Episode 70: Nikki Andersen === Intro music and Episode Quote --- [00:00:00] Nikki Andersen: The most pivotal part was actually the peer review process. I got nine peer reviewers, and they were a mixture of students, academics, open education specialists, diversity inclusion specialists, but also people from different lived experience. We had disabled people, an Aboriginal academic, people who identify as LGBTIQA+ and they gave such powerful feedback. And a lot of the students took time to go through it as well, and that changed it for the better. Some people pinpointed things I could have done better, or things that they found offensive, in terms of their own, positionality, that I changed. Welcome to OE Global Voices --- [00:00:47] Alan Levine: Hello and welcome to OE Global Voices. This is the podcast that we produce here at Open Education Global. Each episode we're going to share with you, conversational style, people, practices, and ideas from open educators from around the world. I am your humble host, Alan Levine. Catching Up with OE Award Winners --- [00:01:04] Alan Levine: It's been a really long time since we announced the winners of the OE Awards for Excellence. It was August of 2023 and 2024 is halfway through and we're catching up with our award winners. But I like to think it makes it interesting because we can learn about what has happened to our awardees since that time that they got their recognition. It's also timely as nominations are now open for the next round of the OE Awards. We like to think these conversations might motivate you to nominate a person or a project and it could be your own project or person-- you can nominate yourself for a 2024 award. So think of your nomination setting the stage for a future podcast. Introducing Nikki Anderson --- [00:01:41] Alan Levine: And so today's show we're traveling to the East coast of Australia to hear and meet Nikki Anderson, and we'll learn the story of Enhancing Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility and Open Educational Resources, itself an OER that was recognized in 2023 with the OE Award in the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion category. That's enough introduction. Let's get to the conversation and I'm really happy to introduce Nikki into our studio. [00:02:08] Nikki Andersen: Hi, Alan. I'm really happy to be here with you. Nikki's Background and Early Life --- [00:02:10] Alan Levine: I like to ask people , where you are and you'll say a city and state But actually like where are you physically located right now? And maybe what do you see maybe out your window or in your room? [00:02:21] Nikki Andersen: Yeah, so I'm actually in my house, in my office. I have a very colourful, colour coded bookshelf behind me. I don't know if you can see that. but outside my window is a lovely backyard. the sun's coming through, the early morning sun. I'm in the Toowoomba region, which is in Queensland. Lots of people think Queensland's nice and sunny and warm, but it actually is quite cold this morning. It's about Seven degrees. and I'm in the land of the Giabal and Jarowair people, and these are the lands that I've grown up on. My university campus is a five minute drive away from my house, so, it's very convenient. [00:02:53] Alan Levine: And yes, your bookshelf design caught my eye -- each shelf has a different color. [00:02:57] Nikki Andersen: Thank you. [00:02:58] Alan Levine: Where in the world did you grow up? What did you think of school as a child? [00:03:03] Nikki Andersen: I actually grew up in Toowoomba here, had a fantastic schooling experience. I kind of grew up a bit out of Toowoomba, a bit on the countryside. lived on five acres, and I actually grew up, on a cottage at the edge of a rainforest, which is very, romantic sort of feel-- it was a lovely sort of childhood. I went to university here at the University of Southern Queensland. I did my postgraduate in librarianship at Curtin University, which is located in Perth. I've grown up around pretty much the same area, but my family, my mum's side comes from Finland, near Helsinki, and I got to travel there, last year after winning the OE Global Awards. it's a bit of a celebration for myself. So that was lovely to set foot in my, mother's country for the first time as well. [00:03:47] Alan Levine: Oh, wow, that's so nice to hear. Career Journey and Roles --- [00:03:49] Alan Levine: So, what is your role at the university and how did you come into that role? [00:03:54] Nikki Andersen: I'm currently on a secondment actually, but only started a few months ago. So I am the Manager of Digital Experience for a six month contract. And at the moment that looks at, a whole digital presence, our digital experience, how our students access our resources, our databases, cataloging, access issues. Before that I was four years in the open education content librarian role, a really fantastic role and that was, mainly about, making open textbooks for academics to give to students using the publishing platform Pressbooks, but also generating awareness about open education resources, encouraging open assessment and open pedagogy, and lots of open advocacy because open education in Australia is still quite new. So there's a lot of advocacy work in that kind of role. Before that, I actually got into that role because of my copyright experience. I was a copyright librarian very early in my career. That was very handy coming into the open education space because there's a lot of copyright work involved in that. Challenges and Advocacy in Open Education --- [00:04:54] Nikki Andersen: My first role, which is really interesting, is I worked on a project for incarcerated students in prison, taking an online learning management system and converting it to an offline system for students to use in correctional centers. And that's how I actually got into OER because we couldn't rely on any subscription resources. We couldn't rely on anything with the Internet. Things had to be changed and