Location: British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT), Downtown Campus, Atrium Room, 8th floor (Room 825)

We use “open” as though it is free of ideology, ignoring how much “openness,” particularly as it’s used by technologists, is closely intertwined with “meritocracy” — this notion, a false one, that “open” wipes away inequalities, institutions, biases, history, that “open” “levels the playing field.”  -Audrey Waters, From Open to Justice

Spurred by the need to make research and education accessible to all, the open movement has gained ground as the Internet evolved to enable easy sharing of different forms of media and scholarship. Open practices are enabling faculty, staff and students at educational institutions in British Columbia and beyond to reduce barriers to research and education by opening their classrooms, incorporating new resources and perspectives, broadly sharing their data, and contributing to public knowledge. But the adoption of open scholarship cannot be assumed to free of biases and conflicts, and the impacts of open practices can differ depending on the context of those practices. Unaddressed tensions caused by “openness” can lead scholars, students, and community members to feel alienated, exploited, or unheard. Unexamined risks can lead to unintended outcomes for any open endeavours. 

Within these intersections lies an opportunity for open scholarship: to directly examine and acknowledge the tensions and risks inherent in openness, and to thereby create a space in which dialogue is generated and understanding of openness is deepened.  

Please join BCcampus, BCIT, SFU and UBC in celebrating International Open Access Week for a panel that examines the threads running through different tensions in the open movements, including: 

Featured speakers include: