Episode 68: Board Viewpoints with Maria Soledad Ramirez-Montoya and Perrine de Coëtlogon
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Note: This transcript has Spanish and French content translated into English using Google Translate.

[00:00:00] Alan Levine: Hello, and we're pleased to be speaking to you from the studio of OE Global Voices, the podcast produced by Open Education Global. Each episode of our podcast brings you the people, practices, and ideas of Open Educators from around the world. I am your host, Alan Levine, and this is another in our series of bringing to you the voices of the OE Global Board.

This episode is a combination of conversations recorded in late April 2024 with Maria Soledad Ramirez Montoya, or Marisol, Senior Researcher at the Institute for the Future of Education at the Tecnológico de Monterrey in Mexico, and also our Board Chair, Perinne de Coëtlogon, Policy Officer and Project Manager, for Open Education and Digital Identity at the University of Lille in France.

As a global organization, we have experimented a bit in this episode and we'll move between three different languages. In our first segment, my questions were posed in English to Marisol and she responded in Spanish. My conversation with Perrine was mostly in English, but for one section I asked her specifically to respond in French.

I put the capabilities of our digital Descript editing suite to work here, and you will find in the published podcast, a multilingual transcript, as well as translations of the full episode into Spanish, French, and English. So join us in this multilingual conversation with our OE Global board members.

And first join us on a virtual trip to the city of Monterrey, Mexico.

Buenos dias. Hello, everybody. Welcome. I'm Alan Levine from OE Global, and I'm very excited to have a conversation with one of our OE Global board members. And we're talking this morning to Maria Soledad Ramirez Montoya, or as we call her, ‘Marisol,‘ coming to us from, I would guess, Monterrey, Mexico. So how are you this morning, Marisol?

And because we do things different here. I'm going to ask my questions in English and, Marisol will respond in Spanish. We're just going to experiment with that as, a format. So say hello and, tell us where you're sitting right now and about your location in Monterrey.

[00:02:16] María Soledad Ramírez-Montoya (translated from Spanish):  I'm going to answer, we're going to do an experiment with Alan. Right now, I'm in Monterrey. I work as a research professor at the Institute for the Future of Education in Technology in Monterrey and coordinated the UNESCO Chair of the Open Educational Movement for Latin America.

Also at ICDE, we have a chair of open educational resources where we are also working in the Spanish-speaking field.

[00:02:49] Alan Levine: if we went outside, where you are right now, what would we see?

[00:02:55] María Soledad Ramírez-Montoya (translated from Spanish): If you ask me that question, I would say, physically I am in Monterrey, but my mind is like open education is much broader For the work with the communities in the field of open resources, open science, education, and we are promoting different activities that lead us to this growth together.

[00:03:25] Alan Levine: And I, can tell, I think, with my understanding that I believe you're probably describing the beautiful mountains that are around Monterrey. Can you tell us where did you grow up and, what kind of student were you as a child?

[00:03:40] María Soledad Ramírez-Montoya (translated from Spanish): Since my area is the subject of education and educational innovation, I began working professionally in the search for new possibilities of educational and innovative practices that they would also take us to  expand the vision and perspective of impact in various communities and at various educational levels.

That's when I came across the issue of open education as a very nice possibility for. That's vision and  impact. And very much in the area of democratization of knowledge, this type of open education that allows us to share good practices, resources, science, knowledge and disseminate it to permeate from one of an enrichment to the different training instances that we provide in any educational field and miss preschool, primary, secondary or university education. And then that's where I come across the topic of open education and fall in love. From that topic, and we began to work in a network community with different research projects that we had.

And then we began to create new instances of open repositories, open resources, not only with the community of my institution, but also with other institutions in Mexico and Latin America. And that is when my journey in this wonderful world of open education begins.

[00:05:27] Alan Levine: I want to read and listen to all that, and I'm going to enjoy reading the translation, which is close. so I don't know. you've done so much in your roles are so important. you're involved with OE Global. You're a UNESCO chair. You're with ICDE. What was your calling to open education because I, don't believe, it was something we got in school early on.

What was the thing that led you into that and tell us maybe a little bit about all the things that-- I'll come to that second question. 

[00:06:03] María Soledad Ramírez-Montoya (translated from Spanish): Yes. Well, the field of open education and open resources is incredible. It gives us a very large possibility of expansion. I'm going to focus on five areas and on the five areas of the latest in the recommendations that UNESCO has given us to promote the issue of open education.

On the one hand, we have the great task of developing capabilities, developing this whole question of creation, access and reuse of the possibilities of open education in another area. We also have the great task of supporting policies for open education, both in institutions and in governments and at a global level that make us promote it, the activities and strategies of open education. 

Then we have another very broad area and where it is also very challenging, to make more inclusive the more equitable access to this open education with a view to reaching the diverse populations and attention to vulnerable groups. We also have an area that I think is one of the most challenging, what are the sustainability models for this open education?

Because  in those models, is where the entire infrastructure is that allows us to continue growing, continue planning and continue carrying out more activities in the field of this topic. And without a doubt, without a doubt, something very important in the issue of open education is the national and international cooperation that we establish with networks with various institutions, working together hand in hand to make the growth of open education instances possible.

[00:08:06] Alan Levine: Fantastico. I want to try to say because, the Tec de Monterrey is a large comprehensive system and you have a big role in it. There's many parts to the university and can you give a snapshot view? I've, been to the, one in, Guadalajara, but, there are so many different entities and how does it all work together?

[00:08:31] María Soledad Ramírez-Montoya (translated from Spanish): I am very pleased you've already been around these instances. Yes. Tecnológico de Monterrey has 29 campuses throughout the country and also has international offices outside of Mexico. Where  we are always very connected with the activities we develop and the institution  has developed various instances in the field of open education.

For example, it was the first private institution in Mexico that launched its policy of open access with great support, with a repository called RITEC and that we have for the world, where the academic community is invited to deposit both scientific and academic production there for dissemination.

Then also, the institution is very focused on the issue of portals and instances,  infrastructure training that makes knowledge open for use in the world such as, for example, the educational innovation observatory that we have and then this observatory is an open platform that allows us to work in the communities. And you ask how we connect and to carry out all these instances is, well, what is precisely necessary is to carry out instances of various disciplines.

From various sectors and departments of the same institution to be connected towards the same task that allows us growth. For example On the topic  of training in open education, well, what we do there is connect not only the field of research professors, but also the decision makers in the different faculties and the library area to promote open knowledge of the institution and also the knowledge of our educational community so that we can continue growing in this area.

[00:10:41] Alan Levine: And, for Mexico, what is current focus of interest and, where have you seen some really great opportunities happen in open education, especially for Mexico?

[00:10:52] María Soledad Ramírez-Montoya (translated from Spanish): Well, if we talk about the country in Mexico, I think that today it is centralized in an area of placing science in the open. Then, a few years ago, approximately 10 years ago, the National Open Access policy also came out. And through the national science and technology council, we were invited to the institutions so that all projects were supported by public funds. We made that production open and we tried to encourage those practices so that's how it started in its origins at the national level with politics. And right now, in the activities that we carry ot, they are always in the calls as an alert, a request for the projects that we carry out and that come from public funds in Mexico. Let's make knowledge open, so that's what a lot of work is currently being done at the country level.

[00:12:04] Alan Levine: Again, you're involved with, Open Education Global. I know you do much with our efforts for OE LATAM and your focus too, with the, Institute for the Futures of Education, has a large emphasis. Can you say more broadly how the field is looking for, Spanish speaking open education. The big question is like, how do we work together, in so many different places?

[00:12:31] María Soledad Ramírez-Montoya (translated from Spanish): Yes, I think the opportunity that Open Education Global gives us is fantastic To bring together the diverse academic community from different continents and therefore, also in different languages  that we speak. That's why I asked you to give me the opportunity to speak in Spanish, as an activity within Open Education Global.

We have the task of mobilizing communities in different contexts. And specifically here in the Spanish-speaking field, I believe that we have a great mobilizer with the node that we have Spanish-speaking Latin America and also that covers Spain, of course, Latin America where what we can continue to do to grow in Open Education Global are activities like this that we are carrying out right now.

Where we talk about the topic, the concerns also in the field of open education is in our contexts. And on the other hand,  something that will continue to help us grow within the organization is having collaborative projects together, both research projects when we obtain financing funds.

How projects that we carry out jointly organized, for example, as something we do in the eh in the UNESCO chair of the open educational movement every two years, we organize an international stay where we call on the Spanish-speaking academic community to work on open education projects .

And Open Education Global is always with us a very special partner because we join forces. to go together towards that growth. So, how can we continue to grow in this by working together? In networks, in communities for training for innovation, research that allows us to expand the horizon of open education.

[00:14:55] Alan Levine: And I know you're part of these discussions and aware that, there's decisions or hopes for the next conferences. And, I'd really like to see one in Mexico or maybe a group of institutions from South America. Would you like to see that? I see your thumbs up. How can that come to happen?

[00:15:15] María Soledad Ramírez-Montoya (translated from Spanish): Yes. To do what is possible, we are invited, we are going to launch the call now in a few days. And Open Education Global is going to be a mobilizer to  publicize this event and hopefully we will meet here, Alan, are you sincerely invited? Of course, because we are working together with the different networks and for this impulse of activities.

In this opportunity we have to work together. I have great news for you that we are going to celebrate. We are going to be celebrating because we are going to have our 10th anniversary of the UNESCO chair. And then that's going to be a spectacular party where we're going to come together.

Those of us who have been participating, hey, come on, I'm going to say that among the surprises of the gifts that we are going to have at this party is that we are going to have an open access book with the open education practices that we have developed throughout these 10 years and that give us an outline diagnosis of how we have been growing on the issue of open education.

The call will go out in a few days and, of course, Open Education Global, hey, we will be there very connected to disseminate the invitation and we will wait for you in Monterrey. It will be the last two weeks of January 25. And we will be here on the Monterrey campus.

So welcome Alan and the entire community.

[00:16:50] Alan Levine: I'm going to interpret that means I might get a chance to come to Monterrey in the future, but we'll, see about that. 

When we publish this podcast, the nominations will have just opened for the Open Education Awards. And, I'd like, first of all, to hear your thoughts about the importance of recognition and the community recognizing each other.

Then I want you to make a strong appeal in Spanish, for that community to really, fill our database with nominations.

[00:17:19] María Soledad Ramírez-Montoya (translated from Spanish): We are very excited because the call for the Open Education Awards is going out now in May and we are disseminating the information to encourage the communities to send us their projects, their knowledge, what has been. 

It's fabulous, wonderful to see all the jewels that occur in the world on different open practices both for books and repository portals, publications, teachers, students. In Open Global Education we have a wide variety of categories where we can apply for these awards. We are going to invite the community to send their applications because we need to have a map of what is happening in the world and especially what is happening in the Spanish-speaking world.

With open education it is an excellent opportunity and we are going to be there, just as we very much invite you to participate in the Open Education Global Congress that we will have. Well, it's going to be in Australia. So in this cCngress we are also going to have the call open to send our poster panel communications.

They also give conference presentations to publicize what is being developed in each of them. Well, there we have two very close invitations from the organization. One side is the Open Education Global conference that we have annually and on the other, it is the nomination of the awards, so that it is also an opportunity to publicize the gems that exist in the world on the topic of open education.

[00:19:15] Alan Levine: Because it's a thing that many of us are reading about and talking about I want to get first your feeling about the potential problems of artificial intelligence and what you're seeing going on in the Latin American community to, take advantage of it or to address all the concerns people have.

[00:19:35] María Soledad Ramírez-Montoya (translated from Spanish): The truth is that every technological advance, well, it presents great opportunities-- not for everyone, of improvements in many ways and especially the issue of artificial intelligence is something that is exciting, but also as that alerts us to being something very new and different. 

I think it gives us great opportunities, both for open education  and in those opportunities that it gives us is by automating processes in a faster way. It is very important that we, as an academic community, take great care of ethics, copyright and everything in such a way that. Eh, yes, yes. We are relying, for example, on artificial intelligence to, uh, create open educational resources.

