Prof. Dr. Mohamed Amin Embi has been a pioneering advocate and contributor to Open Educational Resources (OER) in Malaysia, ASEAN, and globally for more than 15 years. A professor at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), Faculty of Education, and currently Director of the Centre for Teaching and Learning Technologies, he is widely recognized for his expertise in e-Learning and innovative teaching, and serves as President of the Mobile Learning Association of Malaysia.
Since the early 2000s, Prof. Amin has developed numerous groundbreaking initiatives to expand access to open education. Under the UNESCO Participation Programme, he founded VirTEC (2000), a virtual teacher development centre, and later ELT-TReC (2003), an open resource hub for English language teachers in the region. He also created multiple free course management and instructional systems, including Open VirTEC, WeB-CEPT, e-MaS, SaLMaS, SLIM, and T-Folio, along with national e-Learning portals such as eLOK (2007) and My eLeaRN (2008). He further contributed innovative digital English learning programs such as e-LearnerTraining (2003), i-SELL (2010), and its mobile version m-SELL, all offered free to learners worldwide.
His most impactful contribution is the ‘Web 2.0 Tools in Education Series’, a collection of 24 free e-books (14 in English and 10 in Malay) that have reached more than 1.3 million educators and learners worldwide. These e-books, along with over 35 other titles and 85 presentations published on platforms such as Slideshare and Scribd, are widely used as reference materials in professional development across Malaysia’s 20 public universities and beyond. Educators worldwide have praised these resources for their clarity, practical guidance, and impact on teaching practices.
Building on this, Prof. Amin developed JiT2U (Just-in-Time Training 2U), a free mobile app providing step-by-step guidance on using Web 2.0 tools for teaching and learning. According to Google Analytics, JiT2U has been accessed by educators in over 113 countries and more than 1,100 cities. He also launched his first free professional development MOOC, “Rethinking Teaching; Redesigning Learning”, which attracted participants from more than 82 countries. To encourage OER adoption within his own institution, he created ORI@UKM (Open Resources Initiative) under the tagline “ORIginal contributions from UKM to the world.”
Prof. Amin’s work has been carried out largely out of personal passion, with minimal financial support, yet has left a lasting global footprint. For his outstanding contributions to Open Education, he has received numerous prestigious awards, including:
- ISESCO Prize for Science & Technology (2010, Technology)
- National Academic Award (2006, Teaching Innovation)
- Malay Outstanding Award (2008, Education)
- Malaysia Achievement Award (2012, Outstanding Achievements in Education)
- Higher Education Award (2014, e-Learning Mover/Personality and Best e-Learning Facilitator)
Through these sustained efforts, Prof. Mohamed Amin Embi has demonstrated an unwavering commitment to making knowledge freely accessible, empowering educators, and advancing the global Open Education movement.
