In this twenty-five minute presentation we will talk about the first six months of the Canadian Association of Research Libraries’ (CARL) Open Education Cross-Canada Coffee Chat (#OECCCC), a monthly series of community calls that aims to foster an open education community of practice across Canada. We used SPARC's LibOER Community Calls and BCcampus’ Cross-Canada Update calls as models and promoted our chats through the existing CanadaOER listserv administered by BCcampus.
The content and structure of the calls has evolved as we have sought monthly topic ideas from attendees, experimented with ways to encourage discussion, and made explicit our desire to have conversations that centre on Canadian perspectives and feature diverse speakers. This includes having two calls per year that are in French and are dedicated to the Francophone OE community, as well as cross-country update calls, with updates from educational institutions and organizations throughout the provinces and territories. In an effort to maintain an informal atmosphere and welcoming environment which is inviting to everyone, regardless of level of experience, the group does not record the calls and formal presentations are not required. Instead, collaborative running notes are maintained and used as a reference by the participants.
During this presentation, we will also share challenges and lessons learned as the calls have evolved, how we have chosen topics (often based on participant feedback), the formats we have considered and used, and our experimentation with ways to encourage discussion and to promote community participation beyond librarians.
Finally, this session will provide examples and tips on how to start a national (or even regional) community of practice series, including how to advertise the event, and the challenges of expanding the attendance across all sectors of the OE community in Canada.
After participating in this session, attendees will be able to:
- Plan community calls that support the building of a community of practice
- Apply strategies for encouraging attendance and participation from those with different roles and levels of experience with Open Education
- Draw on existing communication channels and networks for promotion
- Recognize the benefits of allowing the call format to be flexible and to evolve