For placing the legend of artificial intelligence support before that And also, since it's still an area,  it's not new because it's been around for a few years, but it's been having a big purge recently? Verify that the content, the information, is eh, reliable and is true to reality in terms of content.

Because like artificial intelligence, people go to the Internet to find all kinds of content and bring it. So it's up to us to take ethical care about the content and also give to the ethical attribution. Where does that content come from, to be attached and take advantage of those advantages that artificial intelligence gives us.

I am very excited about everything that is taking place there? But also, we have to go very strongly to accompany with all our experience in the consolidation and improvement that this type of development provides us. And technologies.

[00:21:43] Alan Levine: Bueno. let's see. I'm thinking about, first of all, like you do so much, Marisol. You've got all these big roles. what's your secret to do so much? And you have such enthusiasm and excitement and, I would like a cup of what you have.

[00:22:05] María Soledad Ramírez-Montoya (translated from Spanish): Well, my secret, I'll tell you my secret. Well, my secret is to run every day in the morning, exercise, of course, to open your mind. And then being very excited and I really like what I do. So, that motivation is what also allows me to converge in the different areas.

The main secret is in the integration of what is done. In each of the activities. For example, the topic of open education, how it fits into my activities as a teacher, where I can take advantage of it, how it also fits into my activities as a researcher and how to bring that global vision to  the communities  with which I participate through the UNESCO chair and the network activities in which we are involved.

So, the main secret is to try to integrate, always having the focus on where you want to support the growth of the area you are working on. That is my secret and my main secret is that integration and that it is truly an area that I really enjoy working on.

[00:23:28] Alan Levine: I'm noticing behind you, I see, Van Gogh's Starry Night. I'm curious, what's a rewarding activity that you do outside of work? What rejuvenates or gives you energy to do away from the work?

[00:23:40] María Soledad Ramírez-Montoya (translated from Spanish): Well, since we are all very concerned about peace in the world, then it is like a concern and an occupation that we all have to work for  that well-being of society. And  in that  that concern, well, those of us who have the task of being in the areas of training people and building each other.

I think we have an adventure there. It is very important to provide opportunities in that area, for the well-being of society. So, that is something that I would like very much, that we continue working to strengthen ourselves as people and continue growing in this society and in the world that we have had to live in.

[00:24:41] Alan Levine: And then last, this is Alan's wildcard question. Because we've talked a little bit about awards. when I say in terms of open education, when I say the words recognition, what are three words that come to your mind when I say recognition? 

[00:24:58] María Soledad Ramírez-Montoya Recognition (translated from Spanish): is this. what the three words that come to mind are lights. They are  like flashes and like, oh, it comes to me like "lights"", "flashes" and also, how come I don't want to use the same word?  Like the "opportunity" to disseminate that open practice. So if you want, we repeat this again so that in production you can cut it.

[00:25:35] Alan Levine: Thank you for taking the time. I am excited to edit this podcast in two languages. I use some software that uses some AI and I think I can do some translation. For my work, I find that some of the translation functionalities of artificial intelligence are very valuable and especially, for global organizations like ours.

And so I just want to thank you again, for putting up with my English questions and, having a fine conversation and just, thank you so much, Marisol.

[00:26:07] María Soledad Ramírez-Montoya (translated from Spanish): Thank you very much, Alan. Have I enjoyed it a lot. I have loved speaking like this in both language and I am very excited. Thank you very much for these, for these lights that you are providing through these podcasts. Thank you very much and a hug.

[00:26:24] Alan Levine: And I will have to practice my poquito español 

[00:26:27] María Soledad Ramírez-Montoya (translated from Spanish): Very good.

That was the first of our two conversations in this episode featuring OE Global board members. From the mountains of Mexico, we traveled to the north of France, close to the border with Belgium, to speak to our board chair, Perrine de Cöetlogon.

[00:26:51] Alan Levine: Welcome, here we are again in the OEG Voices studio. I'm very excited to bring to you one of our board members, and not only our board members, our board chair, Perrine de Coëtlogon, who's coming, she'll tell us where she's coming to us from, but this is part of our series of having conversations with the board members to share them with our audience and hear what's important to them and what's going on at the board level. 

