The annual Open Education Awards for Excellence recognizes outstanding contributions in the Open Education community, recognizing exemplary Individuals, distinctive Open Educational Resources, and innovative Open Practices from around the world.
As the Open Education Awards program strives to emphasize as much recognition as well as “winning”, in 2025 we announce here the newest OEAwards Shortlist of Finalists (and it is not short at all). Join us in celebrating and honoring from his year’s main categories, 16 individuals (People in Open), 16 open assets (What We Share), and 16 open practices (How We Share).
The shortlist of finalists was selected from the 193 nominations of open education excellence representing 42 countries through an arduous review process conducted by the 31 past winners who serve on the OE Awards 2025 Committee as well as OEGlobal Board Members.
Explore the finalists listed below in each major award category, listed with a quote from their nominator for the “top reason” they should be recognized plus a link to the full details included in the nomination. Please add messages of encouragement and gratitude in OEG Connect as well as in your social media channels– tag everywhere #OEAwards25.
We are proud to share with you below the 2025 finalists! Join us on October 17 for the live webcast announcement of award winners.
People in Open
Ana Michelle Téllez Ferrer
AlmaFuerte Lab, Columbia
recognized as an Educator
“Ana Téllez is a dedicated changemaker committed to transforming lives through inclusive and accessible education. Her work with the Laboratorio de Vanguardia Pedagógica in Peru and her global contributions reflect her passion for innovative, open learning. Ana, exemplifies the values of this award through her vision, perseverance, and real-world impact.”
Delmar Larsen
LibreTexts, United States
recognized as a Leader
“Delmar has been leading LibreTexts since its inception, growing it from a free and open chemistry wiki to a suite of open tools to further open learning across the globe. The world of Open Education is full of tenacious and conscientious drivers of the global accessibility of educational resources, and Delmar is a paragon of this type, leading LibreTexts against the trend-chasing tides of for-profit educational technology and into a grounded and sustainable education-for-all future.”
Saida Affouneh
An Najah University, Palestine
recognized as a Leader
“Saida has been promoting, advocating, practicing and supporting open education for over a decade. As a leader in open education in Palestine, she has shown us the value of open education to support learners in times of war, crisis and famine. She has led several projects to support Palestinian learners before and after the siege of Gaza in 2024, she has promoted open scholarship, enable channel to support learners and educators in Gaza, coordinating resources and people to support OER for Gaza”
Sanjaya Mishra
Commonwealth of Learning, Canada
recognized as a Leader
“Dr Mishra recognized the role of open learning early in 1993 when he joined the Indira Gandhi National Open University, where he contributed to staff training and helped several universities adopt distance education practices. At UNESCO, he championed open access to scientific information and contributed to the development of UNESCO’s open access policy. At the Commonwealth of Learning, his work has led to adoption of policies for OER at national and institutional levels.”
Deborah Gustlin
Gavilan College, United States
recognized as a Catalyst
“Deborah Gustlin served as a catalyst for revitalizing Gavilan College’s OER efforts, rescuing a $520K ZTC grant by developing four pathways and funding 32 projects in three months. A long-term OER advocate, she mentors faculty, builds lasting structures, and fosters collaboration. Her equity-focused OER initiatives remove barriers for historically underserved students, who make up most of the college’s population. Her advocacy has shifted campus culture to value and practice open education.”
Shinta Hernandez
Montgomery College, United States
recognized as a Leader
“Shinta Hernandez’s transformative leadership extends beyond her roles in community college academic support and leadership development. She advances equity and access through Open Education locally, nationally, and globally, through years of service to CCCOER and OEGlobal, co-founding and co-leading the UN Sustainable Development Goals Open Pedagogy Fellowship in North America, and providing executive direction to its Asia Chapter – with vision, compassion, and lasting impact.”
Laura Hosman
Arizona State University, United States
recognized as a Leader
“Having co-founded the world’s first solar-powered, offline digital library initiative, Dr. Laura Hosman is a visionary leader in Open Education. Her ASU SolarSPELL Initiative empowers offline communities with localized libraries & digital skill-building to help learners make informed decisions, increase their self-reliance and improve their quality of life. Dr. Hosman is also a passionate educator, training students to be principled innovators, and a global champion for Open Education.”
Srishti Sethi
Wikimedia Foundation, United States
recognized as a Leader & Catalyst
“The top reason Srishti Sethi deserves to be recognized with a 2025 Open Education Award for Excellence is their sustained leadership and impactful contributions over 15 years to open education and open source, advancing equitable and affordable learning opportunities for underserved communities worldwide through innovative tools, mentorship, and community-building.”
Anne-Marie Scott
Commonwealth of Learning, Canada
recognized as an Ethically Driven Leader and Innovator
“The top reason Anne-Marie Scott deserves recognition is a long career grounded in sound application and management of technology. Her growth as a savvy leader for large institutions / organizations is imbued with insightful planning and a keen eye for an ethical and socially just perspective. Anne-Marie is a passionate advocate for open source in higher education, but also one of the most creative thinkers in the realm. If I had to pick a boss to work for it would be Anne-Marie!”
Hal Abelson
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, United States
recognized as an Open Movement Catalyst
“Hal Abelson merits the 2025 Open Education Award for Excellence for his visionary leadership in building the foundations of Open—spanning access, software, licensing, policy, and education. A co-founder of MIT OpenCourseWare, Creative Commons, the Free Software Foundation, Public Knowledge and key leader of MIT’s open access policies, Hal has shaped the global open movement for over four decades, proving that knowledge is a public good and inspiring generations to share and build openly.”
Alexandra Okada
The Open University, United Kingdom
recognized as an Open Researcher
“The top reason Dr. Alexandra Okada deserves the 2025 Open Education Award for Excellence is her decade-long leadership in open research that advances inclusive, multilingual open schooling across Europe, Latin America, and Africa. Her work has significantly impacted public education from primary to secondary levels through over €24 million in EU-funded projects, ten initiatives she has led, recognition from UNESCO, and deep engagement with under-served and minority youth communities”
Darrion Letendre
Norquest College, Canada
recognized as a Leader
“Through writings, public lectures and keynotes about the [in]compatibility of Indigenous Ways of Knowing and Open Education, Darrion Letendre has made a tremendous contribution to advancing Open Education Global’s goals. While promoting reconciliation through education, Darrion simultaneously reminds us that, if we are to be a force for good, an organization that promotes decolonization and anti-racism, then we also need to be vigilant in protecting Indigenous Knowledge and data sovereignty.”
Amber Hoye
The Rebus Foundation, Canada
recognized as a Catalyst
“Amber cultivates inclusive, participatory open education by empowering often-underrepresented voices – students, K–12 educators, and staff – to create meaningful OER. She leverages her instructional design background to support others in sharing their stories, research, and perspectives with a wide audience. Through joyful pedagogy and thoughtful design, Amber plants seeds that grow into lasting ecosystems of care, collaboration, and community-led publishing across the open education landscape.”
Adéṣínà Ghani Ayeni
Yobamoodua Cultural Heritage, Nigeria
recognized as a Leader
“The top reason Adéṣínà Ayeni deserves to be recognised with a 2025 Open Education Award for Excellence is his groundbreaking work in making Nigerian languages accessible through open, culturally rooted digital resources, empowering underrepresented communities, advancing language equity, and bridging the digital divide with passion, innovation, and inclusive impact across education, technology, and culture.”
Leticia Kanywuiro
Thompson Rivers University, Canada
recognized as a Student
“The top reason Leticia Kanywuiro deserves to be recognized with a 2025 Open Education Award for Excellence is her remarkable initiative—from project proposal to promotion—in creating Utamaduni Bora, a groundbreaking student-led OER that celebrates African heritage and champions culturally sustaining pedagogy through inclusive, community-based storytelling.”
