Keynote Speaker Announcement: The Future of Open Educational Resources and GenAI in Education
- Tuesday - 21/04/2026 01:04
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We are pleased to announce Prof. Rory McGreal as the Keynote Speaker for our upcoming international conference. In an era where digital transformation is redefining education, this keynote will explore one of the most pressing and forward-looking topics: the intersection between Open Educational Resources (OER) and Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI).
Prof. Rory McGreal is the UNESCO Chair in Open Educational Resources (OER) at Athabasca University, Canada
Keynote Overview
Generative Artificial Intelligence is rapidly reshaping academic practice, offering both unprecedented opportunities and complex challenges. In this keynote session, Prof. Rory McGreal will deliver a comprehensive analysis of how GenAI is transforming open education ecosystems.
The presentation will begin by examining evolving frameworks of copyright and intellectual property, particularly focusing on the legal and philosophical implications of AI-generated works—many of which are considered to be born into the public domain. These developments raise critical questions about authorship, ownership, and openness in academic publishing.
Building on this foundation, the keynote will address key issues surrounding OER authorship, plagiarism, and academic integrity, offering a nuanced perspective on how GenAI is influencing scholarly norms.
Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) is rapidly reshaping academic practice, simultaneously amplifying human capabilities and challenging foundational scholarly norms. This presentation offers a comprehensive examination of GenAI’s role in supporting OER and open education, including research, scholarly writing, teaching, and publishing. It first surveys evolving copyright and intellectual property frameworks, highlighting the openness of AI-generated works that are born in the public domain. The analysis includes commentary on OER authorship, plagiarism, and academic integrity.
Benefits and challenges for OER authors, editors, reviewers, and publishers will be explored, including productivity gains, enhanced accessibility for non-anglophone scholars, scalable feedback in education, and workflow efficiencies in editorial and production processes. These advantages are weighed against risks such as the erosion of human judgment and creativity, amplification of bias and inequity, environmental costs, the proliferation of hallucinations, misinformation, and automated scholarly fraud.as well as the malevolent oligarchic concentration of AI platform ownership. Openness must be supported with concrete institutional, publishing, and governmental policy actions. GenAI can be directed toward a symbiotic, human-centered future in education, but this will require sustained ethical oversight, adaptive regulation, and a commitment to true openness.
The presentation will begin by examining evolving frameworks of copyright and intellectual property, particularly focusing on the legal and philosophical implications of AI-generated works—many of which are considered to be born into the public domain. These developments raise critical questions about authorship, ownership, and openness in academic publishing.
Building on this foundation, the keynote will address key issues surrounding OER authorship, plagiarism, and academic integrity, offering a nuanced perspective on how GenAI is influencing scholarly norms.
Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) is rapidly reshaping academic practice, simultaneously amplifying human capabilities and challenging foundational scholarly norms. This presentation offers a comprehensive examination of GenAI’s role in supporting OER and open education, including research, scholarly writing, teaching, and publishing. It first surveys evolving copyright and intellectual property frameworks, highlighting the openness of AI-generated works that are born in the public domain. The analysis includes commentary on OER authorship, plagiarism, and academic integrity.
Benefits and challenges for OER authors, editors, reviewers, and publishers will be explored, including productivity gains, enhanced accessibility for non-anglophone scholars, scalable feedback in education, and workflow efficiencies in editorial and production processes. These advantages are weighed against risks such as the erosion of human judgment and creativity, amplification of bias and inequity, environmental costs, the proliferation of hallucinations, misinformation, and automated scholarly fraud.as well as the malevolent oligarchic concentration of AI platform ownership. Openness must be supported with concrete institutional, publishing, and governmental policy actions. GenAI can be directed toward a symbiotic, human-centered future in education, but this will require sustained ethical oversight, adaptive regulation, and a commitment to true openness.
About the Speaker
Rory McGreal is a globally recognized leader in open and distance education.
He currently serves as the UNESCO Chair in Open Educational Resources (OER) at Athabasca University, Canada. He is also the Editor-in-Chief of the International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, the highest-ranked open-access journal in educational technology, and the founder of the OER Knowledge Cloud, a leading repository of OER research.
Prof. McGreal has held several influential positions, including Associate Vice-President (Research) at Athabasca University, founder of TeleEducation New Brunswick—Canada’s first province-wide e-learning network—and Supervisor at Contact North/Contact Nord in Ontario.
With extensive international experience, he has delivered workshops and keynote speeches in more than sixty countries and has received numerous national and international awards for his contributions to open and distance learning.
He currently serves as the UNESCO Chair in Open Educational Resources (OER) at Athabasca University, Canada. He is also the Editor-in-Chief of the International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, the highest-ranked open-access journal in educational technology, and the founder of the OER Knowledge Cloud, a leading repository of OER research.
Prof. McGreal has held several influential positions, including Associate Vice-President (Research) at Athabasca University, founder of TeleEducation New Brunswick—Canada’s first province-wide e-learning network—and Supervisor at Contact North/Contact Nord in Ontario.
With extensive international experience, he has delivered workshops and keynote speeches in more than sixty countries and has received numerous national and international awards for his contributions to open and distance learning.
Join the Conversation
This keynote promises to deliver critical insights into the future of education in the age of AI—where openness, technology, and human values intersect.
We warmly invite academics, researchers, educators, policymakers, and practitioners to join us for this thought-provoking session and engage in shaping a more inclusive, ethical, and open educational future.
Conference Secretariat
OpenAP 2026: Asia-Pacific Conference on Open Education
University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University, Hanoi
We warmly invite academics, researchers, educators, policymakers, and practitioners to join us for this thought-provoking session and engage in shaping a more inclusive, ethical, and open educational future.
CONTACT
Conference SecretariatOpenAP 2026: Asia-Pacific Conference on Open Education
University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University, Hanoi
- Dr. Nguyen Thi Ngoc Thao / Email: nguyenthingocthao@vnu.edu.vn
- Website: gogn-apac.org/openap-2026/