Postscript

This Open Educational Resource (OER) project is the fruit of a visual arts research seminar at the University of Ottawa. The initiative is the result of a close collaboration between students, faculty and the library, working together to create a resource designed to stimulate discovery and reflection around an emerging field.

It uses open pedagogy to explore the challenges of AI, a topic ripe with questions of authorship, originality, and artistic labour. Issues of equity, diversity and inclusion combined with the inherent biases of computer algorithms provided a complex maze for the students to navigate through as they each reflected on their chapters and shared their process and findings with peers of this collection.

In open education, knowledge creation becomes an integral part of learning. The open education leader David Wiley, in a 2013 blog post talked about “killing the disposable assignment”. He was talking mostly about the traditional quiz, exam, or essay that is written by students, graded by instructors and fated to disappear in a recycling bin at some point. He was an advocate of the assignment that adds value into the world. Content that can be revised, remixed, reused and expanded upon. The resulting collection of essays is a remarkable example of the power of students interacting with technology and working collaboratively to reflect on the merging of AI with the visual arts. It provided them with a hands-on learning experience while honing their writing, publishing and collaboration skills. This approach also fostered the acquisition of new digital tools and a deeper understanding of fundamental OER concepts such as open licenses and copyright law.

It is our hope that this book will inspire other members of the uOttawa community to embrace open pedagogy while immersing and actively engaging students in their learning.