Tanya Marie Spilovoy
Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges, United States
recognized as an Open Leader
“Hello. Our names are Ruby and Dakota. But our Indigenous names are “Young Owl Spirit”, and “Good Voice”, names given to us by the elder bundle keeper of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. We are nominating our mother, Tanya Spilovoy for this award. We saw it on her computer, and this is a surprise. We would like to tell you about her commitment, strength, and perserverance to ensure all people have access to knowledge regardless of their place of birth, ancestry, language ability, and money.”
What We Share
Open Online Courses for the Pacific Partnership for Open, Distance and Flexible Learning
Commonwealth of Learning, Canada
recognized for Remixable Open Online Courses
“The series of OER online courses developed by the Commonwealth of Learning the Pacific Partnership for Open, Distance and Flexible Learning, exemplifies the transformative potential of OER and open practices. The initiative demonstrates how inclusive, scalable, and sustainable capacity development can be achieved. The top reason this nomination merits recognition is COL’s unwavering commitment to ‘open everything’ approach within a challenging Pacific island context.”
Unidades de apoyo para el aprendizaje (UAPA)
Coordinación de Universidad Abierta y Educación Digital, Mexico
recognized for Open Learning Support Resources
“El proyecto Unidades de Apoyo para el Aprendizaje (UAPA), de la Coordinación de Universidad Abierta y Educación Digital, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), se compone de 650+ UAPA de nivel licenciatura, autocontenidas y reutilizables, que han impulsado la democratización del acceso al conocimiento universitario a partir de 4,438,000 vistas, desde 136 países, principalmente México, Colombia, Perú, Ecuador, Argentina, España, Venezuela, Chile, Bolivia y Guatemala.”
LETHE. (e-)Learning the Invisible history of Europe
Universidad de Murcia, Spain plus 7 other European countries
recognized as an Historical Inquiry OER
“LETHE deserves to be recognised with a 2025 Open Education Award for Excellence because it is unique in its approach to uncovering hidden stories across Europe through an object-based historical inquiry approach. The resources are all accessible through a Virtual Learning Environment which provides students and teachers with open resources and pedagogical strategies to investigate and uncover hidden stories in their own communities which enables children to become active historians.”
All Means All!
University of Bremen, Germany plus 151 global contributors
recognized as a Teacher Education OER
“All Means All! is a multilingual, CC BY‑licensed open textbook — plus podcasts, videos, and remixable source files — co‑created by 151 educators, researchers, and advocates from 23 countries. It tackles 58 critical topics in inclusive, intersectional teacher‑education and is already being adopted in European initial‑ teacher‑education (ITE) programs. The resource models openness throughout its design, licensing, governance, and dissemination, making it an exemplary candidate for the award.”
twillo
Leibniz Information Centre for Science and Technology, Germany
recognized for OER infrastructure / architecture
“The twillo initiative embodies global openness in education through its three-pillar architecture. First, twillo is an OER repository integrating the search index OERSI, which collects and assorts OER from around the world, into its front end. The OERSI can also be freely integrated into any website via its open plugins or API. Second, twillo actively builds national and international OER communities. Finally, all developments are shared open source and contribute to a sustainable OER ecosystem.”
PASSchem – Platform Adapted Strategic Solutions: Comprehensive Solutions for General Chemistry Practice Questions
Thompson Rivers University, Canada
recognized as a STEM OER
“PASSchem deserves to be recognized with a 2025 Open Education Asset Award for Excellence as it transforms a historically high-failure-rate gateway course into an inclusive, interactive, and equitable learning experience—eliminating cost barriers while improving student success through open, scaffolded learning and culturally responsive design. It’s a model of Open Education impact in STEM.”
Why Do I Have to Take This Course? A Guide to General Education
Fitchburg State University, United States
recognized as an OER
“Why Do I Have to Take This Course? it is a unique and innovative approach to helping students contextualize the value of general education. By framing general education learning through the lens of US Representative and Civil Rights activist John Lewis’ timely philosophy of “good, necessary trouble,” students can explore the deep impact they can have on civic and social justice issues.”
TRauma-Informed Perspective (TRIP) Guidebook
Trent University, Canada
recognized as an Open Trauma-Informed Resource
“Every year, hundreds of thousands of students enter co-op placements and other experiential learning environments where they absorb the weight of others’ pain. This trauma-informed OER equips young workers with tools to thrive-not just survive. With trauma-informed design, as well as content, the TRIP Guidebook cultivates emotional resilience, empowering learners to build sustainable long term-careers in the caring professions.”
Simulated Client Records
Thompson Rivers University, Canada
recognized as an OER
“The top reason Simulated Client Records deserves to be recognized with a 2025 Open Education Award for Excellence is its innovative, practice-aligned contribution to open education in health and human services—offering a quality, ethically sound, openly licensed bank of simulated client records built on the same electronic health record (EHR) platform format used in practice, by actual health care providers, helping students gain vital documentation and clinical reasoning skills.”
Accounting Streams
University College London, United Kingdom
recognized as an OER
“Accounting Streams—Principles of Accounting is the first open access accounting textbook in the UK to embed sustainability and ethics throughout. With global reach, collaborative authorship, and transformative pedagogy, it redefines accounting education for a sustainable future and exemplifies the ethos of open education.”
Marketing to South African Consumers
University of Cape Town, South Africa
recognized as an OER
“This multi-authored (including students) textbook fills a critical gap in South African marketing education. Unlike many commercial alternatives, it is rooted in the lived realities of local consumers. For students, this makes marketing theory not only accessible, but relevant. For lecturers, it offers a much-needed alternative to expensive, foreign-produced texts. Decolonisation of the curriculum is at the forefront of public discourse, this textbook is a tangible case of what is possible. “
Handbook of Open Education and Open Science: A Guideline for Lecturers and Researchers
Thanh Do University, Viet Nam
recognized as an Open Guidebook
“The top reason this nomination deserves to be recognized with a 2025 Open Education Award for Excellence is that it is the first comprehensive handbook in Vietnam on open education and open science, making it a vital resource for learning and practicing open knowledge. It has sparked national discussions through seminars and workshops and has been integrated into university curricula, becoming a foundational tool in shaping the education of open knowledge.”
Ethical Educational Leadership: Untangling Ethical Dilemmas and Imagining Alternative Futures
Thompson Rivers University, Canada
recognized as an OER
“This nomination deserves a 2025 Open Education Award for Excellence for its transformative approach to teaching ethics in leadership. This interdisciplinary, open resource blends theory with real-world application. Co-authored by students, it centers diverse women’s voices from Canada, India, Nigeria, and the St’at’imc First Nation, equipping learners to navigate ethical dilemmas through inclusive lenses, case studies, and renewable assessments.”
VideoTEC: Educational Video Ecosystem (Dirección de Innovación Educativa y Aprendizaje Digital)
Tecnológico de Monterrey, Mexico
recognized as an Open Media Ecosystem
“VideoTEC: Educational Video Ecosystem is a strong candidate for the 2025 Open Education Awards for Excellence, because it offers three platforms that promote enriched and engaging teaching and learning experiences through educational video. These platforms democratize both the consumption and production of educational content by providing open, up-to-date, and high-value resources that have empowered more than +500,000 users across more than 100 countries.”
OERx: The National Open Educational Resources Platform
The National e-Learning Center, Saudi Arabia
recognized as an OER Repository
“The top reason this nomination deserves to be recognized with a 2025 Open Education Award for Excellence is that OERx transformed Saudi Arabia’s fragmented digital learning into a unified, Arabic-first, WCAG-compliant open library of 65,000+ resources co-created by 136 institutions delivering measurable reach, reuse, and return for millions of learners, educators, and institutions.”
The OpenLab at City Tech
City Tech / New York City College of Technology / CUNY, United States
recognized as an Open Community
“For fourteen years, the OpenLab at City Tech has shown what’s possible when everyone at a college can access community-built open infrastructure specifically designed for open practices and the public good. In a landscape dominated by proprietary edtech and walled gardens, the OpenLab stands as a community garden of openness, where members can plant seeds together, nurture them, and watch them grow. Beyond City Tech, it provides a powerful model and active support for other open spaces.”
