Call for Proposals

OTESSA 2022 Call for Proposals

The Open/Technology, Education, Scholarship and Society Association (OTESSA) is excited to announce the call for proposals for the online conference of the OTESSA association hosted by the Congress Conference hosted by the Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences between May 16 to 19, 2022. Congress is a "meta conference" which facilitates dozens of concurrent association conferences (see 'about Congress' and explore all the association members should you wish to present or attend more than the OTESSA conference). Information on our reciprocity agreements can be found at the bottom of this Call for Proposals.

OTESSA welcomes thinkers, tinkerers and designers from across disciplines and contexts who are exploring the role of open and digital technologies in education, society, and scholarship to be part of this conference gathering.

Congress 2022 Theme: Transitions

OTESSA 2022 Theme: Critical Change

As part of Congress, the OTESSA Conference encourages researchers and practitioners to share their scholarship on the complexities that technology and open educational practice raise for education, society, and scholarship, as well as to come together to build connections, collaborations, and critical conversations at this year’s conference. Scholars, practitioners, graduate and undergraduate students, librarians, designers, makers, educators from K12 or post-secondary, administrators, and policy-makers are all welcome! Whatever your current role and wherever you are located in the world, we invite you to join us and contribute your experience, expertise, and insights to timely discussions about openness and technology in education, society, and scholarship.  

The Critical Change theme is in response to the transitions that education continues to go through in the midst of an ongoing COVID-19 pandemic that we all hope to move past. What inequities became more apparent or were created through the global response to pandemic? What opportunities have been created? How can we be critical of the change that we have gone through, but also make the critical changes that we need to make? The theme speaks to coming together to address these transitions and how to go about it. The Congress theme (Transitions) “invites participants to reflect on the past two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, and to lead challenging new conversations that can help us understand and shape our changing reality… so that together we can build a future that is more diverse, sustainable, democratic, and just.”  

OTESSA invites a particular focus on the complexities that technology and open education practice raise for education, society, and scholarship. 

This year’s three key subthemes for inviting submissions and discussions are:

  • The Transitions of Online Learning and Teaching
    Online learning and teaching has come to the forefront since March 2020. What can we learn from our rich history (recent and long past) of distance and open education as we navigate our way forward (hopefully) beyond the pandemic? In what ways can we build and extend upon existing research and education with technology to increase ethical, inclusive and diverse policies and practices?
  • Addressing the New Inequities
    Who is advantaged or disadvantaged by the human and technological infrastructures and processes we design? In what ways do we confront issues such as surveillance, privacy and security? What innovations and changes in assessment, OER, participatory pedagogies, collective and co-design of knowledge, inform, serve to enhance or limit the democratization of knowledge?
  • Sustaining Positive Change
    In what ways can we take what we’ve learned about openness and technology in education, society, and scholarship in the global pandemic and make sustainable changes toward a more diverse, sustainable, democratic, and just world.
  • Wildcard
    OTESSA also offers a wildcard category for innovative and inventive ideas around research or practice that go beyond the three broad subthemes, as long as a relevant connection is made to Educational Technology, Online Education, Open Education, or other intersections around technology or openness with education, scholarship, or society. 

Conference Co-Chairs for #OTESSA22:

Aras Bozkurt, Anadolu University, Turkey
Terry Greene, Trent University, Canada
Kathy Snow, University of Prince Edward Island, Canada

Submit Your Proposal

Session Proposal

There will be multiple formats to share knowledge and facilitate discussion when participating at OTESSA. More information on session types can be found in the Author Guidelines section on the Submission Page. In your session proposal document, include the following: 

  • Abstract (max 200 words)
  • Proposal: (max 500 words)
  • Statement of Audience Engagement and Interaction: (max 200 words)

Short Paper (Proceedings) and Full Paper (Journal) Options

Our primary focus is on building connected and lively conversations and open sharing of scholarship and practice in Open/Technology, Education, Scholarship and Society. All presenters have the option to submit a short practice or research paper to a formal proceedings collection, due at the same time as the session proposals as per the call for proposals. Guidelines are provided on the Submissions page and all short paper/proceedings submissions must be submitted using one of the templates provided. These proceedings will be published on this Conference website, assigned DOIs, and indexed.

After the presentations and/or proceedings have been reviewed, authors will have an opportunity to submit a full-length paper due April 1 to be considered for publication in the OTESSA Journal.

All written contributions will be optional. Both proceedings and journal articles published as part of this process will undergo double-blind peer review,  assigned DOIs, and indexed. Further information can be found on the Submissions Page. 

Timeline

February 15, 2022 - Submission Deadline (11:59pm, Pacific Time)

March 2022 - Decisions

March 2022 - Program Draft Published

March 31, 2022 - Early Bird Registration Deadline

April 1 2022 - (Optional) Asynchronous Content Deadline & Full Paper Deadline

May 16-19, 2022 - OTESSA 2022 Conference [ONLINE]

Reciprocity Agreements With Other Associations

OTESSA has partnered with the
Canadian Society for the Study of Higher Education (CSSHE),
Canadian Society for Studies in Education (CSSE), and the
Canadian Association for the Study of Adult Education (CASAE)
so that individuals attending one of these conferences will also have the opportunity to attend sessions at the other gatherings, provided the new online platform supports it. We will add additional associations as we expand our collaboration. Please note that individual(s) presenting at OTESSA must have a current OTESSA membership and registration specific to OTESSA to be included in the program, when announced in the Spring. Please note that OTESSA memberships expire December 31 of each year. We provide below an example of the reciprocity with CSSE. This agreement also applies to CSSHE and CASAE as well.

If someone registers as a delegate with OTESSA at Congress, then they can attend CSSE Congress sessions. If someone registers as a delegate with CSSE at Congress, then they can attend OTESSA Congress sessions. This does not afford membership in either organization, however. If someone is presenting in either OTESSA or CSSE, they must register as a delegate with each organization in which they are presenting. If they are presenting in both, they must register as a delegate in both. As well, the person must follow the membership rules for conference presenters/authors/submitters.

Thank you for the work you all do to advance openness and technology in education, society, and scholarship. We are excited to gather with you to recognize your contributions to the field: please join us for OTESSA at Congress.   

Fondly, from the OTESSA community, as we build and grow!