adapted. And because of the Creative Commons licenses, OER was really important to that project. That's how I learned about OER and that's where my passion for OER actually started. [00:05:28] Alan Levine: That is so interesting. I have a strong interest in solutions to situations where internet isn't available. We tend to think because if you have access to it, we flip open our computers, we go online, we join meetings all the time, and that is not for everybody. And, I don't think everybody really considers incarcerated learners, and it's very important. [00:05:47] Nikki Andersen: That's right. And even here in Australia, like, we're on the Great Dividing Range and the internet's quite patchy. So depending where you are on that range is whether you have a good internet or not. Even beyond our incarcerated students, we have a lot of regional and remote students that don't have stable internet connection, can't continuously study online, have to drive hundreds of k's to a library to print something out to take it back to their house. So you know, internet connectivity is actually still quite a problem here in Australia that people don't actually realise. [00:06:17] Alan Levine: And you mentioned being an advocate and making awareness, how can you characterize the state of open education in Australia? What do you think are really the effective avenues to get people on board with open education? [00:06:30] Nikki Andersen: We are inspired by everything that's happening in the Northern Hemisphere. So we use a lot of what's happening in America and Canada as inspiration here in Australia. But, since we're kind of a regional university and lots of our students are low socio economic- First Nations, have a disability, we do push that social justice lens. And our model has been we work with the people who want to work with us and who have social justice as their own philosophy. We don't try and push things on people who are resistant to open education. We started very slow with people who are converted to the idea of inclusion and equity. And those were the people that we targeted. Those are the people who came on board early on. And those people actually became champions for us to help us advocate in faculty, to get other people on board as well. The other lens we used is connecting open education to research. So, at our university, research is highly prioritised, academics are ranked on how many Q1 journals they produce, but we label it as an opportunity for our academics. There's not much research in Open Education in Australia. Here's an opportunity for you to be a leader and, start researching in your project, and telling people what you do. That's always a good lens too, because they're getting a learning and teaching outcome, they're getting a research outcome, and it's ticking a lot of their boxes at the same time. [00:07:52] Alan Levine: There's so many directions I could go, But we want to talk about the work that you got the award for . The Importance of Accessibility --- [00:07:56] Alan Levine: I start by, because we have the Diversity, Equity Inclusion category and, you know, we know various iterations and I'm intrigued to and I've seen it elsewhere, the idea about, including accessibility, which is in your title-- it's not only just to make the acronym, but can you talk about why accessibility is an important in addressing these issues? [00:08:16] Nikki Andersen: Yeah, accessibility for me, I added for two reasons. the first one is quite personal. I am a disabled woman. When I was 13, I lost a lot of my vision from a retinal detachment. I was on the borderline of what is considered legally blind in Australia. I really struggled a lot when I went to high school, I couldn't see the boards, I couldn't see a lot of the content. Luckily, when I got to university, I had an operation which, restored a lot of my eyesight, but that experience of not being able to see properly has really impacted how I view education, in Australia. and how my career's gone. and in addition to that, I wear hearing aids as well. This all stems from a connective tissue disorder. A lot of my sensory stuff is impaired in a way. So I have a lot of those barriers. When I entered the workforce in libraries, I remember the struggle it was to access things like databases and, you know, things that had so many paywalls and things that I couldn't convert or change the font. That was really important to me. But also, I noticed too that, in the open education space, we focus a lot on the financial barriers and making sure they are reduced, but we don't always think about the other barriers. I did an audit early on where I picked a few open textbooks and I ran them through accessibility tools to see what they came back as. And a lot of them had so many issues still. So I thought this is a new area that people need to be educated on to make sure we are doing the right thing for our students. Cause lots of people are impacted and it's an easy thing to fix. And it's an easy thing that changes people's lives. That's why I wanted accessibility in there. it's not always talked about in the open space, but it's getting there. I see more and more conversations about it. Creating the OpenStaxs Framework --- [00:09:55] Alan Levine: what was the impetus to create this? What was the start for this project? [00:09:59] Nikki Andersen: I actually think I would at one of your conferences, the Open Education Global conference, that was held virtually during COVID. Someone was presenting about the OpenStaxs framework that they had adopted in America. It was a little bit different to the way I've adapted it. But I was like, "oh, this is so cool." And they took [us] through the whole process. I love the original framework. So I went back to OpenStax's framework and I had a look at that. And I just saw so many gaps in the Australian context, especially for, indigenization and decolonization and representing our First Nations students. I really wanted to add a trauma informed perspective, because we get a lot of refugee students here in Australia. I was just really inspired by that conference and I thought I could do something. There's nothing else like this in Australia. And also that accessibility lens, I still think there's so much more we can do with accessibility and be really clear about it. [00:10:49] Nikki Andersen: So I added that in there. I also wanted to give practical examples. a lot of the frameworks that exist are just a framework. A lot of the time academics or authors don't know what that looks like in practice. So I wanted to give good practice examples and tips on how to actually achieve that. I was really inspired by your conference. that's how I got started. [00:11:06] Alan Levine: I can't take credit, but OE Global will take credit. And that's, that is really wonderful. Can you talk more about what is in the OpenStaxs framework or, you know, in simple terms, what that framework means for addressing access, diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility? [00:11:21] Nikki Andersen: So that framework had a selection of criteria. From memory, it had things like diverse and inclusive imagery, so making sure you were having diverse representation, inclusive language, balanced perspectives, appropriate terminology. Then I added things like accessibility, universal design for learning, anti-racist and open pedagogy, Indigenisation and cultural inclusion. I took elements from the first framework, but it's still in there. and then added my own and expanded it as well. [00:11:49] Alan Levine: Right. Can you give some sense about what needed to be changed or done differently for the Australian perspective? [00:11:56] Nikki Andersen: Yeah, I think it's, definitely having more of the Indigenous content, Indigenous pedagogies, that are unique to Australia with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, but also more cultural inclusion. I did find that sometimes there's not a lot of it. Even with my own guide, I actually think it's an oversight, but I should add more about cultural inclusion and have more peer reviewers who are multicultural. Adding the trauma informed perspective, the UDL and the practical examples, and then picking the good practice examples from around the world that I think people can be inspired by. And also all the excellent resources that are out there from, the open education communities that people can learn from. So the original frameworks and the different types of frameworks in the back of the book. if my guide doesn't suit someone, they can read it in a framework version. They can read it in an audit version. they can look at it in a way that suits them. [00:12:46] Alan Levine: So there was some bit of structure per se, and you added to that. What was the process that it took you to go from a framework to the OER that we see now? [00:12:57] Nikki Andersen: Yeah, I actually thought about it a lot from the conference. A lot of it was just stewing in the back of my brain. I used that original framework, and then I added to it. The most pivotal part was actually the peer review process. I got nine peer reviewers, and they were a mixture of students, academics, open education specialists, diversity inclusion specialists, but also people from different lived experience. We had disabled people, an Aboriginal academic, people who identify as LGBTIQA+ and they gave such powerful feedback. Some people even read the whole book, which is really a lot. And a lot of the students took time to go through it as well, and that actually changed it for the better. Like, some people pinpointed things I could have done better, or things that they found offensive, in terms of their own, positionality, that I changed. I'm so glad I did that. and I would recommend anyone who's doing a guide or any sort of book to go through the review process, but really think about your peer reviewers. Maybe not, don't just get one, get a few, because the more people you have, the more insights. you get back and the better your resource can actually be. [00:14:01] Alan Levine: is there something that stands out as like , "Wow, I never thought about that" or " that was something that I wouldn't have found on my own"? [00:14:10] Nikki Andersen: For me it was being called out about things I didn't know about. There were some resources I had added in the book and people told me the people who had written those resources were kind of on hate agendas about, LGBTIQ and trans issues and stuff. And I hadn't, you know, research well into the views of those authors. Even though they were good from a cultural aspect, I don't want to endorse the views that are hateful to any other minority group. So, being called out on that and being aware of that, was really good. That was a benefit to the book as well. [00:14:40] Alan Levine: Yeah, and obviously, it's such a complex topic, it's contentious, and you have to worry about almost everything in terms of trying, not to, satisfy everybody, but to really do it appropriately, and it probably never finishes, right? Impact and Future of the Framework --- [00:14:57] Nikki Andersen: No, I'm actually doing a project now where we are kind of turning the book into an audit tool. We're going to use that to audit our learning management systems for a few courses in the School of Education. Just converting that kind of framework into an audit tool has made me realize all the things that I've forgotten. I've kind of overlooked the cultural aspect, I've kind of overlooked some of the refugee aspects. The group of academics and I are going to review that, and hopefully improve it, but also kind of research how it actually works in practice when academics are using it in learning and teaching. So I'll be really interested to see the outcome of that research and be involved in that. [00:15:33] Alan Levine: Do you have feedback or sense about the different context and ways the book is used? [00:15:39] Nikki Andersen: So it's used in a lot of other open education