We have simplified the number of award categories for the 2025 Open Education Awards for Excellence (OEAwards). This simplification gives nominators more award title options, including specifying an award title for their nomination.
In previous years, awards were divided into four broad areas — People, Assets, Practices, and Special Awards — each containing four sub-categories. This made for a total of sixteen possible awards to consider for nominations.
Going forward, we request that you choose from only three categories: Individual Awards (People of Open), Open Assets (What We Share), and Open Practices (How We Share) – all previous awards fit within these categories.
When submitting a nomination, and after selecting a main category, you will be asked to specify a particular focus (the final title for the award). This could be a previous award title (sub-category) or a new designation for the award. For example, an award could be designated as an Open Asset Award for a Significant Impact Open Educational Resource (OER) or an Open Practice Award for Increasing Accessibility through Language Translation.
The 2025 Category Explorer provided below includes descriptions of various categories, as well as links to previous winners. This resource can help you assess which title or designation to use for a nomination for 2025.
If you have a person, asset, or practice in mind for nomination, use the Category Explorer to help structure your submission. If you are unsure who or what to nominate, as you explore, it might spark ideas for potential candidates who deserve an Open Education Award for Excellence.
Forage among our collection of stories where awardees discuss the impact of their OEAward on their open education journey. You can also check out a randomly selected past award by clicking on the button below!
Individual Awards – People of Open
Individual Awards recognize individuals (or teams) who have made extraordinary and influential contributions to advancing open education. Their achievements deserve global recognition; their work is a model for our community.
Who are the active, effective, and influential individuals in your field of open education?
In previous years, nominations were categorized according to fixed roles: Leader, Educator, Catalyst (formerly Support Staff), or Student. In 2025, you can nominate an individual for an award using these designations or provide a more specific title that best describes their role, such as Librarian, Designer, Visionary, or Technologist. You are invited to create a unique title for the individual you wish to nominate.
Please note that “Individual” refers to people generally; you can nominate a group of individuals for an award.
Look for inspiration in the previous 67 Individual Awardees.
Open Assets Awards – What We Share
Open Assets refer to the tangible educational products or resources created and shared by open educators. Typically, they are digital goods that hold educational value and serve a specific purpose. Open Assets are produced, curated, and distributed in ways that make them freely accessible, usable, adaptable, and improvable by others.
Which assets, resources, materials, platforms, technology, or projects have positively impacted your open education work?
In past years, the Open Assets Awards have recognized nominations across subcategories such as OER (Open Educational Resources), Open Courses, Open Infrastructure, Open Repositories, Open Data, Open Remixes, and more.
In 2025, you can create a specific designation or award title for any type of Open Asset. You can choose from any previous award title or create a new title; ideas include Open AI Platform, Interactive Media, or Published Collections.
Look for inspiration in the previous 113 Open Asset Awardees.
Open Practices Award – How We Share
Open Practices refer to the behaviors, techniques, actions, and programs that enhance access to educational opportunities. They can be viewed as a means of effectively utilizing Open Assets. These practices or modes of engagement promote and support the creation and/or use of open educational resources, technologies, and social networks to facilitate collaborative and flexible teaching and learning.
Have you seen outstanding examples of practices that have utilized, facilitated, extended or expanded the reach and impact of open education? Nominate them!
In previous years, the Open Practices Awards were divided into subcategories: Open Pedagogy, Research, Collaboration, Resilience, Science, Policy, Innovation, and others. While these subcategories remain relevant to this award, we now encourage nominations and recognition for other practices and invite you to craft an appropriate title for that award.
Look for inspiration in the previous 55 Open Practice Awardees.
Now that you are hopefully inspired, review the Nominations Guide to review all information needed to enter a 2025 Open Awards for Excellence nomination or proceed directly to the nomination form.
Who deserves recognition? Share!
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