How We Share
Trauma Informed Education: Learning Growth and Cultivating Care course
Connecticut College, United States
recognized for Open Pedagogy
“Trauma-informed education is so needed in the world these days. Not only did Mays Imad create a course with a diverse group of other educators and make it open on Moodle, she even paid Global South participants to pilot test the course for her. This goes beyond just inclusion – this recognizes the affective labor of pilot testing a course and intentionally invite marginalized groups in the design and implentation and tests whether global South recipients benefit.”
Equity Unbound/ Mid-Year-Festival (MYFest)
Equity Unbound, Egypt plus representation from Canada, United Kingdom, South Africa, Kenya, France, Germany, Mexico
recognized for Open Community Led Professional Development
“Equity Unbound is an open, interconnected, grassroots movement that centers community building, reflection, and care within its ethos. In response to exclusion in traditional academic spaces, it launched the first Mid-Year Festival (MYFest) in 2022. MYFest welcomes people as they are and honors all identities, backgrounds, abilities and disabilities, religions, and roles—including students, staff, and faculty—creating truly inclusive and transformative open learning spaces.”
OERizona Network
Multiple Arizona Higher Ed Institutions, United States
recognized for Open Collaboration
“The OERizona Network has united Arizona’s diverse public Higher Ed Institutions through grassroots collaboration, shared infrastructure, and professional development. Without a mandate or centralized system, OERizona has grown from a seed into a sustainable statewide ecosystem advancing access, equity, and innovation in open education, bridging Arizona’s educational attainment and poverty gaps between rural and urban areas. In 23-24 alone, OER adoptions saved students over $8M in textbook costs.”
Becoming a Climate Conscious Lawyer: Climate Change and the Australian Legal System
La Trobe University, Australia
recognized for Open Collaboration
“By leveraging the game-changing innovations of OERs, we are transforming Australian legal education and helping law graduates to be ‘climate conscious’. Our team has brought together subject experts from across the country to create the pioneering open-access textbook, Becoming a Climate Conscious Lawyer. Read by thousands of students, and embraced by time-poor law teachers, this book disrupts the culture of learning resources (paywall by default) and opens new pathways in legal pedagogy.”
CONNECT: Empowering Teaching with the CARE-KNOW-DO Open Pedagogy Model
The Open University, United Kingdom
recognized for Open Pedagogy
“The top reason CONNECT open schooling deserves a 2025 Excellence in Open Pedagogy Award is its transformative CARE-KNOW-DO model, empowering over 50,000 learners, teachers, and communities across underserved regions in Europe, Africa and Brazil. By addressing real-world challenges, this inclusive open pedagogy fosters critical thinking, collaboration, and creativity—advancing equity, sustainability, and innovation in education.”
EDST 3999U: Special Topics: Open Educational Practices
Ontario Tech University, Canada
recognized for Open Pedagogy Advancement and Advocacy
“This course empowers future educators to co-create, adapt, and share OERs, fostering equity, digital literacy, and community. Students live open practices through collaborative, justice-driven projects that build lasting, accessible resources. Graduates carry these skills into K–12, higher education, and corporate learning, fueling a global movement for transformative, learner-centered open education.”
TRU Open Press
Thompson Rivers University, Canada
recognized for Open Collaboration
“TRU Open Press deserves the 2025 Open Education Award for Excellence for its strong commitment to open collaboration—supporting faculty, students, and staff on 70+ OER projects. By advancing accessibility, inclusion, open pedagogical practices, and open licensing, the Press creates high-quality, affordable resources that transform teaching and learning through shared knowledge and innovation..”
