Exploring Indigenous Knowledges and Open Educational Resources (OER) Summit

Project Title	Exploring Indigenous Knowledges and Open Educational Resources (OER) Summit
Principal Investigator	Erin Fields
Co-Applicants	Kayla Lar-Son
Faculty	Library
Funding Year	2023
Project Summary	While OER has the potential to benefit both Indigenous and settler communities, it is imperative to establish best practices that respect Indigenous protocols. These practices should safeguard against the co-opting of Indigenous Knowledge, ensure that dissemination of Indigenous Knowledge aligns with community understandings, and that the ownership by the originating communities is protected. As well what needs to be established is make clear the necessity of authentic Indigenous community involvement in Indigenous OER creation. There is a real need for the development of guidelines for culturally responsive approaches, community ownership, and the protection of Indigenous knowledge within OER initiatives to foster reconciliation and promote cross-cultural understanding. To address these challenges, we propose hosting an Indigenous Knowledge and Open Educational Resources (OER) summit to be complemented by a webinar series and policy/white paper on advancing Indigenous OER in Canada and develop a set of resources to support Canadian academics who may want to create OER related with Indigenous communities and individuals. The proposed two-day Exploring Indigenous Knowledges and OER Summit will be held at the University of British Columbia Longhouse complex with the proposed dates of February 22nd and 23rd, 2024, and serves as the linchpin for achieving the other objectives. The proposed Indigenous OER summit will serve to help advance discussions and facilitate coordination and next steps for a national strategy for advocacy around OER in higher education. This summit aims to chart positive directions towards creating a framework that can support the creation of respectful Indigenous OER. The overarching goal of this summit is to build a shared understanding between the higher education and Indigenous communities about the ways in which Indigenous knowledges can be respectfully and ethically shared through OER, including the development of principles for the FAIR-CARE use of Indigenous knowledges and involvement of Indigenous communities in the creation of OER. In this overview, we will use the term “Indigenous Knowledge” instead of “Traditional Knowledge” to emphasize its dynamic and evolving nature, as opposed to a static or historical concept (Battiste and Henderson 2002, 42).
Grant type	OER Rapid Innovation
Funded Amount	$2,000