UBC: Open Carefully – Pursuing Open with an Ethic of Care

Open practices offer so much: reduced financial burden in accessing materials, broader availability of research for more kinds of scholars, and unparalleled opportunities to make learning materials relevant and contextual for learners. But in a moment where teaching and learning professionals are focusing on pandemic-era questions of care, where does open fit in? Is open “enough,” or are there ways to expand our understanding of openness to embrace a broader vision of access, inclusion, and care-centred pedagogy?

In this talk, Dr. Brenna Clarke Gray discusses the accessibility, ethical, and care-centred concerns that emerge in open practice and offers some solutions for approaching the work with an ethic of care. Brenna Clarke Gray (she/her/hers) is Coordinator, Educational Technologies at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, British Columbia. Her research interests include the history and future of open tenure processes, the role of care and care work in the practice of educational technology, and scholarly podcasting. Prior to her transition to faculty support, she spent nine years as a community college English professor and comics scholar. Brenna has published extensively on Canadian comics and representations of Canada in mainstream American comic books. She holds a PhD in Canadian literature from the University of New Brunswick. Outside of the academy’s walls, Brenna co-hosts Hazel & Katniss & Harry & Starr, a podcast about young adult literature and film adaptation, and pretends at the role of a public intellectual on her Twitter, @brennacgray.

Register here!