The Open Education Southern Symposium (OESS) is looking for a new logo design for its 2021 conference event and is calling on students to help out! All student artists and graphic designers are encouraged to submit entries to the Student Logo Contest that represent the conference theme “Open Connections: Regional and Local Community Building for Equity and Sustainability.” The artist of the winning submission will receive a $275 prize and recognition at the symposium.

What is the Open Education Southern Symposium?

The OESS is a regional open education event with a mission to provide equitable access and development opportunities for open education professionals in the southern United States. Its three main goals are to:

  • Highlight different voices and experiences
  • Help foster regional and local collaborations and partnerships
  • Advocate and raise awareness of open education

What is open education?

According to the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC), open education “encompasses resources, tools and practices that are free of legal, financial, and technical barriers and can be fully used, shared and adapted in the digital environment. Open Education maximizes the power of the Internet to make education more affordable, accessible and effective.”

Specifications: 

  • Submissions should reflect the values of open education and the conference theme: “Open Connections: Regional and Local Community Building for Equity and Sustainability.”
  • All submissions should be high-quality digital files, appropriately sized to be used on digital products or physical items.
  • High-quality image styles such as .jpg, .png., .tif, .ai, .eps, .pdf, .svg are the preferred submission formats. No videos or GIFs.
  • Submissions may feature photos, shapes, words, etc., but no trademarked images should be used.
  • By submitting, all artists agree to transfer all rights of their submission to the Open Education Southern Symposium if their submission is selected as the winner. The winning artwork will be licensed with a Creative Commons (CC-BY 4.0) Attribution license to abide by the open education community’s value of openness. Attribution will also be given to the artist via all event materials in which the artwork is used.

Submission Process:

  • Entries must be submitted via submission form by 11:59 p.m. CST on Sunday, January 31, 2021. A Google account is required in order to upload artwork and submit.
  • The Open Education Southern Symposium Planning Committee will select the winner.
  • Submissions will be judged on the following factors:
  • Creativity and originality
  • Communication of open education and conference theme

Additional information about open education:

University of Arkansas Libraries OER Research Guide

Hewlett Foundation – Open Education

Open Education – U.S. Office of Education Technology

Videos:

OER Introduction II

The OERs- Open Educational Resources

An Introduction to OER

Please email openedsouthsymposium@gmail.com with any questions.