OpenCon Ohio 2024

OpenCon Ohio 2024 Conference: May 17

Registration

Registration is closed. Thanks to everyone who registered for OpenCon Ohio 2024! Registrants will receive details about the event. Keynote presentations, lightning talk videos, and other presentations will uploaded to this site after the conference.

OpenCon Ohio is scheduled for Friday, May 17. During the preceding week, there will be asynchronous lightning talk viewing and discussion on Discord. Friday, May 17 will be live, with two keynote presentations, an OhioLINK panel presentation, and a one-hour panel discussion on automatic textbook billing.

Keynote Speakers (May 17) via Zoom

Keynote 1: Strategic Synergy: Open Education, AI, and the Imperative for Innovating Opportunities, Dr. Elizabeth Robertson Hornsby

Dr. Elizabeth Robertson Hornsby is a former Assistant Professor, Fay Warren Reimers Endowed Professor in the Humanities, and Graduate Coordinator in the Department of Communication and Media Studies at Southeastern Louisiana University and an adjunct professor at Southern University at New Orleans. She served on the advisory board for the monograph series Pedagogy Opened: Innovative Theory and Practice and was a 2022-2023 OER Research Fellow with the Open Education Group. At Southeastern, Elizabeth led a redesign of the master’s curriculum, taught over 20 online courses, and contributed to online course quality processes. Through a statewide grant, she has co-authored a Fundamentals of Communication dual-enrollment OER and is currently authoring OER content for undergraduate and graduate strategic communication programs. Elizabeth has been involved in multiple initiatives related to online teaching and OER across the University of Louisiana System, including serving as the 2023 University of Louisiana System's Content Expert in Online Teaching and Learning. She believes that integrating AI thoughtfully into OER can promote student success if designed to enhance human relationships and interactions in education. Elizabeth has presented nationally, regionally, and locally and published in several journals on communication, media studies, and pedagogy. She is committed to exploring the potential of AI in OER while considering ethical implications.

Keynote 2: Brave New Worlds: Teaching, Writing, and Creating with Generative Artificial Intelligence, Liza Long

Liza Long is an Assistant Professor of English at the College of Western Idaho. She holds a B.A. in Classics from Brigham Young University (1994); an M.A. in Classics from the University of California, Los Angeles (1997), and an Ed.D. in Organizational Leadership from Argosy University (2016). Her dissertation research focused on mental health advocacy and leadership strengths. Liza’s book, The Price of Silence: A Mom's Perspective on Mental Illness (Hudson Street Press, 2014), was a "Books for a Better Life" award winner. She is passionate about both generative artificial intelligence and Open Education Resources. Liza completed the Creative Commons licensing course in 2020 and the Rebus Textbook Success Program in 2021. She is a current facilitator for Rebus, working with faculty to develop their open education resources, and she is also one of CWI’s “OER Champions.” Liza presented or co-presented at Open Ed in 2020, 2022, and 2023. With her colleague Joel Gladd, she developed open resources on writing and artificial intelligence in July 2023 and implemented generative AI tools in her writing courses. Using ChatGPT 3.5, she co-wrote Critical Worlds, a textbook for her literary analysis course.

More about the Conference

OpenCon Ohio will be completely virtual again this year. It is an annual regional event which celebrates the benefits of open education to student learning. Faculty, students, librarians, instructional designers, administrators, and others, are all welcome to this FREE series of presentations and discussions.

The OpenCon committee has prepared a conference that provides flexibility and engagement opportunities! Here’s what you can look forward to this year:

The theme of our event this year is innovation in open education.
The event begins on Monday, May 13th when attendees can view lightning talks at their leisure via Discord. Conference attendees are also encouraged to participate in asynchronous discussions via Discord.
On Friday, May 17th the conference will shift to synchronous discussion in our live presentations. Our first keynote presentation, given by Dr. Elizabeth Robertson Hornsby, will take place at 10:45 a.m. EST. Our second keynote presentation, given by Dr. Liza Long, will take place at 2:30 p.m. EST. An OhioLINK course redesign/Birds of a Feather event will be held at 12:00 p.m. EST, and a panel discussion on automatic textbook billing will be held at 1:30 p.m. EST. Presentations will be held via Zoom and participants can ask questions of the speakers.

We hope you can join us!