This year, Apereo is excited to join communities from across open education to organize the “FOSS For Education” community track at FOSSY. We invite you to join us and your peers from across education’s various open initiatives to share your best practices, innovations, and lessons learned in education technologies, teaching and learning, content creation, and community practice.

The FOSS For Education Community Track provides sessions dedicated to using, developing, and managing open resources within academic environments, from multi-institutional consortia to departmental projects. This track seeks to highlight the common principles, practices, benefits, challenges, and models spanning the variety of open initiatives impacting teaching and learning environments and campus administration.

Topics include: Free and Open Source Software, Open Access, Open Content, Open Courses/Courseware, Open Data/Research, Open Educational Resources, Open Textbooks… any open initiative impacting education today!

In addition to the FOSS For Education track, a variety of other tracks are available from the broader Free and Open Source community. One of the exciting aspects of attending FOSSY is the many opportunities for cross-pollination. Free and Open Source Software does not operate in a vacuum; the diverse topics and interests allow attendees to meet and partner with others working on all aspects of openness: artificial intelligence (AI), community management, DEI, hardware, infrastructure, gaming, licensing, security, etc.

The FOSSY Call for Proposals (CFP) is open now through May 14th, 2023. You may submit proposals at: https://2023.fossy.us/call-for-proposals/

For questions or more information about FOSSY, the FOSS For Education Track, or Apereo’s involvement, please contact conference@apereo.org.

By Patrick Masson, Executive Director

Open Apereo has been the core community event since our forming in 2012, serving as our primary conference, a social space for friends and colleagues, a place for project planning and networking, a venue for the Foundation’s Annual General Meeting, and a platform to present our annual awards and fellowships.

Since COVID-19, many of the initial benefits--and thus, the potential value--of Open Apereo has changed. Many projects now host their own conferences, e.g., Opencast Summit, uPortal Dev Days, Sakai Virtual Conference, Xerte Online Conference, etc. Fewer people can attend events due to reduced travel funds in campus budgets and ongoing restrictions from the pandemic. And if I am honest, there is a general sense that the content and sessions are a bit "been there, done that." This has led to a general lack of interest, participation in sessions, and attendance.

To try and retain (even expand) all of the benefits and potential of getting together across the Apereo community while recognizing we've changed over the past ten years, we are transitioning Open Apereo from a Foundation focused event to a co-hosted collaborative. As a partner in the conference planning, Apereo is advocating for and developing tracks, sessions, activities, etc., in line with the interests of, and for the benefit of, our community and, more broadly, open source in higher education.

Our first experiment in a collaborative event is the inaugural FOSSY Conference in Portland, Oregon, USA, the week of July 13th - 16th. Initially introduced by The Software Freedom Conservancy as a replacement for O'Reilly's Open Source Convention (OSCON), which shuttered in 2020, FOSSY is styled after FOSDEM, where the tracks and conference planning are done by those who participate. Apereo proposed--and was awarded--a track entitled "FOSS for Education" along with co-organizers Moodle.com and Creative Commons. FOSSY is an ideal place to start as it generally aligns with the Open Apereo timeline, offers content and colleagues aligned with Apereo, and should incentivize/motivate the Apereo community (and their sponsoring organizations/campus) to join us.

Apereo Dolphin Awards & Fellowships Deadline Extended to June 2nd
By: Michelle Hall, Apereo Communications

The annual awards ceremony for the Apereo Dolphin Awards and Fellowships will take place in person during FOSSY, July 13-16, 2023. 

This unique opportunity to recognize the commitment and hard work of our Apereo project community volunteers and member organizations has been one of the favored celebratory events for the Apereo community since 2012. 

The decision to lengthen the nomination period coincides with the traditional timing between nomination periods and Open Apereo. 

Please consider nominating yourself or others for the Dolphin Awards and Fellowships by using the Google forms linked on Apereo.org

More information about the awards and eligibility can be found on our website.
https://www.apereo.org/content/apereo-awards

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