Impact Stories of OEAwards

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 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

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

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)

Pragmatically, these awards have helped us legitimize the practice of open education in our system with those whom may not have a deep understanding, or even awareness of, open education. This has been especially true with some of our primary funders who may not be aware that open education is a global movement and practice and the work we do locally on their behalf has a global impact. To be able to show them that the financial investment they make in our work locally has a global impact is a powerful story to tell, and the awards have been a tool for us to tell that story to them.

Clint Lalonde

BCcampus, Open Education Challenge Series– Open Pedagogy Award (2021), BC Open Textbook Project– Open Innovation Award (2015)

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)

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

Receiving the President’s Award helped me to realize that my many years of behind-the-scenes work had, in fact, been seen and appreciated by my colleagues.

James Glapa-Grossklag

College of the Canyons, Service to OEG, President’s Award 2019

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