AMICAL-sponsored attendance to OLC Innovate 2020
This opportunity is a Director’s Initiative in support of online teaching and learning across member institutions.
Colleagues at all of our institutions have recently been confronting the need to develop capacity for online instruction, and the need to develop resources and services to support that instruction, while facing budget cuts and shrinking professional development budgets. Many of you may be interested in getting help in this area, or are working in the coming weeks and months to prepare for this online or hybrid instructional environment for the fall – more methodically than you were able to do this spring. AMICAL is preparing a number of initiatives to support you in this, including waived registration for AMICAL members wishing to attend the Online Learning Consortium’s OLC Innovate 2020 Virtual Conference, running 15-26 June, as explained below.
The event: OLC Innovate 2020
OLC is a leading organization in the areas of online, blended and digital learning more broadly, and OLC Innovate is one of two large annual conferences they run that are among the most popular amongst those who work in the field.
Participants who are supporting others in online and blended course design, and those who are teaching themselves, can expect to learn about the latest research and practice in the field, to find opportunities to practice some hands-on skills, and space to network with others. The availability of recordings for a year after the conference offers an ongoing professional opportunity for participants beyond the conference dates. Virtual participation will be particularly rich because ALL sessions are livestreamed and recorded this year, the usual in-person conference having been canceled.
To get a picture of topics discussed at the conference, have a look at their Field Guide Program, and in particular their Engagement Map that groups the sessions according to themes and interest areas. Here are just some of the themes and their session lists that may be of particular interest to AMICAL members:
- Online Teaching & the Faculty Experience
- Faculty and Staff Development
- Online Learning & Student Experience
- Hybrid, Flipped, & Blended
- Equity, Inclusion, and UDL
- New to Online Learning
- OER and OCW
Note that AMICAL colleague Maha Bali (American University in Cairo) will be one of the invited keynote speakers!
Who should request a registration waiver?
This initiative is aimed primarily at faculty and teaching librarians needing to redesign their instruction for online or blended environments, and those supporting them – in particular faculty developers and instructional designers and technologists.
If you’re in one of those roles, and any of the themes listed in the Engagement Map aligns strongly with your own work, have a look at the session descriptions linked there. If these feel relevant to you, and you believe you’ll get things that you can apply in substantial ways to your work, you are welcome to request a registration waiver through AMICAL.
What you’re responsible for if you request a registration waiver
If you request a waiver, you are committing to:
- Devoting enough time and attention to substantially engage with the event
- Responding to the feedback/collaboration interest form that AMICAL will send after the event
It’s for you to judge what “substantial engagement” means, but keep in mind that if you request a registration waiver it’s possible that someone else from your institution may not be able to. Each institution has a limited number of registration waivers available.
Registration for individuals is normally $210 per person for the main event (the Virtual Conference). For those receiving a registration waiver, AMICAL will cover your conference registration as part of our group. You will not be charged for registration unless you choose to add a pre-conference workshop, in which case you will need to pay just for the workshop.
How to request a registration waiver
If you’ve taken into account the guidelines above and wish to request a registration waiver, review again carefully the Engagement Map to find the sessions related to specific themes that may be of greatest interest to you. We’ll be asking you to identify the sessions at the top of your list that you plan to attend.
Then submit your request through the form linked below.
After submitting the form, you’ll receive instructions for registering with the fee waiver.
Questions?
Contact us at contact@amicalnet.org.