programs. I know it's used in professional development programs here in Australia. I get asked to be an invited speaker to those programs. It's used in a few other textbooks. Students are also using it for their thesis. I get a few emails from students telling me that they've read it, which is a really nice thing as well. And it's in a few diversity and inclusion courses at my university and other universities in Australia. Yeah, it's really amazing. I have a, analytics dashboard, I can kind of see whether URLs are going and just seeing all the places that it's linked to. And obviously, open textbook library and other open repositories as well. So yeah, it's really humbling to see that it is being used and I do get nice emails occasionally. [00:16:22] Alan Levine: It sounds like you're still engaged and sort of thinking. Although you're working on this new project, it's of strong interest to you. [00:16:29] Nikki Andersen: Yeah, it definitely still is. I think diversity and inclusion is always a space that's moving. It's ever evolving and it's not something that's static. I'm really interested to keep up with what's happening in that space. and the open education space together, that does deeply interest me on a personal and professional level. [00:16:45] Alan Levine: And does that feed into your work? I'm really intrigued by, the concept you described that this new work as "digital experience". . If I guess when you'll tell me, it's like everything the students might do or experience through education, digitally. [00:16:58] Nikki Andersen: Digitally. Yeah, that's right. So yes, all our systems, our access, our digital presence, how students navigate content, how they discover our content. But I also want to look into, reducing some of the heavy textbooks and replacing them with OER. That's still in my space with the digital experience as well. And removing limited user licensed books, which cause massive access issues here in Australia when there's not enough licenses for students to access. OER is definitely still on the agenda as part of my new role. I think it's, you know, "everyone's business", which is the theme of the upcoming conference. No matter what role you're in, you don't have to be in an open education role, to support the open education movement. [00:17:40] Alan Levine: Well, you did the segue way for me. Upcoming OE Global Conference --- [00:17:41] Alan Levine: I have to ask you about the conference because University of Southern Queensland is our host and you'll be there. Can you give a strong reason why people should make plans to come there for the conference? [00:17:53] Nikki Andersen: Firstly, Brisbane, Australia is beautiful, nice sunny weather, just an amazing place to be. So if you haven't been, this is your opportunity. But also, universities in Australia have done a lot of work around open education in the last few years. We're so excited to showcase that to the world. And we're also interested in meeting colleagues that we've been inspired by. So, as I said before, I've been inspired by a lot of people in the Northern Hemisphere, so I'd love to meet some of the people that I consider celebrities in the open education space, new people. I just want to engage in conversation with passionate people. I know my manager, Adrian Stagg and I would love to see you there. it's going to be an amazing time. So yeah, please do come. [00:18:33] Alan Levine: What's Adrian like? What should we know about Adrian? [00:18:36] Nikki Andersen: Adrian's lovely. He's one of the best supportive managers I've had. He's an excellent facilitator, so he's going to be an amazing chair. He is really good at bringing, communities together and he's such an advocate. I would call him a catalyst for open education in Australia. Without Adrian's work, I don't think the Australian landscape would be where it is today in terms of open education. He's consistently advocated for many years. He's been such a mentor to me. I'm really happy he's chairing and other people can be inspired. I know he's probably going to present too because he's finished his thesis on open education, so he's done a lot of, great work. [00:19:09] Alan Levine: Yeah, very excited to be there. I've had the fortune to be in Brisbane a few times and I agree with you. What is one thing that people should think about doing if they have time in Brisbane that may be a little bit different from the typical kind of recommended things. What's like a special thing a local would recommend? [00:19:25] Nikki Andersen: It all depends on people with different personalities. I love checking out the the Modern Art Gallery near South Bank and the museums. Lone Pine Sanctuary is very popular. If you have a chance to drive to one of the coasts, like the Sunshine Coast or the Gold Coast. Australian beaches are so beautiful, but it is a bit of a drive. I do recommend, that if there's time, if people are extending their stay, after the conference. [00:19:47] Alan Levine: I wanted to come back to something, in terms of digital experience. And, what is the current, whether it's hype or hysteria, interest in artificial intelligence? How is that factoring in or is it not? [00:20:00] Nikki Andersen: Yeah, it is. Artificial intelligence is very topical here at our university. Everyone is shy at the moment. In terms of digital experience, a lot of it is about kind of researching and academic integrity. There's lots of concerns about how students are using AI, in both the research and how they present assignments. I'm interested from the copyright perspective and also the disability inclusion perspective. I have been doing some research in AI, about how it's not always that inclusive from a diversity, equity, and inclusion lens. One example I have is, I actually prompted Midjourne, to give me an image of a young woman with hearing aids, the other day. It could not recognize that, no matter how many prompts I did. It gave me old women with hearing aids, or it gave me young women with