twillo on the Road: Here’s Where Our Project Team Has Been Over the Past Few Weeks

The twillo team reg­u­larly attends con­fer­ences and events to engage with edu­ca­tors and learn­ers, share expe­ri­ences, and gain new insights into Open Edu­ca­tional Resources. In this post, we’ll take a look at the events we’ve par­tic­i­pated in over the past few weeks and pro­vide you with an overview of the key top­ics and high­lights.

A Look at OER

Under the motto “Wel­come to the Jun­gle,” the OER Sta­tus Con­fer­ence: Focus on 2026 brought together stake­hold­ers from acad­e­mia, the edu­ca­tion sec­tor, pol­i­tics, and the OER com­mu­nity to dis­cuss cur­rent devel­op­ments in the national OER strat­egy and to jointly develop future per­spec­tives for open edu­ca­tion. It became clear that open edu­ca­tion is increas­ingly shift­ing from the mere pro­vi­sion of open mate­ri­als toward issues of col­lab­o­ra­tion, net­work­ing, and sus­tain­able inte­gra­tion. Time and again, it has become evi­dent that tech­no­log­i­cal inno­va­tions deliver their great­est value when they address spe­cific chal­lenges in the edu­ca­tional land­scape and mean­ing­fully sup­port exist­ing work processes with­out cre­at­ing fur­ther redun­dan­cies or par­al­lel sys­tems.

twillo con­tributed to the pro­gram with three mee­tups: Together with the par­tic­i­pants, they reflected on prac­ti­cal expe­ri­ences, dis­cussed the poten­tial of OER sprints for col­lab­o­ra­tive resource devel­op­ment, and exam­ined the role of OER as a build­ing block of dig­i­tal sov­er­eignty. A key con­clu­sion of the event was that open edu­ca­tion does not arise solely from infra­struc­ture or mate­ri­als, but above all from engaged com­mu­ni­ties, the exchange of best prac­tices, and reli­able frame­work con­di­tions for long-term col­lab­o­ra­tion.

Teaching Day at Hannover University of Applied Sciences and Arts

On June 10, Han­nover Uni­ver­sity of Applied Sci­ences and Arts invited par­tic­i­pants to focus on stu­dents’ per­spec­tives and dis­cuss how fac­ulty mem­bers can con­sciously and effec­tively incor­po­rate these per­spec­tives into the design of their courses. Spe­cial atten­tion was given to the expe­ri­ences and needs of first-time col­lege stu­dents, who are enrolling at HSH in par­tic­u­larly large num­bers.

A wide range of top­ics related to higher edu­ca­tion ped­a­gogy were addressed in keynote pre­sen­ta­tions, panel dis­cus­sions, and work­shops, such as the expe­ri­ences of work­ing-class stu­dents in higher edu­ca­tion, the use of agile learn­ing meth­ods, stu­dent rit­u­als when using AI, and address­ing dis­crim­i­na­tion in the higher edu­ca­tion con­text. The twillo team pre­sented the portal’s fea­tures and func­tions dur­ing a poster ses­sion and was avail­able to answer par­tic­i­pants’ ques­tions about Open Sci­ence.

A high­light of the pro­gram was the awards cer­e­mony for the HSH Teach­ing Awards, which rec­og­nize out­stand­ing teach­ing, tuto­ri­als, and the­ses.

Teaching Day at Leibniz University Hannover

On June 15, 2026, Leib­niz Uni­ver­sity Han­nover hosted its Teach­ing Day under the theme “Mind­ful Cam­pus.” The event focused on the ques­tion of how teach­ing and learn­ing spaces that pro­mote health, mind­ful­ness, and learn­ing can be designed col­lab­o­ra­tively. Fac­ulty, stu­dents, and other uni­ver­sity mem­bers took the oppor­tu­nity to exchange ideas on approaches to fos­ter­ing a mind­ful and sus­tain­able teach­ing and learn­ing cul­ture.

Fol­low­ing open­ing remarks by Vice Pres­i­dent Prof. Dr. Julia Gillen, Prof. Dr. Sonia Lippke (HAW Ham­burg) kicked off the event with a keynote address on the chal­lenges and oppor­tu­ni­ties of health pro­mo­tion at uni­ver­si­ties. This was fol­lowed by an inter­ac­tive fish­bowl dis­cus­sion, dur­ing which par­tic­i­pants had the oppor­tu­nity to engage in con­ver­sa­tion with rep­re­sen­ta­tives from var­i­ous uni­ver­sity depart­ments.

