Library celebrates Deakin academics with OER showcase event
Deakin Library has hosted their annual Open Educational Resource (OER) Showcase, an event to celebrate and recognise the work of Deakin academics who received a grant in 2025 to undertake an Open Education project. There were more than 25 attendees from across Deakin, all open practitioners sharing about their projects and practice.
The event opened with thought-provoking keynote address entitled ‘Do Androids Dream of OER?’ by Julian Pakay, Senior Lecturer, Department of Biochemistry and Chemistry, La Trobe University. The keynote was about the interplay between AI, authentic assessment, and OER creation. Two panel discussions with 2025 grant recipients followed the keynote. The first panel discussion featured academics whose projects are geared towards supporting graduate employment and industry knowledge: Tom Keel (Business Case for Sustainability in Property), Nilupa Udawatta (Digital Approaches to Building Measurement), Patricia Corbett (Sustainable Marine Futures), and Rasika Samarasinghe (Developing OER Resources for Medical Biotechnology). Strong themes from the discussion included the value of student collaboration and the significant time investment necessary for OER creation. The second panel was about open resources to support graduate employment and industry knowledge with Kelli Nicola Richmond (Occupational Therapy Placements: A Resource for Placement Supervisors), Glenn Costin (Building Futures: Construction Career Collection), and Karen Young (The HOST Guide for STEM Placement Supervision).
In addition to the panels featuring 2025 grant recipients, publishing awards were given to four teams of Deakin academics who published OER this year, including our newest publication, Jacqui McGregor’s Neonatal Care Essentials for Nursing and Midwifery, which was officially launched at the showcase event.
Building Futures: Construction Career Collection
Building Futures: Construction Career Collection is a collection of engaging videos, developed by Nateque Mahmood, Abid Hasan, Glenn Costin, and Ankitha Vijaykumar from Deakin’s School of Architecture and Built Environment. The team also worked closely with industry partner Built, whose staff generously shared their time and expertise as interviewees, and Deakin’s Digital Learning Futures (DLF) team, who contributed their production expertise to bring the videos to life. The collection celebrates the unique qualities of the construction industry in Australia. Each video is about 5–10 minutes in length, and there are nine in total. Building Futures: Construction Career Collection has already attracted strong engagement, with more than 150 downloads and over 700 combined views (at the time of writing). Building on this success, the team is now producing a second set of career videos.
Communication and Teamwork Skills to Support Neurodiversity
Communication and Teamwork Skills to Support Neurodiversity was authored by Teagan Menhenett, Nick Milne, and Siva Krishnan. The resource was designed for staff and students as an ancillary resource guide to support the neurodiverse student body in developing two key professional practice skills: communication and teamwork skills. One thing that is really special about this resource is that Teagan, the first author, is a student at Deakin. This is an excellent example of how OER can enable collaboration between faculty and students. The resource has already had significant impact at a course level for Bachelor of Engineering students. Looking at who is accessing the resource outside of Deakin, we are getting referrals originating from Headspace, UNSW, SCU, University of Tasmania, and the University of Canberra. The resource has been included as a recommended resource by Australian Disability Clearinghouse on Education and Training (ADCET), and the Deakin Open Ed team has adjusted processes and procedures related to accessibility to match OER’s recommendation.
Leading Assessment for Inclusion
Developed by Associate Professor Joanna Tai (CRADLE) in collaboration with colleagues from Central Queensland University and Massey University, this resource champions a vital message: assessment design should begin with inclusion. Leading Assessment for Inclusion addresses this idea and questions such as: What does ‘assessment for inclusion’ mean, and why does it matter? What does inclusive assessment look like in practice, across different contexts? What opportunities and challenges arise when trying to change assessment practices? Who is responsible for promoting assessment for inclusion, and how can everyone play a role?
Neonatal Care Essentials for Nursing and Midwifery *NEW*
Neonatal Care Essentials for Nursing and Midwifery, authored by Jacqui McGregor, is aimed at providing student midwives and nurses an entry level understanding of the role of the nurse/midwife in the neonatal environment. Divided into chapters following the notions of warm, sweet, pink and calm with an overview of transition to the extrauterine environment. Provides an entry level understanding of the pathophysiology behind some of the more commonly seen presentations in the neonatal special care nursery. Provides management strategies following the warm, sweet, pink and calm concepts.
The Deakin Library offers its most heartfelt thanks and congratulations to academics who published this year and the 2025 grant recipients:
- Hoa Nguyen (Business and Law)
- Tom Keel (Business and Law)
- Nateque Mahmood (Science, Engineering and Built Environment)
- Argaw Gurmu (Science, Engineering and Built Environment)
- Krys Vingrys and team (Health)
- Kelli Nicola-Richmond (Health)
- Rasika Samarasinghe (Health)
- Sophie McKenzie (Science, Engineering and Built Environment)
A full list of grant recipients from 2021–2025 can be found at Open Educational Resources Grant Program.
We also thank and acknowledge the Deakin Copyright team, Astrid Bovell, Julie Higgins, and Luke Watsford for their outstanding contributions to OER publishing. OER publishing would not be possible without the Copyright team. Their expertise and collaboration ensures that Deakin OER authors are confident in OER production, empowered and supported to navigate difficult copyright conversations and, informed when making decisions regarding OER content, compliance, and quality.
Open Ed News is a regular publication from Deakin Library, publishing Open Education-related news for the Deakin academic community and the broader Open Education community. To stay in the loop, please subscribe to Article.
To access Open Education services, please navigate to Open Education via the Deakin Library website. You can also get in touch with us:
- Contact your librarian for support with OER searching and discovery
- Contact the Open Education team about your OER project
In the spirit of Open Education’s values of openness and transparency, we’d like to share that parts of this article were adapted from previous publications in Open Ed news, which were written with support from ChatGPT for early drafting and editing. We carefully reviewed, peer-reviewed, refined, and verified all content before publication.