As I now do for fun, I prompted ChatGPT to provide a list of open education conferences. Here is what it returned.
Here are a few conferences that are focused on open education (ChatGPT, January 11, 2023):
- Open Education Global Conference – This conference is organized by the Open Education Consortium and takes place in a different location around the world each year. It brings together educators, researchers, policy makers, and other stakeholders to discuss the latest developments and trends in open education.
- Open Education Conference – This conference is organized by the Open Education Consortium and takes place in the United States each year. It focuses on the practice, policy, and research related to open education; Can’t tell that there is a US-only conference sponsored by Open Education Consortium?
- Open Education Conference Australia – This conference is organized by Open Education Resources Australia (OERu) and takes place in Australia each year. It focuses on the use of open educational resources in higher education; Appears to no longer exist.
- International Conference on Open Education – This conference is organized by the International Council for Open and Distance Education and takes place in a different location around the world each year. It brings together experts in the field of open education to discuss the latest developments and trends.
- European Distance and E-Learning Network (EDEN) Annual Conference – This conference is organized by the European Distance and E-Learning Network and takes place in a different location in Europe each year. It focuses on the use of technology in distance and e-learning, including open education.
- Open Education Working Group (OEWG) – It is a working group under the umbrella of UNESCO, which works on the research, development, implementation and the advocacy of open education policies and initiatives around the world; Did this ever exist?
At first, this appears to be an ok roster. I headed to Google to find links to the corresponding conference and added those I found. However, at least one appears to no longer exist, which isn’t surprising since ChatGPT is captures data prior to 2021 and it’s entirely possible that these events were doomed by the pandemic. Also, I couldn’t find any reference to #6, which could be an issue with Google finding it. Or, ChatGPT made up a conference as the OEWG seems to stand for UNESCO “Open-ended Working Groups”.
Not sure what all this little test means except:
- ChatGPT will be more powerful when paired with a search engine
- The results are only as good as the data that’s fetched
- It seems to make up results. Writers beware 🙂