This month a few of the long standing volunteers of our network are getting together to try and re-energise some elements of our community activities. Whilst much has happened over the past few years, activities like the curation of our twitter account and amplifying the posts tagged with the #femEdTech hashtag have been difficult to sustain.
Since February then, each month for me started with #FemEdTech, first stepping back into the role of curator myself and also working together with other volunteers to set up a sustainable workflow that would enable others to get involved once again.
During the course of the year, we updated the information to get involved and the form to sign up, which, if you haven’t yet come across it, is available on the FemEdTech Open Space.
in April, our first official ‘guest’ curator took the the helm (thank you, Anne-Marie, for being our trailblazer this year) and from then on all months except for June, when I was back in the curator slot, were led by members of the community: Giulia, Clare, Sarah, Catherine, Leigh and Dani, handing over to Lorna just yesterday.
It was amazing to see individuals giving time and energy once more, to reinvigorate our corner of a social media platform which turned increasingly toxic as the year progressed. Maybe, in future our conversation may move elsewhere, but for this year, our network came back together around the #FemEdTech hashtag. And what a year we had.
It was a wonderful day which infused me with hope and gratitude and joy, and reminded me of the power of this community and the #femEdTech network and why I contribute.
Handing over lead curation
Since January, I have enjoyed acting as lead curator, and now I am grateful to hand over this role to Lorna, who will be at the helm of supporting guest curators for the next period. It’s fantastic to see that after the unavoidable hiatus in 2020/21, the conversation has been re-energised and continues to connect and amplify voices.
I am already looking forward to signing up for a curation slot in 2023, and to see where our conversations lead us next year, on Twitter #femEdTech and maybe elsewhere, too.
Preparations are in full swing for ALT’s Annual Conference this September, and we are working hard to design a hybrid conference programme that reflects our values and the needs of our Members.
In the past we have openly shared ALT’s expertise designing and delivering innovative online events, and during the early days of the pandemic we published resources about running events online. This blog post continues this practice, sharing our thinking for hybrid conferences.
Our approach to hybrid
The question we started with was what a ‘hybrid conference’ means for us. We have over a decade of experience running wholly online conferences as well as in person conferences with an online element, such as live streaming keynotes for example.
For our approach to hybrid conferences, we wanted to ensure that we make the most of a return to in person session formats, enabling participants to engage in discussion and collaboration without the constraints of being live streamed or having to interact with participants online in every session.
At the same time, we want to continue to offer Members the opportunity to participate and contribute online, and to connect with everyone who is at the event.
Whilst the majority of events we run are openly accessible as a membership service, our two large conferences a year have to cover their costs and contribute to our income as an independent charity. Fees for this year may be the lowest in five years for our Annual Conference, but we are well aware of the squeeze on budgets and inequalities in income. Alongside our scholarship programme, online participation offers a lower financial barrier to participate.
We work also within the operational constraints of what we can make possible in the venue we work with, with the limited financial resources we have and also what expertise we have to deliver the event.
It’s important to us that the way the event is run and organised reflects the Association and its values, and that makes us reluctant to give external organisations control over how the event is delivered or indeed who keynotes. Whilst we value the support from our sponsors and partners enormously, we have also set clear limits of what we offer in return for that support and that, too, shapes how we organise events.
Earlier this year, we had a fantastic opportunity to run our first hybrid conference, OER22, and learn from that experience. Building on the lesson learnt, we designed our conference programme to:
Start and finish online, bringing everyone participating together;
Deliver all keynote sessions online and in person, with in person speakers where possible;
Design the programme to accommodate most UK travel to and from the event on conference days;
Find a balance between online and in person programming that is reflected in the fee structure;
Account for staffing for simultaneous online and in person delivery.
An unknown quantity: Submissions and Peer Review
Our Conference Call for Proposals opened for submissions after we had to start designing the programme, and the largest unknown quantity was that we had no sense of how many submissions we would get, how many would be for online and how many for in person, and what percentage would make it through the Peer Review process.