TELresearchers & #HEresearchers
Lancaster University, United Kingdom
recognized for Open Collaboration
“The top reason this nomination deserves to be recognised with a 2025 Open Education Award for Excellence is its creation of an open and inclusive global community for educational researchers. Through honest dialogue across career stages, #TELresearchers & #HEresearchers diversifies research development, providing personal insights into individual journeys to inspire others. It openly champions authentic reflection and drives equity, connection, and growth for educational researchers worldwide.”
Open-access Journal kommunikation.medien
University of Salzburg, Austria
recognized for Student-Led Open Publishing
“The top reason this nomination deserves the 2025 Open Education Award for Excellence is its unique model of graduate-led open publishing which empowers students to take full editorial responsibility, fosters early-career research, and has grown from a fragile seed into a widely respected diamond open-access journal in communication and media studies. This is primarily due to the dedicated and inspiring work of Associate Professor Dr. Corinna Peil on the project.”
Pedagogy Opened: Innovative Theory and Practice
University of North Georgia Press, United States
recognized for Open Pedagogy
“Pedagogy Opened deserves this award because it embodies the values of open education through both content and process—centering collaboration, equity, and student agency. As a collaborative, openly licensed resource, it models open pedagogy in action and offers educators practical, inclusive tools to transform teaching and learning. It doesn’t just describe open education—it lives it, inspiring sustainable, participatory change across diverse learning contexts.”
WikiDonne, a Wikimedia User Group
WikiDonne, Italy
recognized for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
“‘Tirocinio WikiDonne: Piattaforme Wikimedia per un’educazione aperta e una cultura inclusiva!’ WikiDonne’s internship with University Roma Tre empowers students to engage directly with Wikipedia, Wikibooks, Commons, and Wikidata to produce and improve content that highlights underrepresented voices, especially women and marginalized communities. It’s not just about learning digital skills, it’s also about rewriting the narrative of who gets represented in public knowledge spaces.”
Sustainable Building with Timber Collaboration
TU Delft, The Netherlands
recognized for Open Collaboration
“This nomination deserves an OE Award for Excellence for offering a valuable blueprint for how different institutions across the educational landscape can work together across organisational boundaries, reusing, adapting and developing open materials to create targeted, practical learning that strengthens the system as a whole, from education to societal implementation. The openly shared outcomes will be available across the Netherlands and have the potential to support broader reuse, adaptation.”
The CUNY 1969 Project
Baruch College, City University of New York, United States
recognized for Open Collaboration
“The CUNY 1969 Project is a unique blend of online repository and real-world community. The annual Teach-in builds community around our college’s history of activism, with the site functioning as a hub for resource sharing and ongoing engagement. It also provides opportunities to collaborate with student support programs and academic departments. All of this is made possible by public domain and openly licensed archival materials, and the open infrastructure built by the site’s creators.”
The Collaborative Library
The Collaborative Library, United Kingdom
recognized for Open Pedagogy
“The top reason this nomination deserves to be recognized with a 2025 Open Education Award for Excellence is its groundbreaking model for inclusive, student‑co‑created assessment—The Collaborative Library transforms academic coursework into impactful, openly licensed public resources, advancing knowledge equity, science communication, and authentic learning at scale across global higher education.”
Medición Independiente de Aprendizajes (MIA)
Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social (CIESAS), Mexico
recognized for Open Pedagogy
“MIA works to address foundational learning poverty and reduce educational lag across Mexico, Latin America and the Caribbean through evidence-based practices. Its comprehensive open model addresses prevention of learning gaps, recovery, and citizen involvement, providing the know-how for evaluation, intervention, monitoring, and training to build sustainable capacities in rural, urban, and indigenous language contexts, all of the above with open access.”
Beyond Classroom Walls Initiative
Beyond Classroom Walls Initiative, Yemen
recognized for Youth-led Open Education in Crisis Zones
“The top reason this nomination deserves to be recognized with a 2025 Open Education Award for Excellence is because it’s Yemen’s first youth-led open education movement focused on crisis zones. Recognition will expand its global reach—vital for partnerships, credibility, and support. This award will not only attract more students and educators, but also amplify our visibility and community trust. The greater the recognition, the greater our ability to create lasting, scalable change.”