So how are you? It's in your evening time, Perrine. where exactly are you located right now? And tell us like, what would be outside? I can see a little through the windows, but describe it for us.

[00:27:29] Perrine de Coëtlogon: Bonjour, Alan. Hello, everybody. Indeed, it's the afternoon here, the end of the afternoon. And for you, it's maybe morning or afternoon or night. And, yes, I am Perrine de Coëtlogon. I work at the University of Lille. This is my office.

It's a huge university with 80,000 students. And I like it very much to work, in, in, in this area, because as you see, there are many trees around on the scientific city of the town of Villeneuve-d'Ascq, that is close to Lille in the north of France, very close to Belgium, actually. So this is where I am but I am from the western part of Paris, in the suburb.

I grew up in a town close to Versailles, that is called Saint-Germain-en-Laye. And, then I went to study, close to Paris. And finally, one year in Germany, in the Potsdam University. I studied law and German law. This is why I spent one year doing LL.M. and private law. And I came back and I, lived in Paris after having, passed the bar exam of Paris.

So I've been a lawyer for seven years and then I arrived in Lille and I, completely changed for career. I became a journal secretary of a public interest group which funded, open educational resources and the day I heard of the concept, I thought this should change the world and this is why I became an activist.

I am here with you, Alan, today.

[00:29:11] Alan Levine: Fantastic. as a child outside of Paris, what were you like as a student, what did you think of school? And were you an avid student? Were you interested in school? What was, your education experience like as a child?

[00:29:28] Perrine de Coëtlogon: Until 10 years, was my years in life at school because, I was a very successful, little child. I even, passed a year and was then a young pupil, but then, it changed. I became an average person like everyone. And, I went to a specific boarding school called La Légion d'Honneur, the Legion of Honour, funded by Napoleon. I had a uniform and we were only girls, so it was in the middle of the forest, close to where I grew up. So this was, different from many education experiences, but still a very lively experience with other, girls being in a boarding school is a nice education experience too. 

[00:30:21] Alan Levine: As a child, did you know what you wanted to be as an adult? 

[00:30:24] Perrine de Coëtlogon: Yeah, I first dreamed to be a surgeon, but I was very bad in in scientific anatomy. So finally, I discovered that I really loved philosophy. It was very close to my A level, the end of the educational system that is called Baccalauréat in France. And, but I, wouldn't go to just study philosophy.

So what I did is I studied German and law. This is how it ended up. I thought that law was a. a way of, of being close to, this reflection and, close to philosophy, but that I might have more jobs opportunities because of course, in many cases, you first think of education as a way to go to society and earn your life.

[00:31:26] Alan Levine: Obviously you went in with this interest in law, came to Lille and, you mentioned that, you made this shift, but what was it that, changed you from that path? What was it right away about open education that caught your interest? 

[00:31:41] Perrine de Coëtlogon: I was ready for another kind of career and this is, in particular because of my family life, I had, had my first child and I was married to my husband who went to Lille,but I never regretted that shift. 

At that time, at least in France, it was not so common and nobody said anything and I was not prepared to that shift.

And nobody tried to train me. So I had to learn by myself. and I must say that today, for example, as a chair of the board of Open Education Global, I really much enjoy looking for good open education resources on my new competencies that I have to develop and the skills. 

At the time, I really just discovering from one day to the other, the origin of the internet. And it's true, Alan, that in 1995, I hadn't touched any computer in my life, despite I was already 20. And I took a summer job in Germany, where I translated, data from software for the glass industry. So I arrived in Germany in a software company and discovered the people who were developing softwares.

And, everything was new to me. When they said that, there was the internet and that, they could, from where they were in Germany, go to any computer in the world now, not any, but many and, solve and fix bugs. I was so impressed. 

From the summer 95. I read what I could. I tried to understand. And, I discovered many French and German because I, I had this studies in both countries. not many,

but more German than French that were involved in the open movement, actually an open source movement. And that told me there should be freedom on the internet. We like the fact that, everything is free in particular for education. 

Already in 2000, I thought that there were very many lawyers interested in those subjects, but not many companies ready to give a job to such lawyers. So I decided to go for other fields of Law, but still it always stayed in my mind that, informatics and education was the future, a desirable future. 

