identifying guidance and support for staff and making recommendations in support of the policy. In this talk we will review the steps taken so far to move to a position where the use of OER is embedded as standard practice at Sheffield.

See Biography

Louise Robson is a Professor of Digital Innovation in Learning and Teaching at the University of Sheffield, with over 30 years experience in teaching. A PFHEA and an NTF, she is known for her work around using digital technologies to enhance the student learning experience, e.g. lecture capture and active learning. She is also a strong advocate for the use of inclusive approaches in student learning. As the chair of the University of Sheffield OER Working Group, she leads the group to deliver the actions needed to embed the use of OERs into learning and teaching activities at the university.


11.05

Session 3:


11.30

Break


11.40

Session 4: Open for Good: Strategic support for OER at the University of Edinburgh

At the University of Edinburgh we believe that OER and open education are strongly in keeping with our institutional vision; to discover knowledge and make the world a better place. During this session we’ll be exploring how Edinburgh has embedded strategic support for OER across the institution, through the implementation of a permissive OER Policy, supported by a range of central services. We’ll introduce case studies, highlight the importance of developing copyright literacy skills, touch on our commitment to student engagement and co-creation, and provide recommendations that other institutions can follow to enable them to adapt and adopt this model.

See Biography

Lorna is the manager of the Open Educational Resources Service (https://open.ed.ac.uk/) at the University of Edinburgh. She has over 25 years experience working as a learning technologist and has a longstanding commitment to supporting open education. As an open practitioner and open knowledge advocate, Lorna blogs about open education and knowledge equity at Open World (https://lornamcampbell.org/).


12.05

Session 5: Building it Together: Developing an Open Textbook community of practice in the UK

The Open Education Network (OEN) is a mature community of practice in the US, which has over 1,800 member institutions and is committed to making open the default in higher education. Brunel University of London Library joined the OEN in 2023 and has been collaborating with library colleagues across the UK to convert the OEN model to a UK environment. This talk will report on the academic engagement and adoption strategies applied at Brunel and the formation of a new UK community, in which librarians across the UK and Ireland are given peer support to develop their open practice

See Biography

David Beales is the University Librarian at Brunel University of London. David has a range of experience in US and UK higher education, research and parliamentary library environments and most recently worked at the House of Commons Library as the Head of Research Information. David’s areas of expertise include Open Education Resources, collection evaluation and Big Deal modelling.


12.30

Lunch Break


Time

Programme

Speakers

13.30

Welcome back

 

Lancaster University

See Biography
Tim Leonard is Associate Director: Space, Experience and Innovation at Lancaster University Library. He oversees the development of the Library’s learning spaces, its frontline services team and digital systems.
Tim has worked in academic libraries for over 20 years and has held positions at Lancaster, the University of Bolton, Manchester Metropolitan University and Cardiff University. He is a member of UKSG’s Education and Events Subcommittee and represents Lancaster in a range of groups with RLUK and Academic Libraries North. His professional interests include learning space design, environmental sustainability and innovative technologies in libraries.

University of Sheffield

See Biography
Andy Tattersall is an Information Specialist at the Division of Population Health at The University of Sheffield. Andy writes, teaches and delivers talks and training about research communications (including podcasting, blogging, social media, video/animation, infographics), digital academia, open research, web and information science and altmetrics. In particular, their application for research, teaching, learning, knowledge exchange and collaboration. Andy received a Senate Award from The University of Sheffield for his pioneering work on Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) in 2013 and is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Andy was named in Jisc’s Top 10 Social Media Superstars. He was a member of the Cilip Digital Technology Committee (MmIT) for 10 years (2 as Chair) and is a member of the UKSG Events and Education Committee. Andy co-wrote and edited a book on Altmetrics for Facet Publishing which is aimed at researchers and librarians. https://linktr.ee/andy_tattersall

13.35

Session 6: Games as OERs: putting the fun in fundamental discussions

 


14.00

Session 7: Making OA textbooks a reality

Open Book Publishers

See Biography

Rupert Gatti is a Fellow in Economics at Trinity College, Cambridge and co-founder of Open Book Publishers – a non-profit open access scholarly book publisher. He is also a Steward (Trustee) of the Open Book Collective – a charity facilitating collective library funding for “Diamond” open access books – and an active participant within the Copim community developing open infrastructures to support OA book publishing.


14.25

Session 8



14.50

Break


15.00

Session 9: Opening Learning For All: MERLOT’s & SkillsCommons’ Open Educational Resources, Practices, and Services.

With access to the internet, academic education and workforce development can be open to all whose learning opportunities have been limited by economics, cultures, politics, and more. Free and open educational resources are not sufficient to transform educational opportunities for learners, teachers and institutions. Open educational practices and services are essential to empower and accelerate educational opportunities. The presentation will highlight MERLOT (Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching) and SkillsCommons free and open libraries of resources, practices, and services, with examples of individual, disciplinary, and institutional initiatives to provide affordable learning solutions for all.

See Biography

Gerry Hanley Ph.D. is the Executive Director of MERLOT (Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching, www.merlot.org) and SkillsCommons (www.skillscommons.org). At California State University Long Beach, Gerry is the Director of the Center for Usability in Design and Accessibility and Professor Emeritus of Psychology. Gerry’s previous positions included Assistant Vice Chancellor for Academic Technology Services at the California State University Chancellor’s Office, Director of Strategic Planning and Director of the Center for Faculty Development at CSULB. He received his BA, MA, and PhD from the State University of New York at Stony Brook in Experimental/Cognitive Psychology.


15.25

Session 10


15.50

Panal Session


16.25

Closing remarks and wrap up


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