With OER22 we started to ask participants to choose a format (including whether they wanted to present in person and online) at the time of submission, and this worked well, with only 1% of authors requested to change this subsequently.
We thus used the same approach for submissions for the Annual Conference, asking authors to choose what format they wanted to present in from the outset.
The Call for Proposals opened on 6 May and we sent out the initial decisions to authors on 23 June. Those weeks can feel like a long time in which to wait to see the shape of your conference programme. Here is what we hoped for an what happened:
No of submissions: We aimed for receiving 100 – 150 submissions. We received 132!
Online/in person split: We planned for 35% online / 65% in person. We received 29% submission for online, 71% for in person sessions.
Acceptance rate: the initial acceptance rate is ~70% after round 1 of the review process. Depending on how many authors submit revisions and how many of those are accepted, this may increase. Overall these rates are in line with previous years.
We won’t know all papers that will feature in the programme, until all accepted authors have registered and all outstanding revisions have been submitted later this month.
(Incidentally, if you are an author in need of help or you have questions, contact helpdesk@alt.ac.uk ).
Programme design
Work in progress: Screenshot of the draft programme for the conference.
Now that we have a better idea of the submissions for the conference, we can start to work on the actual programme, scheduling sessions and working out conflicts in scheduling.
Pre-Conference activities
We will run pre-conference activities 31st August to 5th September and these will be open to all and free to attend. This is an important point, as these activities include sessions run by our Special Interest Groups and Members Groups. During this time we also run participant orientation sessions online, helping to onboard everyone on the conference platform and starting the conversation in our social space.
Twice daily speaker orientation sessions will help prepare speakers to present either online or in person and pick up logistical questions about session formats and session chairing.
6th September – Conference Day 1
The morning of day 1 will be online with an online welcome and live sessions including video posters. In the afternoon, the programme will be in-person. Keynotes will be live-streamed to online participants. In the evening, we will hold the 2022 Learning Technologist of the Year Awards.
7th September – Conference Day 2
Day 2 will be in-person and in parallel we will stream pre-recorded sessions with live online discussion. Keynotes will be live-streamed to online participants as well. In the evening, we will celebrate the launch of Digital Transformation, our collaboration with ITN Productions as part of our conference gala.
8th September – Conference Day 3
The morning of day 1 will be in-person, again with sessions online as well. In the afternoon, the programme will move to online only. Keynotes will be live-streamed to online participants. In the evening, the conference after party will be online and hopefully see the return of #altc radio on the airwaves.
What’s next…?
Designing the hybrid events programme is only one of many steps on the road to #altc22, and we’ll continue to share our practice as we go along. We hope you will join us in September!
Wow. It’s really happening. This time, we are hitting not only the virtual but also the physical road again in order to journey to the OER Conference. OER22 here we come!
The last time the OER Conference took place as planned as in Galway in 2019, and since that time, three years ago, no edition of this very special event has gone to plan. In 2020, OER20 pivoted online with less than two weeks to go, and became very much a pandemic conference. In the crisis mood of those early days of the pandemic, OER20 became a free event with refunds winging their ways across the globe to participants who suddenly had a lot more to worry about than a cancelled conference.
Helloooer CC-BY Bryan Mathers
When I look back at the posts and reflections from that year, it really hits me how much the world changed for all of us, and for this event as well. Our small staff team worked wonders to make this one happen.
In 2021 we did plan to hold OER online, and then decided to join forces with the Domains Conference from Reclaim Hosting, bringing two communities together for what turned out to be… a journey into the wonderful unknown. OERxDomains21 was born.
Title image from the OERxDomains21 programme
I organise, speak at and go to a lot of different conferences of all shapes and sizes. Each conference has its own way of working, and there are some big differences between them.
The OER Conference feels to me very much like a labour of love. It has its own voices, its own way of interpreting the criteria for peer review, its own priorities of what is important and what is not.
I have had the privilege of being involved in organising this event since 2015 and in that time I have learnt much about the generosity of the people who shape this event, their shared passion for open education and the values that connect them.
