The year’s end is a time for celebration, reflection, and plans for the new year. The open education community has a lot to celebrate, with exciting initiatives emerging or moving forward this year around the world. Many of our members have received international recognition for their work. The first Awards for Excellence (ACE) in OpenCourseWare were awarded this year, recognizing individuals for their outstanding contributions to the movement, institutions for excellence in OCW content, technology and programs, and faculty for contributing outstanding courses. A full recap of award winners can be found under the communities tab on our website, or by clicking here. The OCW Consortium is celebrating some additional highlights from the year, including the election of our new Board President, Anka Mulder from Delft University of Technology, the addition of 73 new members, the strengthening of partnerships, and the launch of new collaborative projects. The global dispersion of Consortium membership is reflected with increasingly clarity in the composition of its Board of Directors and staff.

Recognizing that the OCW and OER movement is rapidly evolving, the Board of Directors and staff took time this year to reflect on the development of the Consortium. Earlier this year, we expanded membership eligibility to include include not only those producing 10 OCW courses within 2 years but also those “demonstrating significant support for the production, use and/or promotion of OpenCourseWare”. In addition to supporting the development of open content, the Consortium has been developing tools and projects to serve the professional needs of those working in open education. Recently, the Board discussed the importance of a user-centric focus, and expanding the definition of OCW to include lecture series, modules and other OER. We recognize that the most important element of our mission is supporting openness in education to expand access and drive improvements in teaching and learning worldwide, and we are prepared to uphold this mission through support for a wider range of projects, people and organizations.

In our immediate future, the Consortium has some exciting and ambitious plans. Thanks to the work of volunteer translators, we will soon launch Spanish and French versions of our website. If you’re able to help with additional translations, please see the call to action in the Consortium News section. We’ll be completely revising the Toolkit this year – stay tuned for more information on how you can participate. We’ll also be refining the Course Catalog (check out the beta version under the Courses tab and let us know what you think), and outlining some suggested curricular pathways using OCW. To raise awareness of OER and OCW, we are coordinating the first annual Open Education Week, 5-10 March 2012. Please see the announcement  and call for participation on our blog, and join us!

We look forward to working with all of you in 2012 to expand the reach and impact of OCW.