Michigan OER Virtual Summit

The Regional Leaders of Open Education Network (RLOE) brings together leaders from across North American institutional and regional boundaries and invests in supporting leadership that promotes anti-racism and social justice. RLOE assists leaders to build individualized strategic plans for open education that align with existing campus goals to support underserved and underrepresented students. Underserved students include (but are not limited to): BIPOC students, students with disabilities, food-insecure students, remote rural students, foster-care students, students impacted by incarceration, LGBTQIA students, student parents and 1st generation college students.

Connecting key stakeholders of open education initiatives (such as academic, community and government leaders, funding foundations/organizations, librarians, instructional designers, teachers, students, digital learning administrators, informational technologists, etc.) via robust and highly connected human networks is essential to our work.

RLOE Integrates four main cornerstones: A) Policies, B) Professional Development Strategies, C) Stewardship Plans and D) Sustainability, as driving questions for systemic change in education into three main areas of focus for programming (Adoption of OER, Adaptation and Creation of OER, Open Educational Practices). Our work is shaped by these open education values: 1. Access and Equity; 2. Student Agency and the Rights of Learners; 3. Community and Collaboration; 4. Care and Generosity; 5. Social Justice, Diversity, Inclusion, Anti-Racism.

RLOE aims to serve as a model for the ways that networking can strongly support the creation and ongoing implementation of open education initiatives through empowering underrepresented community members to be leaders and building relationships that are necessary for the long-term sustainability of OER.