In the after­noon, a net­work­ing café pro­vided a space for dis­cus­sion, net­work­ing, and insights into inno­v­a­tive teach­ing projects. twillo took the oppor­tu­nity to give a poster pre­sen­ta­tion to engage with edu­ca­tors about open edu­ca­tional resources and the oppor­tu­ni­ties offered by an open teach­ing and learn­ing cul­ture.

The cer­e­mony con­cluded with the pre­sen­ta­tion of the Teach­ing Award, which rec­og­nizes out­stand­ing achieve­ments in uni­ver­sity teach­ing.

OER Barcamp Austria

The OER Bar­camp Aus­tria 2026 was entirely ded­i­cated to #reOPEN—Open Edu­ca­tion as an ongo­ing call to action. At the Uni­ver­sity of Vienna, over 100 par­tic­i­pants from 29 higher edu­ca­tion insti­tu­tions gath­ered to share expe­ri­ences, dis­cuss cur­rent chal­lenges, and col­lab­o­ra­tively develop ideas for open edu­ca­tional resources (OER) and open edu­ca­tional prac­tices (OEP).

The pro­gram took shape on the spot—based on the top­ics, ques­tions, and ideas raised by the par­tic­i­pants them­selves. It was sup­ple­mented by work­shop for­mats, such as the spe­cial on train­ing for the “OER Prac­ti­tioner” cer­tifi­cate, as well as ses­sions on Edu­ca­tion for Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment (ESD) and Pro-Action Cafés for devel­op­ing project ideas, a diverse range of work­shops was cre­ated.

The Bar­camp not only offered valu­able insights into cur­rent devel­op­ments but, above all, pro­vided a space for net­work­ing, col­le­gial exchange, and the col­lab­o­ra­tive advance­ment of open higher edu­ca­tion. A wide range of top­ics related to Open Edu­ca­tional Resources (OER) and open higher edu­ca­tion were dis­cussed in 25 ses­sions (see OERhub.at). The focus was on both prac­ti­cal appli­ca­tions and tech­ni­cal solutions—such as video pro­duc­tion, Moo­dle inte­gra­tions, and OER infrastructures—as well as over­ar­ch­ing issues related to open­ness, par­tic­i­pa­tion, Open Sci­ence, arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, and visions for the future of higher edu­ca­tion. In addi­tion, the Bar­camp pro­vided a space for exchang­ing ideas on didac­tic approaches, inno­v­a­tive teach­ing and learn­ing sce­nar­ios, and edu­ca­tional con­cepts such as MOOCs, co-cre­ation, and ESD.

In addi­tion to oppor­tu­ni­ties for in-depth explo­ration of spe­cific top­ics, the ses­sions, work­shops, and co-cre­ation for­mats high­lighted the diverse range of work being done by the OER com­mu­nity: from OER repos­i­to­ries and AI appli­ca­tions to instruc­tional con­cepts and issues related to the insti­tu­tional inte­gra­tion of open edu­ca­tion.

A high­light was the offi­cial pre­sen­ta­tion and award­ing of accred­i­ta­tion cer­tifi­cates by the OER Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion Body to two uni­ver­si­ties for their con­tin­u­ing edu­ca­tion pro­grams: Both the Salzburg Uni­ver­sity of Applied Sci­ences, with its pro­gram “Super­vised Con­tin­u­ing Edu­ca­tion: OER for All,” and Johannes Kepler Uni­ver­sity Linz (JKU), with its pro­gram“Con­tin­u­ing Edu­ca­tion in the Field of Open Edu­ca­tional Resources (OER) at JKU,”received this award.

The OER cer­ti­fi­ca­tion pro­gram offered by the Asso­ci­a­tion Forum Neue Medien in der Lehre Aus­tria (fnma) rep­re­sents a mile­stone in estab­lish­ing and rais­ing the pro­file of OER in the Aus­trian higher edu­ca­tion land­scape. The “Cer­ti­fied OER Higher Edu­ca­tion Insti­tu­tion” cer­tifi­cate is awarded based on three cri­te­ria. More infor­ma­tion on the cri­te­ria and the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion process can be found here.

This was already the fourth Aus­trian OER Bar­camp. The next event will take place in 2027 at Johannes Kepler Uni­ver­sity Linz.