Using Learning Technology effectively and intelligently has become mission critical in Higher Education and beyond. AI might be getting all the headlines, yet no matter just how shiny new tools might be gleaming, the digital business as usual has to continue, from maintaining infrastructure to running the VLE and from creating learning resources to assessment.

Over the past two decades we have seen how open source technologies and open approaches to EdTech can offer benefits for the institution as well as educators and most importantly, students. Yet one of the recurring challenges with open source software in education is advocating for open source not only as a solution for testing out innovations, but as an enterprise service. For open educators and learning technologists this presents an ongoing issue, balancing the requirements of institutional IT and purchasing policies with the needs of educators and students. With cyber security, responsible use of AI and accessibility all increasingly important, is there any room left for open solutions and services alongside an institution's core digital estate?

Inspired by the conference theme “Digital Learning From How to Who” this session will focus on who wins hearts and minds when it comes to Open EdTech advocacy. We will showcase several new Open EdTech case studies (based on interviews conducted with teams of instructional designers over the past 2 years) that show who and how institutions who are at the forefront of Open EdTech adoption develop, scale and deploy open source educational services, including Stanford University, Princeton University and SUNY Oneonta.

Hear how Ed Beck, and his colleagues at the State University of New York at Oneonta, took an open-source software from proof-of-concept experiment in open software to a scaled-up service that supports high-impact teaching and experiential learning for the faculty and students (Commons In A Box OpenLab this is the technology that powers the SUNY Oneonta OpenLab. CBOX OpenLab is a free open-source software that provides an infrastructure that encourages discussion, collaboration, and sharing).

We’ll also show how Cody Carvel, Digital Scholarship Technologist, at the Center for Digital Scholarship at Brown University Library, supports a growing community with diverse needs through digital projects including the African Poetry Digital Portal and an Inscription research tool. At the heart of this case study is making space for creativity in Digital Scholarship and innovative use of technology underpinned by digital literacies for faculty and students.

At a time when openness in education and on the web is more contested than ever before, these case studies offer practical advice for learning designers and learning technologists, as well as strategic insights for anyone navigating funding and procurement processes for open source technologies and looking for practica