11th Open Education & Science Workshop 2024

an interactive session bringing together international experts in Open Science and Education

More than 360 online webinar participants and 80 physical attendees participated on Friday, 8 March 2024, in the 11th edition of the Open Education & Science Workshop, an international event dedicated to the challenges and opportunities in open science and education, hosted by Politehnica University Timisoara, through the Department of ID/IFR and Digital Education.

Together with the E³UDRES² Alliance of European Universities and the Ent-r-e-novators project, with the support of IEEE Romania, this year's Open Education Week 2024, supported by Open Education Global, brought together 11 renowned specialists from Romania, the Netherlands, Latvia, Austria, Portugal and Belgium. Their presentations focused on various aspects of Open Science and Open Education practices, tools and methods and how they can be integrated into everyday life, with an emphasis on the context of academia, research projects and education in general. Interesting discussions and pointed questions took place in panels that brought presenters together in a hybrid fashion at the end of each presentation session.

The event was dedicated to the teaching community from all academic spheres, as well as to students, IT trainers or HR departments, and was a real success in terms of the increased interest that the scientific and academic community brought to the collective community, gathering people who spent more than six hours with the organisers in an interactive session, with many questions and curiosities addressed to the presenters or to the different experts who attended the workshop. The audience was diverse, so that the online event enjoyed participants not only from Romania, but also from Austria, Belgium, Latvia, Portugal and the Netherlands, who actively participated in the workshop, initiating discussions with the speakers, but also exchanging data and information about best practices in their own institutions and the approaches they have implemented using open science and open education.

The workshop topics included:

• Presentations on the European projects E³UDRES² and Ent-r-e-novators, to understand the context and objectives of these European initiatives promoting open practices and university cooperation;
• Challenges and opportunities in implementing Open Science practices;
• Using Open Educational resources to improve teaching and learning;
• Open Science, the role of Open pedagogies and emerging technologies;
• The impact of generative Artificial Intelligence on Open Education.

"We believe that free access to knowledge and educational resources is essential for the progress of society, and this workshop contributes significantly to promoting the fundamental principles of open science and open education", said Prof. dr. eng. Radu Vasiu a few words about the organization of this year's edition.

Luís Coelho, Ent-r-e-novators project coordinator, professor at the Polytechnic Institute of Setubal, Portugal, said: "This workshop is very important for our university members, E³UDRES² alliance, researchers, PhD students and professors, because it presents the latest issues in Open Science, but it is also the result of the research and analysis done in the first year of the project. Thus, it has emerged how important it is to train our members in promoting fair and ethical principles of science, but also how they can produce innovation in the regions."

The event took place in the K1 room, the Conference Centre of Politehnica University Timisoara, but also online on the Zoom platform, and was broadcast live on Facebook. Attendance was free, presentations were in English and participants received Open Education Workshop Participant Open Badges (Open Digital Certificates) online and in addition, Certificates of Attendance for physical participants in the room, issued by UPT with IEEE Romania validation.

"This year's Open Education & Science Workshop was a real success, demonstrating the increased interest in the field of science and open education. The presentation by leading experts of the latest trends and best practices contributed significantly to stimulating dialogue and identifying innovative solutions to current challenges encountered both in academia and in everyday life; from the impact that the role that open education and open pedagogies have on emerging technologies, to the impact that Artificial Intelligence has on open education. I enjoyed the slightly adversarial discussions as they allowed for the explanation, with real examples, of concepts that may otherwise seem abstract and not of interest to each of us. But in actual practice, every educator, researcher and student has daily activities that contain elements of open practice", said Dr. Diana Andone, Director of the Department of DI/IFR and Digital Education and coordinator of these workshops.

Presentations and materials from this year's edition will be available on the UniCampus.ro platform to facilitate open access to information, thus supporting the continued development of academic, technological, technical and scientific spheres, including open practice approaches that people can use in their daily lives. https://unicampus.ro/

Politehnica University of Timisoara - valuable contributions in Open Education

Politehnica University of Timisoar, through the Digital & Distance Education Department has been making valuable contributions to Open Education Week and the ideals of this event since 2013, by hosting annual workshops organized with the aim of promoting collaborations and creating educational networks.

E³UDRES² (European University Alliance) is an alliance of European universities aiming to strengthen cooperation in education and research, promoting knowledge exchange and collaboration for the sustainable and innovative development of higher education in Europe. https://eudres.eu/   

Ent-r-e-novators is a European project bringing together six universities from Central and Eastern Europe. The project aims to create a European alliance of universities promoting entrepreneurship, innovation and inclusive education. The project started in October 2022, is funded by the European Commission and managed by the European Research Executive Agency (REA) through its Horizon Europe programme under its scientific excellence pillar (HORIZON-WIDERA-2021-ACCESS-05 call), which aims to strengthen the research and innovation capacity of higher education institutions. countries and their ecosystems. https://www.entrenovators.eu/

IEEE Romania encourages and supports activities to promote engineering through a variety of actions, support materials created and shared among IEEE colleagues, conferences where studies from educational experiences are presented, seminars and webinars to inspire best practices. https://romania-edu.ieeer8.org/

Open Education Week is an event promoted by the worldwide Open Education Consortium, with the aim of presenting the opportunities that open education offers, the results of its integration into all forms of education, whether it is to develop skills or knowledge in the workplace, to support university and pre-university education or simply to learn something new, related to a personal interest of each individual. More information about Open Education Week can be found here: https://oeweek.oeglobal.org/

Politehnica University of Timisoara celebrated in 2020 the first century of university education in Timișoara, being founded by Royal Decree signed by King Ferdinand on 11 November 1920. Politehnica Timisoara University, a university of advanced research and education, is today one of the Romanian schools with tradition, recognized nationally and internationally, both through the work of generations of teachers and the exceptional work of prestigious academics. The university's 10 faculties provide study programmes for around 13,500 students. More than 800 teaching staff work in the 27 departments and around 1000 administrative and support staff.

The Digital & Distance Education Department was established by resolution of the Senate of the Polytechnic University of Timișoara on 11.02.1998, as part of the national open distance education network, with the aim of functional integration into the trans-regional network of study centres for open distance education. On 5-6 October 2018, the 20th anniversary was celebrated with a series of scientific events (link), regional community involvement, economic liaison, and with ID/IFR students and alumni.