Collaborative and Open Education by Interdisciplinary Women's Networks
This chapter describes FemTechNet, a case study that exemplifies the way in which an informal network of professional women can develop alternative dissemination formats for digital educational content. FemTechNet is an interdisciplinary and transnational network formed by women feminist scholars, educators, and artists mainly from North America, also Europe and Asia. Aiming to apply feminist principles to online education content on gender and technology, FemTechNet created in 2013 the DOCC, a feminist approach to collaborative open formats for online education, especially focused on feminism, new media, and liberal arts. While new formats of massive online courses perpetuate old patterns of hierarchical educational structures, this network aims to promote open pedagogic and inclusive content off and online by the collaboration of the different nodes implicated internationally. This chapter explores FemTechNet principles and methods that made from it a unique network that has successfully addressed contemporary problematics on open accessible content online.