[00:34:26] Alan Levine: I, love this story because you went there for other reasons to work with this software company and it exposed you to this opportunity that helped shift your interest. Those are my favorite stories. 

There are so many things that you're involved with and, leading and running. I wonder if you can give a quick list, in your scope of open education, what is most important to you right now and then what are other things that you're really interested that you'd like to focus on? 

[00:34:58] Perrine de Coëtlogon: There are so many items indeed that I could, discuss. I, already wrote for the OEG Connect, I wrote the story of Open Education Global Francophone. So it was in 2020 during the lockdown I was elected as a board member. I was so proud and happy, and I wanted to contribute better to the open education movement. And, I asked Paul Stacey and Igor Lesko, if I could borrow the OEG logo, and, use it, not the trademark in any means, but the mark of OEG and use it to create OEG Francophone. 

From scratch with one service provider, we organized a two days event in November, 2020, just before the Taipei, conference. And we gathered 638 people from, more than 30 countries. And of course, this, was really nice because from the, end of August until November, I call all my network in open education and everyone gave me other names. And we ended up having 21 webinars with 57 different speakers. 

And, I really, like the way my service provider helped me. He's very involved in the comments too, in his way. And, so he told me to not to try to organize the program, but to give people. sessions and that they decide what the favorite thematic would be, the favorite subject. And very, rapidly, Colin de La Higuera, for example, he said, ‘I would like to speak on artificial intelligence and OER‘, and there were, another fantastic, colleague from Paris who wanted to speak about the same subjects. 

And then they asked me to find a chair, and all together, it made a fantastic session already from the first minute on the thematic, and everyone could request a session, and so this is how, in just two days, we had 21 webinars. 

And one of them was how to create an OER in the African context, which is more the West Francophone context. Another one said, I am going to search for all the projects funded in the European Union on that thematic. As you can imagine, it ended up in a fantastic t opportunity for many people to join, to discover. And then again, my service provider said, next you have no time to write a newsletter, but I have provided you with a website where people can say they are interested.

We collected in a while, in let's say 18 months more than a thousand people who were interested and that I am now have grown up to 1700 people who are invited every month to a webinar on various subjects. 

[00:38:22] Alan Levine: You have a huge network. That is impressive. What you describe is like an unconference format where people said, these are the things I'm interested in. and and then it all came together. But, what, a huge, outcome. And now it's becoming a little bit more, official or solidified within OE Global, which we're very happy about.

Is it even possible to generalize across the, Francophone world, what they're interested in now? I would think artificial intelligence, obviously. I just saw the new, badging initiative from the, from Canada. what are other things that people in that community are really focused on?

[00:39:10] Perrine de Coëtlogon: Well you are speaking about Canada. So Canada adopted a strategy on open education. And I invited Catherine Lachaîne at the end of August for the first webinar of the year. And she was able to, with her colleague, Melanie, to speak about this, this strategy that is impressive because we have been all in Edmonton, And, we saw that there are people who were already hired, it's not like just words, it's, phones and people hired.

And so it's, good to know that, a special focus has been made by Canada on Francophone resources. And, there was also an initiative from the UNESCO and the French Development Agency, in Dakar, on educational resources. It was not called open educational resources, but in the end we did spoke a lot about, open educational resources and also about culture and, regular library books for schools. And there were 14 delegations, from Francophone countries. It was really a fantastic event. 

I was invited because I was, an expert, but also because I was already a member of, of the board. So you see what Open Education Law does to people. And, now I'm thinking of, of Jules, one of, the benevolent of OEG.

He's from Cameroon, and he, was always the one who, called me back and said, this was good. I want more. I want to help you. And I needed that because you need some recognition. You do a lot. People come, et cetera, but you need people who are enthusiastic about it. And he's a mathematic professor, at school, and, and I love the fact that, he told me, we need such events because that not so many initiatives in Cameroon. I discovered thanks to him, that he had already studied one year in France. He has a master in, instructional design.

And he has, also, followed, open educational resource that is called Le Program [unclear]. And so he's very much. involved, but he wanted to contribute more and now he's able to do it. 