Inspired by the OER Conference I became an open practitioner and an open leader myself. I joined the community that this conference supports here in the UK and increasingly in other countries, too. Through the OER Conference I made connections with others who lead important work in this space, and I am grateful to be part of an expanding network, a community that is coming together again this week.
We are coming together in person and online to recharge and re-connect. To share, learn and discuss. I am so excited to see friends, colleagues and new acquaintances in person and online. For those who are unable to take part, there will be a lot of OER Conference goodness openly shared and disseminated after the event, adding to what is now a substantial collection of videos and resources.
Let there be penguins!
As you may have noticed by now, the GO-GN Penguins have taken over OER22 for this year, and they are truly everywhere, both online and in the physical world. I recently shared a True Story of how a Westminster meeting led to… penguins. I am deeply grateful to the creative, collaborative and collegiate minds at Visual Thinkery and at GO-GN for helping us bring this year’s event to life with these penguins centre stage. Usually I am more of a shoe(tweet) sort of conference goer, but I must admit that the penguin theme defeated my shoe selection… so I went a little overboard and decided to go fully ‘on brand’ in a different way for OER22.
A photo of my hand with painted nails, one of which is an image of a penguin
… and there is a session, too
In the last bit of the programme on Thursday, I am excited to actually get to lead a session in the programme! Long-time colleague and friend Lauren Hanks, Director of Operations at Reclaim Hosting and one of the Co-Chairs of last year’s edition of the OER Conference, and I, are getting together to reflect on the connections between open education and open approaches to online collaboration and work.
Title slide for our session: Open in action – building connections in virtual teams.
As leaders of virtual teams, we want to critically examine what lessons we can learn from open approaches to learning and teaching and how we can use that knowledge in an increasingly virtual workplace.
This session builds on a recent episode of the Remote Work Show on DS106 Radio, in which we started to unpack some of this (recording to follow).
We are currently recruiting for a Chief Operations Officer for ALT, and I couldn’t be more excited!
It’s always great when you get to grow your team, particularly when there are only seven of you and each individual makes a big impact.
Why this role, why now?
We are the leading professional body for Learning Technology in the UK – and we have been pretty busy in the past eighteen months! Learning Technology has never been more in demand and as a consequence the work we do to support our growing community has increased month on month.
After a year of supporting our Members through the global crisis, we have re-grouped and set out a strategic plan for the year ahead. 2020 was a tough year for us an independent charity as we traditionally generate half of our annual turnover from two face to face events. Thanks to our prudent financial strategy in past years, we had reserves to help us through times of crisis.
Now we are planning ahead for post-pandemic times. Whilst we have an excellent track record delivering online activities and a lot of expertise in virtual events, we don’t just want to follow our old ways. Instead, we are starting to innovate and that has helped us redistribute our income streams and ensured that we are back to generating the charitable income we need to achieve our mission. Next, we are looking to develop blended ways of doing things and improving what we are already good at.
In order to achieve that, we have created a new role and are looking to grow our staff team:
The Chief Operations Officer (COO) is responsible for day-to-day operation of ALT, including technical infrastructure and systems used to deliver ALT’s services to 3,500 Members. The COO acts as the Deputy for the Chief Executive and represents and advocates for ALT with our key stakeholders across sectors.
This is an opportunity to see projects through from conception to completion and play a part in shaping how we work and what we do. You will be reporting directly to and working closely with ALT’s CEO and have opportunities to develop your own skills in running an organisation in an innovative and human way.
https://www.alt.ac.uk/about-alt/work-us
If that sounds like the kind of work you would enjoy, read on.
For the past few months it’s been all ladies working in the team, and we are making a real effort to recruit the best candidates for each job whilst increasing the diversity of our team, which is a big priority for us (all recruitment and selection is undertaken in line with ALT’s aims and values and in accordance with ALT’s policy on equality and diversity).