headphones. There are still lots of biases around how AI works. We're finding that in certain career prompts, there's male dominated ones and female dominated ones. There's still issues with race, So in the digital experience space, I really want to generate awareness around bias and how that plays out, how it is a reflection of real world problems that we're not doing enough education because it is pulling that data. But I do think there are advantages as well. There are lots of AI tools that are making lives easier for so many people. So I'm a big fan of using, Goblin Tools that really helps neurodivergent people to break down tasks. There's lots of fantastic things, but I think people need to be really critical when they use AI. That's the role of us as librarians to really give students and academics and anyone the ability to use them critically. [00:21:34] Alan Levine: I'll go back to the conference. We're very excited because there's a strong librarian presence on the planning team. That's going to be interesting, whether it's a theme or track or common thread in the conference. [00:21:45] Nikki Andersen: Yeah, absolutely is. And I think I hear a lot of librarians who are excited to come. Our Council of University. Librarians has a massive open education project. And I'm assuming they're going to be there, giving awareness to that project too. So I think librarians have a driving force here in Australia, which is really exciting. [00:22:02] Alan Levine: Okay. And as a representative, for the awards last year from Australia, if you could say something to make sure Australia is represented this year, how would you encourage people to participate? [00:22:14] Nikki Andersen: I just love people to nominate more people and I've got people I'm going to nominate, which reminds me, Alan, I'm going to start running my nomination straight away. It's such an important thing to recognize people on because this is kind of work that doesn't get much recognition. It doesn't get much funding. People do it in addition to all the extra work that they already do. And having an international award, is such a humbling experience and actually creates so many opportunities. As I've said before, I've actually got lots of freelance work from my OE Global Award, I get paid a lot to do lots of speeches now, I got to present to the Ukrainian Librarians early in the year, which was such an honour to me. I think it contributed to my promotion to a manager of digital experience as well. They do have such an impact. and if you know someone doing wonderful things, nominate them, nominate multiple people. it does make such a difference. [00:23:03] Alan Levine: Okay, folks, you heard Nikki, get in there and nominate. There's plenty of time. , I would like to us double the number of nominations that we had last year. We had about 170 last year and, one thing we did last year is we shared every person, everything that was nominated. We don't want to leave them on the cutting room floor. A nomination process nomination get to be a funnel-- we want to make sure it flows the other way. So thank you for saying that. Personal Interests and Closing Remarks --- [00:23:26] Alan Levine: You do so much-- what is something that, recharges or that you like to do outside of work that sort of is your balancing? [00:23:34] Nikki Andersen: Oh, I have a few things. I like creative writing., I do a lot of academic writing in my role, but I like to creatively write. I like to get into poetry. I love going on long walks. I'm into Pilates at the moment, reading, that's a very typical librarian thing to say, but I love reading a good book. Traveling, when I get the time. I love exploring different places and just hanging out with my two cats and my husband. [00:23:57] Alan Levine: Thank you so much for taking this time to be with us. We love to share your OER. It's a fabulous piece of work that people should tap into. And we're very excited to meet you and your colleagues in Brisbane. We know for many people, travel is not necessarily a thing to do. And so, we're working on different means that you can participate in the conference even if you can't get to Brisbane. So we've got some things happening in that space. [00:24:22] Nikki Andersen: Thank you so much for inviting me and yeah, I look forward to seeing you at the conference. [00:24:26] Alan Levine: Thank you listeners for being present for this episode of OE Global Voices, the podcast we do here at open Education Global. And we're really excited that we had this conversation with Nikki Anderson. I am confident that Nikki's award in the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion category had a key role in inspiring the larger pool of nominations we saw this year. Look forward to hearing them as we move into the review stage, and then you'll find out who the semifinalists are in late August. And then we will have the winners announced, again, in mid September, 2024. We really want to thank Nikki for her warm welcome and special notes about the conference coming up in Brisbane. We're very excited about that. Anyhow, each episode of OE Global Voices features a different musical intro track that we select from the Free Music Archive, mainly because music in the Free Music Archive is licensed under Creative Commons. We'd like to honor those artists who share their work. For today's show, we selected a track called "Equity" by Toussaint Morrison licensed under Creative Commons Attribution non-commercial Share Like license. You'll find this episode at our site voices.global.org, and we hope you engage in follow up conversations with Nikki and OEG Connect community. If you're listening and want to share your own open education work, or perhaps suggest a future guest, or just want to hang out with us in the studio here. Please let us know via our website, or you can send an email to voices@oeglobal.org. Tune in again for our next episode, we've got an exciting series coming up for you, heading into the mid part of 2024.