Presentation Type

Presentation

Location

Zoom. Recording Coming Soon!

Start Date

15-4-2024 2:00 PM

End Date

15-4-2024 2:40 PM

Description

“What’s the catch?” If you work in any Open space, you have likely heard this rebuttal before. Getting access to open content and being able to reuse, share, and build on that material for your own personal or professional interests? That sounds too good to be true. “We can all access this software? I don’t need to log in?” Yes!

But stopping the discussion there does a disservice to ourselves and the movements that make up the wider Open community. It simplifies our messaging in a way that obscures the histories behind our work and the futures we could build toward. Similarly, utopian narratives have seen an evolution over the past 500 years, from hopeful imaginings and satirical “impossible places” to blatant dystopias with no room for actionable growth. And yet, in both utopian literature and across open movements, there is a present focus on growing beyond the boxes we've placed ourselves in to bring in new voices and work toward shared goals. In this talk, Abbey Elder, Open Access & Scholarly Communication Librarian for Iowa State University, will discuss the history of utopian narratives and open movements to draw connections between their messaging and their potential for sustainable change.

Author Bios

Abbey K. Elder serves as Open Access & Scholarly Communication Librarian for Iowa State University, where she serves as the main contact for topics like open education, open access, and copyright. In addition to her work at ISU, Abbey is the Statewide Open Education Coordinator for the Iowa Open Education Action Team (Iowa OER), a volunteer-led group whose work provides a foundation for colleges across the state to access resources and infrastructure to their open education initiatives.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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Apr 15th, 2:00 PM Apr 15th, 2:40 PM

Utopia and Openness: Futures Bound by What We Can Imagine [KEYNOTE]

Zoom. Recording Coming Soon!

“What’s the catch?” If you work in any Open space, you have likely heard this rebuttal before. Getting access to open content and being able to reuse, share, and build on that material for your own personal or professional interests? That sounds too good to be true. “We can all access this software? I don’t need to log in?” Yes!

But stopping the discussion there does a disservice to ourselves and the movements that make up the wider Open community. It simplifies our messaging in a way that obscures the histories behind our work and the futures we could build toward. Similarly, utopian narratives have seen an evolution over the past 500 years, from hopeful imaginings and satirical “impossible places” to blatant dystopias with no room for actionable growth. And yet, in both utopian literature and across open movements, there is a present focus on growing beyond the boxes we've placed ourselves in to bring in new voices and work toward shared goals. In this talk, Abbey Elder, Open Access & Scholarly Communication Librarian for Iowa State University, will discuss the history of utopian narratives and open movements to draw connections between their messaging and their potential for sustainable change.