So there are initiatives, but not enough. And I really hope to have more interest and funding in OEG Francophone as soon as possible.

[00:42:00] Alan Levine: You're magnetic. People come to you and because obviously what you're doing is important, but to be able to pull together so many for these activities and focus is absolutely what a global organization should be doing. 

[00:42:15] Perrine de Coëtlogon: And this is not my real job. 

My real job at the University of Lille, it's more about transforming the way people receive receive a diploma certificate. And it means that, we have to issue this.

And it's a lot about issuing a certificate of completion of the diploma and knowing this, that the students, massively use them. And, reinventing what they are, diplomas, what their content and, also that the, other university who have to verify them or employers who have to verify the diploma can easily do it.

When you begin to work on that. And the lockdown played a role, because at some point, in September, 2020, the director of the registrar department asked me to go for it. We have set already 60, 000, certificate of diploma, translated, stamped in a blockchain Avalanche, for the time being, but soon in the European blockchain service infrastructure.

Once you have done that, people come to you on micro credentials, on competencies, on supplement of the diploma. This is the European Union. And they come about the future of European diplomas. This is really a thematic that I bound to open education. That is for me, the future of open education too, because, there will be a way to certify that you are really learning on distance.

This is very important to OER, I think, because as long as they are not recognized, fully recognized. that can be underestimated by people, which is a pity. In the way I work. I never lose the interest of the people, in the end.

And if they are not recognized, it's also about open badges and the the open recognition movement. people won't go for it. 

These are my main three subject , the diploma use case leading to open badges, open recognition, but first, the educational contents. 

[00:44:39] Alan Levine: Well, perfect segue. Speaking of recognition, I'll make the connection here. We're currently at the timing of this, it's May 14th, and we just opened the nominations for the Open Awards for Excellence. , It's great because we get to celebrate the winners and, that piece.

But what we've been doing all along is we want to celebrate everything. We want to surface as many nominations as possible because that's what's important. Yes. It's, great to win, but it's really important to highlight all the work that's going on. 

Might you be thinking, and you don't have to say what it is right now, but are you thinking about who or what, you might nominate this year?

I'm going to be putting out an invitation to the board members, because they're involved in so many things, they're all gonna be tasked with nominating. And then as in the earlier part, when you're describing, the evolution of the OEG Francophone, you kept mentioning your ‘service provider‘-- a person that sounds like, a catalyst, the person who makes things happen. Who is that person? Let's give that person some credit here. 

[00:45:48] Perrine de Coëtlogon: Yes, it's Romuald. It's, it has, he has become a friend of mine, Romuald Ramon. And, he also lives in Lille, not far from where I live. I met him on LinkedIn. And when I discovered his profile, I thought, oh my God, he knows how to do things. I wanted to use the tool that nobody in education uses like ‘web marketing‘, but he could also organize a conference and a website and give me some advice to find people with the web marketing tools.

And be dedicated and take good pictures like you did, at the beginning. So for the 21 webinars, he also thought of this to give a good picture of what had happened. And they're still on my LinkedIn profile because i, have those coming regularly and I think good work, He also, understands really well the Commons.

It was, easy and a pleasure to work with him and discover his world. And he's also a man of networks. He organized a lot of networking for people. 

[00:46:59] Alan Levine: It sounds like an ideal person to nominate for an individual award. Would you be willing maybe to make an appeal, in French to the Francophone world, to ask them to, consider the people and projects to nominate for the 2024 awards. We're taking nominations now through the end of June. .

Also, you can mention that they do not have to write in English. We, allow nominations if people prefer to write in French, and, if they can be more clear about the, reasons for their nomination, we strongly encourage that. 

But, would you be willing to be, make the public service announcement in French for the open awards. 

[00:47:41] Perrine de Coëtlogon (translated from French):  Hello everyone, at Open Education Global there is a fantastic call for applications to obtain official awards as an Open Education leader or technician, Open Education educational engineer and many other titles... Who were imagined and designed by an open team and which are fantastic.