As it stands, we are based in three of the four nations in the UK; three of our team, that is 42%, are currently completing a PhD (and one of us already has hers) and over 40% of the team are either Certified Members of ALT or currently working towards their accreditation.
As far as I know we have 5 cats and 5 dogs between us, and come Friday plenty of unicorns, too (Fridays we usually celebrate ‘unicorn’ day, a tradition even those of us who are not generally into things that are pink and fluffy have come to appreciate).
We have a real range of backgrounds and have a former chartered surveyor as well as an expert in Victorian cemeteries in the team. As many of us work part-time, mostly 3 and 4 days a week, it’s quite common for us to have other responsibilities to focus on, be that studies, kids or other interests.
If you’d like to find out what it is like for us working as a virtual team, read our blog post from earlier this year, celebrating three years as home-workers. Find out what our highlights and lowlights of pandemic working have been and how we thrive as a virtual team.
When I first started working for ALT, as an Assistant Administrator (Maternity Cover) in 2008, I was just finishing my PhD and I had no inkling that a career in Learning Technology was ahead of me. As it turns out, the field has proven so interesting and challenging that I find always something new to do and to learn.
The senior team of a small organisation is an exciting place to be. I love the freedom it gives me to make things happen, to be able to respond to the changing needs of our community without having a complicated hierarchy to negotiate. We believe in robust and transparent governance, and we get things done.
I am proud to be part of a journey that has seen the size of our membership double several times since 2008, and writing our Impact Report 2021 has reminded me of how much we achieve as an organisation and as a team. For me it’s an exciting place to be with a good dollop of life/work balance and a team culture we all benefit from.
Working for an independent charity with a staff team of fewer than ten people is a very different value proposition than working for a large institution such as a university or a commercial organisation with thousands of employees. For me, it’s a rewarding leadership position that allows me to practice what I preach 🙂
Not a working day… looking out over Cardiff countryside
Find out more
If you are interested to find out more, head over to the ALT website or contact me for an informal conversation.
Apply by sending us your covering letter and your CV by 17 September 2021.
All candidates will be notified after the initial short-listing by the end of September and short-listed candidates will be invited to online interviews in October.
OERxDomains21 is still going on as I am writing this and I am looking forward to some great post-conference workshops closing a week of extraordinary online open education conferencing. If you haven’t already done so, there are a couple of things you don’t want to miss:
All the sessions are now openly accessible to all, as part of our commitment to the Open COVID for Education pledge. Browse the keynotes, dig into research, learn about policy making… and get a flavour of the care that every presenter brought to the event.
Browse some of the goodness being shared on the #OERxDomains21 hashtag.
No conference is ever a perfect enterprise, and it’s always valuable and welcome to hear feedback of things that could have done better, things to do differently next time.. and how it went for you. If there’s anything you’d like to share with me, email ceo@alt.ac.uk 🙂
WE DID IT [not AGAIN].
For me, my team and the organisation I lead, OERxDomains21 was a conference of firsts…
… the first time we had FIVE Co-Chairs – who brought all their expertise, passion and ideas to bear.
… the first time participants remixed 159 conference badges.
… the first time we recorded 220 of 236 participants synchronously networking online on Discord, flooding the Hallway Chat, Introduction Channel and resource pool with contributions.
… the first time that these two organisations (ALT & Reclaim Hosting), and two conferences (OER and Domains), mashed up together to create this new, joint event bringing two communities together.
… the first time that we delivered a synchronous and asynchronous programme for participants from 18 countries and plenty of time zones for a total of 75 hours of programming.
… the first time that we found streaming platforms that made high quality recordings immediately available to participants and then to the public, enabling late arrivals to catch up and supporting delegates from across the globe.
… the first time we delivered an event with a staff team of 11 (up from the usual 5-6), many of whom had never met before.
… the first time that we delivered an online event without Martin Hawksey, who headed up ALT’s event delivery for the past seven years (waving to you, Mr Hawksey, I hope we did you proud :).
