Following the summary of the over 200 nominations for the 2026 Open Education Awards of Excellence in the metaphor of each being a seed of recognition planted, our greenhouse was opened to our 2026 Review Committee for their work of reviewing the nominations. Each nomination is like a seed of recognition, and our reviewers are the experienced gardeners who help them grow.
Here, we introduce you to the 46 members of the 2026 OEAwards Review Committee where you can learn more about the people, their connection to the OEAwards and motivations to volunteer time moving us towards the first announcement in August of the semi-finalists. This is a core element of the awards process being driven by our open education community.
There are some exciting changes to our committee structure. In previous years, we invited previous awardees and representatives of award winning projects to review nominations in the Open Assets and the Open Practices award categories. Members of the OEGlobal Board of Directors reviewed nominations for the Individual awards.
For 2026, the committee structure was reshaped into a single committee that was both interested in participating in the process and available during the July review period. This committee now reviews nominations across the three categories and includes:
- The majority of the committee comprises 32 previous awardees who responded to our May call to review, which was sent to all previous awardees. The excitement of recognition is evident in both the nine reviewers recognized in 2025 with OEAwards and reviews from awards dating back to 2014, as well as in a few who have served in this role for 4 previous years.
- We also welcome five members of the OEGlobal Board of Directors who already devote considerable time to leading the organization and have expressed interest in reviewing nominations.
- A new element this year was extending an invitation to representatives of OEGlobal member organizations to participate in this process as a member benefit. We are pleased to have representatives from nine members as award reviewers this year, including California Virtual Campus, College of DuPage, College of the Canyons, GO-GN, Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Norco College, Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, and the University of the South Pacific.
All in all, this committee includes reviewers from Australia, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Egypt, Fiji, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Palestine, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Each committee member reviews six or seven nominations and enters their ratings and comments in our online form. You can view an example of the guide we provide to all committee members, which explains the review items.
It is a significant ask of our committee to spend time reading and rating nominations, but year after year, we hear appreciation for the opportunity to learn more about open education people and efforts they might not have come across before.
As we heard from one of our first-year committee members after completing their reviews:
It has been eye opening reading about all of these amazing projects. I’ve learned a great deal from the experience and have really enjoyed seeing the innovation happening across the open education community.
One member of the 2026 OEAwards Review Committee
Thanks to all of our 2026 review committee members, our nomination gardeners, who make the OEAwards possible. Coming up next is an announcement of all nominations made in 2026, as sharing all of the seeds is a primary outcome of the OEAwards.