The OER Festival, consisting of the ORCA.nrw conference and the OERCamp, took place in Essen from 18.11.2024 to 20.11.2024 - an event for learning, networking, passing on your own expertise and solving problems together. Registration was free of charge. As the KlimaOER project, we were of course there and were confronted with the special organization of the conference in advance: Anyone who wanted to was allowed to prepare their own session, i.e. get their own slot, which was either intended to provide information or answer a question with the help of swarm intelligence. In line with the flipped classroom principle, videos were recorded in advance to provide a brief introduction to the topic and help participants make better decisions from the wealth of sessions on offer. We took the opportunity to raise a question that we have repeatedly encountered in our work: How can formulas be presented in an accessible way? You can find a report on the results of our session on our website. All videos are available on the OERCamp website, you can find our video here. A detailed plan of the conference schedule was only available on site.
The framework of the event was initially defined - there was an introduction for newcomers, welcoming addresses and cross-thematic sessions on the first day, the ORCA.nrw conference. The OERcamp started the following day. The various sessions were presented, registered and a schedule was drawn up. The sessions were to take place in barcamp mode, which meant that there was a relaxed speaking atmosphere and it was allowed to change sessions in the middle. Retreats and the constant availability of coffee were deliberately intended to provide moments of encounter, as this was one of the main aspects of the OER Festival: contacts were exchanged, people got to know each other in person for the first time after email contacts and alliances were formed. It was only through such discussions that it became clear, for example, how useful a collaboration with art students could be for us - we will definitely keep at it and would not have come up with the idea on our own. It also gave us the opportunity to get to know the other OE_com projects that are funded in the same funding line as us. This exchange took place mainly on the third day of the festival. In addition to a change of location from the Ruhrturm Essen to the Unperfekthaus, there was also a change in structure: instead of the Barcamp sessions, working groups were now formed, which were increasingly differentiated, e.g. according to the target groups of the various projects. Whereas in the previous days we discovered unexpected interfaces with other subject areas, we were now able to discuss our projects in more concrete terms. We immediately arranged a date for a joint meeting with the other OE-com projects to work out a common definition of OEPs (Open Educational Practices), which we want to use for the next overarching OER meeting in May.
The idea behind OER, namely the sharing and further development of resources in order to save resources, a mentality of openness and accessibility to content, was thus lived throughout the entire structure and organization of the OERCamp.