NISO’s 2026 Education Programs Host the Conversations We Need Now
NISO's 2026 Education Program is built around what our community is dealing with right now. When it feels like the ground keeps moving and the questions are both practical and urgent, our monthly webinars—a key benefit of NISO membership—offer grounded perspectives from the people building our systems, shaping standards, and navigating policy. You’ll see sessions on the economics and politics of knowledge exchange, the ethics and real costs of AI, authorship and research integrity, accessibility and compliance, preservation and trust, open science infrastructure, and what research looks like when we learn from missteps. Altogether, these programs speak to the day-to-day work of keeping scholarship discoverable, durable, and usable.
Note: This schedule has been updated since it was first published. Be sure to double-check the dates and topics below.
NISO Webinars
January 14 — State of the Community
Building on conversations sparked by our January 2025 webinar of the same name, we’ll take stock of 2025’s rapid changes and their implications for 2026, surveying policy shifts, where we stand now, and what’s on the horizon.
February 11 — The Global Economics and Politics of Knowledge Exchange
An unfiltered look at how ideas move—and who pays—across borders. We’ll consider how tariffs, trade policy, and shifting supply chains are reshaping publishing and scholarly communication, from print costs to open-access models and licensing.
March 11 — To AI or Not to AI: The Ethics of AI Use
When is AI helpful—and when should we hit pause? From environmental and operational costs to privacy, equity, and access, we’ll examine real-world scenarios and decision frameworks for choosing when AI should—or should not—be used.
April 8 — Deep Dive: Accessibility — Approaching One Year Since the EAA
One year on from the European Accessibility Act (EAA) and ahead of US Title II implementation deadlines, we’ll revisit highlights from past NISO accessibility programs to ask what’s changed, what’s working, and where gaps remain.
May 13 — Deep Dive: The Healthy Metadata Ecosystem
This conversation explores how the right (and wrong) metadata shape discovery, accessibility, and success—from standards and identifiers to tags, usage, and AI readiness.
June 10 — Much Ado About Authorship: Research Integrity and AI Systems
What counts as authorship when AI assists—or drafts—content? We’ll dig into disclosure practices, tools and workflows for detecting machine-generated text and images, handling hallucinations and manipulated content, and editorial policies that safeguard trust while keeping reviews efficient.
July — Summer Hiatus
August 12 and 19 — Preservation and Trust in Scholarly Communications (Two-Part Series)
Part I — Preservation, Access, and Trust
How do we keep collections safe, accessible, and credible when funding, policy, and public sentiment pull in different directions? We’ll explore governance, provenance, versioning/audit trails, community input, and transparency practices that strengthen trust while resisting censorship.
Part II — Preserving the Past / Writing the Future
When records, labels, and metadata become battlegrounds, what principles guide description without erasing difficult truths? Using case studies, we’ll discuss ethical labeling, contested narratives, rights and risk, and strategies for documenting change over time so future scholars can see what was preserved and what was changed.
September 9 — Measure for Measure: AI Automation, Bias, and the Future of Research
How will automation reshape what gets measured in research? We’ll examine where AI accelerates discovery and where it risks encoding bias, from data collection and curation to assessment and evaluation.
October 14 — Deep Dive: The Continued March Toward Open Science
Building on recorded conversations from the NISO archive, this program updates the Open Science discussion with a focus on infrastructure and incentives: aligning repositories and workflows with FAIR and CARE principles, rights and licensing for reuse, privacy and ethical guardrails for sensitive data, and practical steps to support reproducibility, openness of methods, and responsible data sharing.
November 18 — All’s Well That’s Regulated: AI Policy and Governance
With policymakers increasingly green-lighting innovation, how do we balance speed with safeguards? We’ll consider accountability, auditability, intellectual property, and public impact—plus pragmatic tools to move fast while maintaining trust.
December 9 — The Gift of the Misstep: Lessons in Constructive Failure
Case studies of projects that went sideways—and the creative pivots, silver linings, and happy accidents that led to unexpected lessons and wins.
NISO Training Series
NISO Training Series programs offer in-depth learning led by a subject-matter expert and frequently include guest speakers. Sessions are designed to be informative and hands-on, with plenty of opportunity for group discussion. Check our upcoming events page for dates and speaker information as it becomes available.
Spring (Eight weeks) — Assessing and Adopting AI Tools
Hands-on exploration of AI tools, evaluation methods, and adoption frameworks.
Summer (Four weeks) — Organizational Resilience Through Collaboration
From consortia to shared collections, creative models can help scale capacity and reduce risk.
Fall (Eight weeks) — Copyright Essentials from A to AI
Timed to key US Copyright Office reports and continuing debates on fair use
