The Open Education Awards for Excellence provide annual recognition to outstanding contributions in the Open Education community. These awards recognize distinctive Open Educational Resources, Open Projects & Initiatives, as well as exemplary leaders in Open Education worldwide. These awards are presented each year at the Open Education Global Conference.
Resources, Tools and Practices Awards
Open MOOC
MOOC PhD and Career Development
Institution: PhDOOC Association, France
A unique MOOC conceived for PhD candidates and PhD graduates from all disciplines. Based on peers working together and jointly compiling knowledge by encouraging participants to hold discussions and help one another. It enables learners to identify and build their skills portfolio and define their career plan.
Open Course
Zero Textbook Cost Pathways: OER & Equity
Institution: Cabrillo College and College of the Canyons, United States
An Open Course Linking Equity, OER, Zero Textbook Cost Degrees, and Guided Pathways. Participants employ an equity cognitive frame to examine the impact of textbook costs on student success, and the disproportionate impact on historically underserved students.
OER offline
Offline Teacher Training MOOC
Institution: World Possible Guatemala, Guatemala
A course designed to help teachers integrate technology into their classrooms, while also, through different proposed teaching methods, help them promote “XXI Century Skills” with their students. This offline technology is possible through the low-cost server RACHEL, which has been developed to provide local and world class open educational content to rural schools that have no access to the internet.
Open Textbook
Blueprint for Success in College and Career
Institution: Grossmont College, United States
A students’ guide for classroom and career success. This text, designed to show how to be successful in college and career preparation focuses on study skills, time management, career exploration, health, and financial literacy.
OER Collection
Grasple
Institution: Grasple, The Netherlands
Grasple is an easy-to-use platform where teachers can find, edit, and share open learning materials. Teachers can share online exercises and lessons with other educators and with students so they can practice at their own time and pace. The mission of Grasple, a social enterprise from the Netherlands, is to make knowledge openly accessible to everyone and to strive to help people learn difficult concepts by practicing with high-quality exercises, created by educators who build on each other’s work. They achieve this by partnering with universities, such as Delft University of Technology, to release open educational resources.
OER Repository
OCW Universidad de Cantabria
Institution: Universidad de Cantabria, Spain
OCW UC has been creating, expanding and improving their list of resources since 2009. The University of Cantabria contributes to fostering open education through initiatives such as its Repository of Teaching Resources. This carefully selected and organized collection of resources serves to enhance the teacher’s knowledge on open education methodologies, and improve their ability to create high quality teaching materials and activities.
OER Translations
Asuka Academy
Institution: Asuka Academy, Japan
Translation and distribution of world OER content as a semi-formal educational program for High School students in Japan. Asuka Academy aims to provide Japanese learners with new learning opportunities through translated quality OER from around the world. Translations are performed by almost 1,500 volunteers. To date, 93 courses have been translated with enrollments totaling 26,913.
OER Curation
OASIS
Institution: SUNY Geneseo, United States
Openly Available Sources Integrated Search is a search tool aimed at making the discovery of open content easier. It currently searches open content from 91 sources and contains more than 365,000 records, most of which are in the public domain or openly licensed. Currently, more than 470 institutions from eight different countries are linking to OASIS from their institutions websites.
Open Pedagogy
The Open Faculty Patchbooks
Institution: Fleming College & eCampusOntario, Canada
Educators from around the world have built (& continue to build!) a community patchwork of ‘chapters’ into a quasi-textbook about pedagogy for teaching & learning in higher education. Each patch of the quilt/chapter of the book focuses on one pedagogical skill and is completed and published by different individual faculty members from any institution wanting to join in.
Open Research
Studies of educational innovation in the open movement
Institution: Tecnologico de Monterrey, Mexico
The open research initiative integrates studies of educational innovation in MOOCs and open repository systems. The project highlights studies that are carried out by researchers, master students and students of doctoral programs in Mexico and Spain that participate in the Educational Innovation Research Group, the Openergy Network and the UNESCO / ICDE Open Educational Movement for Latin America Chairs.
Open Innovation
Energy Sustainability training through MOOCs Subproject
Institution: Tecnologico de Monterrey, Mexico
The Bi-National Laboratory on Smart Sustainable Energy Management and Technology Training is a platform where knowledge and technology are created to support the creation of sustainable energy solutions for Mexico. An interdisciplinary, collaborative and innovative initiative where government, private and public institutions, as well as national and international organizations, contribute to the success of the project.
Open Policy
Open Education Initiative
Institutions: UNESCO Chair in Distance Education and Educadigital Institute, Brazil
A joint effort to advance Open Education and OER as part of a digital rights agenda in Brazil and the region since 2008. Their work includes professional development, mentoring in educational policy, research, publications, resource production and repositories, as well as on-site and distance education.
Open Collaboration
Connected Learning Initiative (CLIx)
Institution: Centre for Education, Innovation and Action Research, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, India
A bold and innovative intervention with global relevance to improve the quality of teaching and learning in the public education systems in India. The overarching goal is to demonstrate quality at scale through meaningful use of new media and digital technologies in resource constrained contexts.
Open Simulation
PhET Interactive Simulations
Institution: University of Colorado Boulder, United States
Over the past 17 years, the PhET Interactive Simulations team has created a collection of 150+ open educational simulations for teaching science and math. From exploring energy to mastering multiplication, each PhET simulation is a highly interactive and flexible tool that allows teachers to use the resource in new and creative ways in their classrooms. With translations into 93 languages and over 100 million uses per year, teachers around the globe are using PhET simulations to make science and math more engaging and accessible for all learners.
Open App
VR classroom
Institution: The Open University, United Kingdom, Rumpus Centre
An open education virtual reality app that can be used, openly and freely, in classrooms to enhance students’ learning and engagement. Virtual Reality (VR) can transform the way educational content is delivered making it easy to immerse students in time, space and story.
Open Geography
Open Geography Education
Institution: Salt Lake Community College, United States
Dedicated to providing open resources, products and services to anybody who is interested in learning about the earth, its places and the relationships between people and their environments. Using the world as their main contributor and content experts, this initiative strives to make the most engaging, dynamic, and relevant information for its growing community.