Home > OEGlobal 2026 Code of Conduct

OEGlobal 2026 Code of Conduct

Last updated: March 2026

All participants, speakers, sponsors, organisers and volunteers at our conference are required to agree to the following code of conduct. Cooperation will help to ensure a safe and productive environment for everybody.

This Code of Conduct is in addition to your obligation to comply with the 2026 host venue’s conduct expectations, MIT’s Conduct and Community Standards, any online platforms used by the conference, and other locations visited during the conference.

For concerns regarding the Code of Conduct or any issues, please email the Conference Chairs at conference@oeglobal.org.

THE DEED

(THE SHORT VERSION)

Open education celebrates inclusion, diversity, community, and human flourishing and seeks to create spaces where conversations and actions match these beliefs and values and enrich knowledge and practice. We also understand–as a community–that open education is about learning and adapting, and we do not always achieve the best outcomes on the first try. Sometimes people make honest mistakes but need to be open to the idea of striving for better practices. We ask for an atmosphere of diplomacy and forgiveness when engaging with potential breaches.

Open Education Global is dedicated to providing a harassment-free conference experience for everyone regardless of gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, age, or religion.

We do not tolerate harassment of conference participants in any form. Inappropriate language and imagery are not appropriate for any conference venue, including presentations. Conference participants violating these rules may be sanctioned or expelled from the conference at the discretion of the conference organizers.

Inappropriate behaviour will be met with any of the following:

a request for the behaviour to immediately cease;
cautioning, or requesting the individual(s) leave the conference, applicable to both in person and online modalities;
barring individual(s) from the remainder of OEGlobal 2026, both in person and online; and/or
barring individual(s) from future OEGlobal events.

More information on reporting can be found in the Full Policy below.

MORE DETAIL

(THE FULL POLICY)

The purpose of this document is to ensure a culture of professional, courteous, respectful, and inclusive interactions among all delegates and participants.

Harassment includes verbal comments that reinforce social structures of domination related to gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, age, religion; sexual images in public/virtual spaces; deliberate intimidation; stalking; harassing photography or recording; sustained disruption of talks or other events; inappropriate physical contact; and unwelcome sexual attention. Participants asked to stop any harassing behaviour are expected to comply immediately.

EXPECTED BEHAVIOR

The following behaviours are expected and requested of all community members:

Participate in an authentic and active way. In doing so, you contribute to the health and longevity of this community.
Exercise consideration and respect in your speech and actions.
Attempt collaboration before conflict.
Refrain from demeaning, discriminatory, or harassing behaviour and speech.
Be mindful of your fellow participants. Alert the conference organizers if you notice a dangerous situation, someone in distress, or violations of this Code of Conduct, even if they seem inconsequential.
Respect intellectual property and give credit where it is due. It is the user’s responsibility to obtain permission for any material they post that is not their own. Please include copyright and terms of use (e.g., Creative Commons licenses) notices where appropriate, ask for creator information where unknown, and be prepared to include credits if they are found after you post.
No endorsement or any promotion of any local, state, or federal candidates for political office is permitted. Neither is encouraging boycotts.

UNACCEPTABLE BEHAVIOR

Violence, threats of violence, or violent language directed against another person.
Sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic, ableist, or otherwise discriminatory jokes, language, and/or images.
Posting or displaying sexually explicit or violent material.
Posting or threatening to post other people’s personally identifying information (“doxing”).
Personal insults, particularly those related to gender, sexual orientation, race, religion, or disability.
Inappropriate photography or recording. (Please note that sessions will be recorded in person and/or in the event platform, CC-licensed, and shared by the organizers through official channels. Presenters agree to these terms as part of their application process to present.)
Unwelcome sexual attention. This includes, but is not limited to, sexualized comments or jokes and unwelcome sexual advances.
Deliberate intimidation, stalking or following (online or in person).
Advocating for, or encouraging, any of the above behavior.
Sustained disruption of community events, including talks and presentations.

No list of behaviours will be exhaustive or comprehensive. The intent of this section is to call attention to the range of behaviours, and set standards for the conference.

CONSEQUENCES OF UNACCEPTABLE BEHAVIOR

Unacceptable behaviour from any community member, including sponsors and those with decision-making authority, will not be tolerated.

We expect participants to follow this code of conduct on all channels of communication (including private messages) and platforms related to the conference. Anyone asked to stop unacceptable behaviour is expected to comply immediately.

If a participant engages in unacceptable behaviour, the community organisers may take any action they deem appropriate: this could include giving a warning to the offending party, and removing the offending party from the event.

Where necessary, behaviour can be reported to MIT or Cambridge police, or other relevant authorities.

REPORTING

If someone makes you or anyone else feel unsafe or unwelcome, please report it as soon as possible. Harassment and other code of conduct violations reduce the value of our event for everyone. We want you to be safe and happy at our event. People like you make our event a better place.

As we integrate online platforms more fully with the conference, we recognise the risk for online trolling/bullying has increased. This behaviour is unacceptable, and the organizers will be monitoring all online platforms including OEGlobal Connect and will act decisively and swiftly to end behaviour they deem trolling. Anyone exhibiting trolling behaviour will be immediately removed from the conference platforms.

You can make a report either personally or anonymously. Reporting personally can be done directly to the conference Committee, or OEGlobal staff. These staff will be identified in the first session of the conference. Should you experience inappropriate behaviour from any member of staff, please find someone you trust to report the incident. We take these incidents very seriously, and ensure the Code of Conduct applies to all staff.

Should you feel the need to contact police, counselling, security or other services, Conference staff will support you to do so.

Conference staff will assist those experiencing harassment to feel safe for the duration of the conference. We value your participation.

ATTRIBUTION STATEMENT

This document is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence and should be cited as:

The document draws heavily (in structure, format, and wording) from the Creative Commons Global Summit Code of Conduct, made available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence.

In addition, the Committee would like to acknowledge the role of the following documents in helping us to understand the scope and structure of a functioning Code: