Impact Stories of OEAwards

Looking for reasons to submit an award nomination for 2024? We have some stories here to inspire you.

Hear more impact stories

Quotes from Award Winners

My work with OEG has been life-changing. I attended my first OEG Conference in Slovenia in 2014. Attending this conference changed the tapestry of my soul. Being exposed to the ways open education was being leveraged globally, seeing the needs based on education systems, access to content and knowledge, and the voices and perspectives that were being represented and more importantly not being represented was eye-opening.

Lisa Young

Presidents Award (2024)

We were delighted to win our OER Award last year. The award recognised the hard work of everyone involved in the National Teaching Repository, and all of those who support through the open sharing of their learning and teaching research and resources. As a result of winning the award, promoted the space, and as a result we witnessed an increase in traffic and of course open sharing, which is brilliant for everyone!

Dawne Irving-Bell

The National Teaching Repository, Open Collaboration Award 2023

I’ve dedicated my life’s work to open sourcing education. As many OER practitioners know, there is a lot of hard, collaborative, but unseen work that goes on in the trenches behind the scenes… The OEG Award of Excellence is the only accolade I’ve received, that has a permanent and dedicated spot on my desk – I see it every working day and it is a motivation that work in open does get noticed. It is gratifying when a peer takes the time to submit a nomination for these awards.

Wayne Mackintosh

OER Foundation, Leadership Award (2020), OERF’s Digital Learning Ecosystem—Open Infrastructure Award (2021)

Thank you for your email and for considering me to become a part of your reviewers this year. Over the course of last year, it has been an incredible honor carrying forward the spirit of the Open Education Award for Excellence; this shaped and influenced my identity, coming from a social justice perspective. I hope that my contributions would enrich the review process.

Yasser Tamer Atef

American University, Cairo Student Award 2023

Yasser with headphones

I was honored to accept the award on behalf of the Digital Higher Education Consortium of Texas…. The recognized resource is Texas Learn OER, a ten-module, self-paced introductory course that has since been adapted by other states and institutions. I think that the OE Award was crucial for providing visibility to the resource.

Judith Sebesta

Texas Learn OER — Open Reuse / Remix / Adaptation Award 2021

We are truly overjoyed about this award! The international recognition
is a great help, and the award makes it easier for us to show the value
and significance of our work to those who may not yet understand why we
do what we do. The OE Global award will certainly help us both inside
and outside the university to inspire people to embrace openness in the
field of music.

Ulrich Kaiser

Open Music Academy, Open Infrastructure Award (2024)

Last year I was nominated for the Leadership Award, but to my big and pleasant surprise, I was awarded with the Lifetime Achievement Award. A big surprise, because it made me realize the impact I had on the open community outside of the Netherlands. I was not aware of this. For me, this award motivates me to continue my work in the open field after my retirement at the beginning of this year. At times, it is a conversation starter with newbies in this field to advocate for adoption of OER.

Robert Schuwer

Lifetime Achievement Award (2022)

Photo of Robert Schwer

The OEAwards (2013, 2014) made me a visible and dominant educator in Taiwan. Utilizing the visibility and influence, I initiated a series of efforts to improve science education in high schools. This year (2021) the efforts are recognized by the most prestigious National Excellent Teacher Award in Taiwan.

Hsiu-Hau Lin

National Tsing Hua University, Thermal and Statistical Physics (2013) & General Physics (2014) • Video & Multimedia Award (2013) & Outstanding Course Award (2014)

Thanks to the Award and to the time investment we did internally in METID, the Unit devoted to learning innovation at Polimi, we could organize together with OE Global the 2019 edition of the OE Global Conference and I just finished a course on Open Education with faculty members. We are taking it one step at a time, relentlessly. […]
I’d like to share also that thanks to this first openly licensed MOOC our Polimi Open Knowledge platform is now full of openly licensed MOOCs, and we implemented a process that gives priority to open licenses, embraced by the large majority of our content experts and professors.

Paola Corti

Politecnico di Milano, OER101 – Using Open Educational Resources in Teaching Open MOOC Award 2017

The OER Knowledge Cloud became more widely known among OER and MOOC researchers as a result of the award; and we have received a growing number of visits from researchers.

The OER Knowledge Cloud now hosts more than 2700 records by 4667 authors!

Rory McGreal

Athabasca University OER Knowledge Cloud Open Research Award 2014

Stories from OEG Live

Since 2023 we have featured OEG Live webcasts with former OE Award winners as guests- hear their stories of impact directly. All episodes available in a playlist, the latest one below

Get Inspired in More Ways

We hope these stories inspire you to submit a nomination for the 2024 OE Awards (nominations are open until June 30, 2023). If you are looking for other types of inspiration:

See more ways to Be Inspired from the discussions in the OE Awards space of the OEG Connect community:

  • Last year we put a call for OE Award Impact Stories and got a wonderful response, part of the whole collection of stories we organize at https://awards.oeglobal.org/stories/. Now we are asking again for 2024, especially as the call for nominations opens May 13. Your stories can directly influence the suggestions. It’s all about helping others […]
  • With a few weeks left before the deadline for nominations of 2023 Open Awards for Excellence we are adding to our Be Inspired campaign a chance to hear from previous winners about the impact of receiving an OE Award and to hear what has happened to them since. To offer better world coverage, we are […]
  • Have you won an Open Education Award for Excellence or been part of a project, resource recognized? Elsewhere we have asked for video stories, but here we offer the opportunity to share in a quick reply your impact story. With your story, share the link to the award and anything else (photos? web links? anecdotes?) […]
  • Here is yet one more way to be inspired by the stories of past award winners. One of our aims in producing and sharing the OEG Voices podcast was and is to bring you the stories of open educators, told in their own voices. Since 2020 we have shared 32 episodes featuring award winners since […]
  • Our comms team is actively sharing inspiration of past OE Award Winners in almost every social media channel the can. in Twitter Follow @OpenEdGlobal and/or see the #aEAwards23) tag in Mastodon Follow @oeglobal@social.fossdle.org and/or follow the #OEAwards23 hashtag in Instagram Follow @OEweek and/or look for the #OEAwards23 hashtag in LinkedIn Follow Open Education Global or […]


Do you have questions? Please email awards@oeglobal.org.

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