2024 Open Education Awards for Excellence

While nominations for the 2024 Open Education Awards for Excellence are in the committee review process, we continue to highlight last years winners. In this episode, we travel to Toowoomba, Australia for a conversation with Nikki Andersen from the University of Southern Queensland (UniSQ), editor of Enhancing Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Accessibility (IDEA) in Open Educational Resources (OER).

An OER about diversity, equity, and inclusion in OER, this work was recognized in 2023 with the Special Award in the DEI category.

We get to learn from Nikki about her background, her route into becoming a librarian with a focus on OER, as well her current role as Manager of Digital Experience at UniSQ. Nikki shared how a session at an OEGlobal conference that included Openstax framework for DEI inspired her to develop this resource with an Australian context. She also elaborates on the importance of addressing accessibility and the process she used to edit this important work.

And also this is timely as her university is the host of the November 13-15, 2024 OEGlobal conference hosted in Brisbane. Nikki shared her excitement for the event and as a “local” even some suggestions for places to see.

In This Episode

FYI: For the sake of experimentation and the spirit of transparency, this set of show notes alone was generated by AI Actions in the Descript editor we use to produce OEGlobal Voices

Episode 71: Nikki Andersen on OE Award for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

In this episode of OE Global Voices, host Alan Levine chats with Nikki Andersen, the recipient of the OE Award for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Nikki shares insights into her journey, including the crucial peer review process, her personal and professional stakes in accessibility, and the impact of her work on open education in Australia. The conversation also highlights Nikki’s contributions to the OpenStax framework and her vision for the future of open education.

• Intro music and Episode Quote
• Welcome to OE Global Voices
• Catching Up with OE Award Winners
• Introducing Nikki Andersen
• Nikki’s Background and Early Life
• Career Journey and Roles
• Challenges and Advocacy in Open Education
• The Importance of Accessibility
• Creating the OpenStax Framework
• Impact and Future of the Framework

Additional Links and Quotes for Episode 71

I also want to look into reducing some of the heavy textbooks and replacing them with OER. That’s still in my space with the digital experience as well.

And removing limited user licensed books which cause massive access issues here in Australia when there’s not enough licenses for students. OER is definitely still on the agenda as part of my new role. I think it’s, you know, “everyone’s business”, which is the theme of the upcoming conference.

No matter what role you’re in, you don’t have to be in an open education role, to support the open education movement.

Nikki Andersen on her role now as Manager of Digital Experience

• 2023 OE Award for Excellence Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Award (OE Global)
• Enhancing Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Accessibility (IDEA) in Open Educational Resources (OER) – Australia Edition
• Improving Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Course Materials (OpenStax)
• Open Textbooks and Social Justice: a National Scoping Study (Australian Centre for Student Equity and Success)
• Open at the Margins: Critical Perspectives in Open Education (Rebus Community)

I’m actually doing a project now where we are turning the book into an audit tool. We’re going to use that to audit our learning management systems for a few courses in the School of Education. Just converting that kind of framework into an audit tool has made me realize all the things that I’ve forgotten.

I’ve kind of overlooked the cultural aspect, I’ve kind of overlooked some of the refugee aspects. The group of academics and I are going to review that, and hopefully improve it, but also kind of research how it actually works in practice when academics are using it in learning and teaching.

So I’ll be really interested to see the outcome of that research and be involved in that.

Nikki Andersen on next steps for IDEA framework

We hope you have enjoyed listening to the voice behind an OE Award recognized effort in supporting Diversity, Equity, Inclusion (and Accessibility) in OER. Stay tuned for the August 30 anniouncement of the shortlist of semi-finalists for the 2024 OEAwards, and the live webcast of the winners that takes place September 18, 2024. Learn more about the awards, get inspired to share a nomination for 2025, and explore the current collection of 229 awardees at https://awards.oeglobal.org/.

Our open licensed music for this episode is a track called Equity by Toussaint Morrison licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License. Like most of our podcast music, it was found at the Free Music Archive (see our full FMA playlist).

This was another episode we are recording on the web in Squadcast. This is part of the Descript platform for AI enabled transcribing and editing audio in text– this has greatly enhanced our ability to produce our shows. We have been exploring some of the other AI features in Descript, but our posts remain human authored unless indicated otherwise.