… the first time anyone had the most special TV programme design that went from emails to programme pages and beyond thanks to the work led by Reclaim Hosting, enabling our participants to quite literally step into their own Community TV Channel.
… the first time we managed staff handover between time zones seamlessly between sessions as one staff team ended their day and the other arrived.
There are also plenty of things we did again:
We funded 100% of all eligible scholarship applications, offering financial support to presenters and participants.
We supported nearly 50% of participants in delivering a session, a total of 100+ presenters over 2 days.
We welcomed ALL our volunteer session chairs on time and in the right virtual room – making it possible for our staff team to focus on technical support whilst putting our Conference Committee and speakers centre stage.
We organised the event with an open Committee meeting regularly and all of which notes and minutes are openly accessible in the months running up to the event (thank you!).
We carried out a double blind peer review process – for the first time since the pandemic started.
We supported student speakers to attend and speak at the conference.
My lists could go on… 🙂
The point I want to make, is that it’s not usual for an independent charity like ALT to take risks on this scale to create something that will help sustain the heartbeat of this community for another year. Last year’s OER Conference, which had to be refunded fully and lost tens of thousands of pounds, left the future of the event uncertain and various other factors only increased the risks we were facing.
But we took risks and they paid off. And to quote Jim Groom, it’s been a career highlight for me, to lead my team on a rollercoaster ride which ended in an event we are all proud of. WE WILL DO IT AGAIN.
Earlier this year, I blogged about that I feel I am starting a ‘new job’ as things have changed so much over the past year… so this week on Friday I am having a strategy away day, pandemic style.
CEOs often get asked what success will look like in 3, 12 and 36 months. Asking yourself that question is a useful way to get your own thoughts in order and prioritising short, medium and long term goals.
Often, the kind of success measures or KPIs you’d include range from internal to the organisation to external stakeholder groups, from local to national to international. That’s the kind of thing an Impact Report is made for and that is important – but not helpful for me just now.
I am looking to re-imagine, to re-assess and to start from a blank page. Cue a bit of drawing and colouring…
Putting pen (and brush) to paper
I find it helpful to start with a blank page and the first thing I drew was a little flag, planted at the start of the year. It marks the launch of ALT’s (then) new strategy for 2020-25 (…best laid plans etc).
From there, it was a story of firsts… the first pivot online… our first ever fully online OER conference… the first time that we ran an event with 1,000+ registered participants, and the first ever time that we had to fully refund hundreds of paying delegates AND the first time those participants donated nearly £10,000 to help cover the losses we were making.
The first time that we drew up an emergency budget and plan just two months after setting the first ones… the first time we made an emergency strategy and held an emergency Board meeting.
In June we held our first ever fully online AGM with in-house voting. And in July, ‘business as usual’ included open calls for volunteers, editors, committee members – all for activities which were changing continuously.
Our first ever online Summer Summit took place in August, the first ever fully online awards short-listing process in September and the start of term saw us provide a second wave of support webinars, resources and care for an increasingly exhausted membership, preparing for an academic year that would be like… no one knew.
In November we launched our first ever CMALT Accelerator workshops and in December the Winter Conference saw our first ever online Awards Ceremony and first ever Community Award to every Learning Technologist.
By the end of the year, we had also published 49 new research papers, double the average number and the first time that we reached such a high number of publications.
A year of firsts – pandemic style.
Doing this drawing, sitting and thinking, letting my pen guide my thoughts, is incredibly helpful. It allows me to see beyond the KPIs and budget columns – and these don’t feel terribly meaningful anyway in a global pandemic context.
What does feel meaningful to me is the picture I have in my head of the past year. A picture of an agile, learning organisation where everyone contributed to us achieving a lot of successful firsts.
I also see thousands of professionals whom we have supported through the ups and downs of 2020… from sharing open resources and offering full scholarships to running support webinars and providing much needed CPD.
I like the idea of last year being a year of firsts and as well as all the bad stuff, there are a lot of positives to take with us.
The next blank piece of paper is going to be for 2021. A year of… ?
