Co-opting Cultural and Literary Labour? Platform Infrastructures of Agency, Authority, and Experience in the Age of Open Scholarship

Canadian Australian Partnership for Open Scholarship (CAPOS), 8th Annual Gathering
3–4 December 2026
University of Melbourne
Propose papers before 1 September 2026 via this link
Registration (free, but necessary), before 1 November [to come]

Call for papers

The eighth annual conference of the Canadian Australian Partnership for Open Scholarship (CAPOS) will take place 3-4 December 2026 on the lands of the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung people of the Kulin Nation at the campus of the University of Melbourne, continuing our tradition of celebrating and reflecting on the important ongoing work of the open scholarship community.

Keynote Speakers

Focus, Themes

Open scholarship emphasizes the social nature of knowledge, along with community-driven initiatives, outreach, and partnerships that aim to close gaps between academic theory, research, and communities beyond academic specialists. Even though many researchers now have unprecedented opportunities to share and collaborate with each other and the public, much scholarship still remains inaccessible to wider audiences. In contrast to this reality, open scholarship asserts that research publications, datasets, educational resources, and other output should be accessible to all. How can Humanities scholars maintain the value of open scholarship, as AI companies increasingly turn it into a training resource for their products? How can Humanities scholars use these new platforms to increase the quality and reach of open scholarship? How can the Humanities speak back to these platforms, and up for core practices of scholarly inquiry?

Points of focus may include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Platforms for culture
  • Indigenous Data Sovereignty and Postcolonial Digital Humanities
  • What it means to read and engage with platforms
  • Critical Platform Studies / Critical Infrastructure Studies
  • The place of literary studies and literary work in supporting discussions around LLMs and algorithmic cultural life
  • Cultural experience inside platforms
  • The work of literary and cultural production in the context of Generative AI
  • Open scholarship and closed platforms
  • The changing nature of search and discoverability
  • Colonial, environmental and cultural contexts of Generative AI models
  • Agency versus algorithmic direction
  • Open in format, closed in culture?
  • Digital Humanities infrastructure
  • Software heritage in the age of Claude Code
  • Introduce your team / project / community

Together, we will consider how best to model open, social scholarship practices as they intersect with these important issues, and across the following general themes:

  • Community: How can we foster humanities and social sciences research, development, community building, and engagement through online, omnipresent, and open community spaces?
  • Training: How can we adapt existing training opportunities and develop new opportunities in emerging areas to meet academic, partner, and public needs for open scholarship training?
  • Connection: How can humanities and social sciences researchers collaborate more closely with the general public? What are the best ways to bring the public into our work, as well as for bringing our work to the public?
  • Policy: How do we ensure that research on pressing open scholarship topics is accessible to a diverse public, including those who develop organizational or national policy?
  • Art making: How do we ensure the rights of artists are balanced with community needs for access? How do we support the Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums (GLAM) sector with knowledge, policy development and collaborations to withstand challenges to openness?

Submission and Registration

We invite you to submit abstracts for longer presentations (15-20 mins) and lightning talks (5-10 mins) on these themes and beyond. The gathering will include featured speakers, CAPOS partner / plenary panels, paper sessions, and more.

  • Submissions: before 1 September 2026 via this link
  • Notification: Following peer review of submissions, corresponding authors or project leads will be notified in late September.
  • Registration, before November 1 (free, but necessary): [to come]

Who Should Attend?

This action-oriented program is geared toward leaders and learners from all fields and arenas, including: academic and non-academic researchers, graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, librarians and archivists, galleries and museums professionals, artists, publishers, members of scholarly and professional associations and consortia, open source practitioners and developers, industry liaisons, community groups, and other stakeholders.

Organizing Committee

  • Tully Barnett (U Adelaide)
  • Tyne Daile Sumner (Australian National U)
  • Michael Falk (U Melbourne)
  • Ray Siemens (U Victoria)
  • Michael Sinatra (U Montréal)