You have to look at the categories now. I would love to adapt them into French and make a French-speaking call. But here, with the tools we now have to translate, and Alan who has just told me that we could apply in French, I invite you all to come and apply, all lovers of open education.

To apply and I will pass on to all those who participated in my webinars in particular this proposal, afterward it will be necessary to write a little anyway because the applications from the Anglo-Saxons are always very impressive and very well written so thank you to all Open Education contributors and see you soon. Bye.

[00:48:59] Alan Levine: Thank you. That was fantastic. And I love having this in French.

You do so much. I'm a bit overwhelmed at how much work and energy you put into things. What is a rewarding thing that you do away from this? What's your hobby, or thing that you enjoy doing to be away from this work? 

[00:49:19] Perrine de Coëtlogon: My family. My family is my best hobby. It's more than a hobby, Having three children

now, it's a lot of work and a husband, not only children. And, yes, family is a very important support. And also I love that it's so challenging because you get more, open minded and you learn from what young people think. You are more aware in my case, it's a lot of work.

So if you ask for my hobbies, I could say other things, but I would say that for the time being, just when I do not work, take care of my family is the most important for me. 

[00:50:05] Alan Levine: Couldn't be a better thing to do. there anything else you would like to add as the chair of the board to have a message out there as to, what you want to forecast for this organization? 

[00:50:16] Perrine de Coëtlogon: What I was doing just before we spoke is to work on the bylaws. So for many people, it's, quite boring, bylaws and law in general.

But I am very proud to be in charge of writing those bylaws. I feel liable to have something that is, bound to the reality of what is Open Education Global now, how it should be organized and to cover any, situation that could happen. Actually this is a responsibility that I like because it, it reminds me of my former life when I was a lawyer, a corporate lawyer. I really appreciate to, to have set up a committee and that it is almost done.

Being a president, I can see how much work it has become in comparison with being just a board member. But, I don't regret it. On the contrary. I have so many projects, Alan, that I am able to fulfill because I am a president too. 

[00:51:21] Alan Levine: We're fortunate to have a lawyer and an open educator, leading the board. So many thanks.

My last question, when I say, ‘ Open recognition‘ what are the three words that come to your mind and you can say them in French. What are the three words that, that leaped your mind when I say open recognition?

[00:51:41] Perrine de Coëtlogon: It's ‘ recognized‘ what you are. You said three words, so it's a sentence, but. 

[00:51:48] Alan Levine: You can break the rules. That's fine. 

[00:51:51] Perrine de Coëtlogon: I knew I could with you, We are open. So in open recognition, I love the fact that you have to recognize where people are, what they have become, what they can build on to improve and to develop self esteem and make it. The most important maybe then after this first step is of course to make visible what people didn't know, and they didn't know it themselves, but then they can share it with others.

So I really like, the ideas and, I, I. We have already done a little work, sorry, I'm a bit long, that I like at my university. It, was to take the students who already work, so they want to have money, they don't want another diploma. They can leave the university having worked for three years and not being recognized for this. 

And this is how we have created the first open badge for the people working in the library, on, explaining what the PhD is to any students, to international delegation, to young pupils, that come to discover what university is. And, this was done with the designers, pedagogical designers, so that we have expressed what they did, with the European competence framework. And so you see one day it will be ready that all these data is interoperable and really give another chance to people to be recognized.

[00:53:33] Alan Levine: This is fantastic. Thank you so much for taking the time. I'm so fortunate to have these conversations with the board and the people in the community. And I just really appreciate you sharing all the things that you're interested in. And, and, that's the purpose of our conversations here. 

Well, thank you for listening to this episode of OE Global Voices. That's the podcast we do here at Open Education Global. Each episode features a different music intro and outro track selected from the Free Music Archive. For this show in our board viewpoint series, we chose the track ‘Enjoy the View‘ by Lazenby Industries, which is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license.

You can find this episode at our site, voices dot oeglobal dot org, and we hope you engage in follow up conversations with our board members, who are all very active in our OEG Connect community at connect. dot oeglobal.dot org. If you're listening and want to be in the studio with us, share your own open education or suggest someone we should have in here, please let us know via our website or email us at voices at oeglobal dot org and tune in again for our next episode of OE Global Voices.