María Soledad Ramírez Montoya has been a tireless promoter of Open Educational Resources (OER), integrating them into her work as both a professor and a researcher. Her leadership has earned international recognition, including appointments as UNESCO Honorary Chair in OER (2014–2018) and ICDE Honorary Chair in OER (2014–2018).
Her research and practice have paved the way for OER adoption and development across Latin America and beyond. With her graduate students, she has created a vast body of open resources published through DAR (Develop, Learn, Reuse), featuring more than 837 educational resources and nearly 105 master’s and doctoral theses. This collective work has resulted in the publication of 14 books, 36 book chapters, and 53 scholarly papers.
María Soledad has also harnessed the reach of MOOCs for teacher professional development, engaging more than 35,000 learners from 127 countries through initiatives such as Mi Compu.Mx and Educational Innovation with OER. Since 2007, she has led a series of research projects where OER played a central role, including:
- Chair of Research in Technology and Education (2007)
- Knowledge Hub for Elementary Education (2009)
- Mobile and Open Educational Resources for Training Educational Researchers (2012–2013)
- SINED-CLARISE for Distance Education (2012–2013)
Her sustained contributions have been recognized not only by UNESCO and ICDE but also through her role as Head Organizer of CLARISE (Latin American Open Regional Network of Social and Educational Research, 2012–2016) under the Latin American Community of Advanced Networks.
In addition, she has contributed to the scholarly community as a member of editorial and evaluation committees for leading journals, including The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning (IRRODL), International Education in the Knowledge Society, Computers in Human Behavior, REDIE, RMIE, Revista de la Educación Superior, Revista Apertura, Sinéctica, and Revista Iberoamericana de Educación Superior.
Through her vision, research, and international leadership, María Soledad Ramírez Montoya has advanced the open education movement, empowering educators, learners, and institutions to embrace openness as a catalyst for educational innovation.
