And the 2025 #OEAward Winners Are …

In an exciting OEGlobal Live show on Friday, October 17, a bumper crop of 31 Award Winners was announced.

These awards were selected through a rigorous selection process from a rich field of 193 nominations representing 42 countries. The 2025 Review Committee, consisting of previous OEAward winners, along with OEGlobal Board Members, carefully pruned the nominees to a shortlist of 48. Several OEAwards25 nominees were highlighted as examples of excellence in Open Education during the recently held OEGlobal Tour.

The final list of 2025 OEAward Winners is extensive, reflecting the challenge of selecting only a few winners per category.

People of Open: Open Individuals Award Category

The 2025 Open Leader Award celebrates the remarkable cultivators and nurturers who sow the seeds of change in our community! Access all the winners here.

• 🌸 Open Leader: Tanya Spilovoy, Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges; SPARC, USA
• 🌼 Open Leader: Shinta Hernandez, Montgomery College, USA
• 🪻 Open Leader and Catalyst: Srishti Sethi, Wikimedia Foundation, USA
• 🌷 Open Leader: Adésina Ghani Ayeni, Yobamoodua Cultural Heritage, Nigeria
• 🪷 Open Student: Leticia Kanywuiro, Thompson Rivers University, Canada
• 💐 Open Leader: Delmar Larsen, LibreText, USA
• 🌹 Open Educator: Ana Michelle Téllez Ferrer, AlmaFuerteLab / Laboratorio de Vanguardia Pedagógica, Colombia
• 🌻 Open Leader: Saida Affouneh, An Najah University, Palestine

What We Share: Open Assets Award Category

This category unveils the vibrant flora and towering trees that have truly thrived and earned these prestigious projects through the 2025 Open Asset Awards. Access all the winners here.

• 🌱  OER: Ethical Educational Leadership: Untangling Ethical Dilemmas and Imagining Alternative Futures, Thompson Rivers University, Canada
• ☘️  Remixable Online Courses: Open online courses for the Pacific Partnership for Open, Distance and Flexible Learning, Commonwealth of Learning the Pacific Partnership for Open, Distance and Flexible Learning, Canada
• 🌵 Open Learning Support Resources: Unidades de apoyo para el aprendizaje (UAPA), Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), Mexico
• 🪴 Open Community: The OpenLab at City Tech (and its members), City Tech / New York City College of Technology / CUNY, USA
• 🎍 National OER Repository: OERx: The National Open Educational Resources Platform, The National e-Learning Center, Saudi Arabia
• 🏵️  Historical Inquiry OER: LETHE. (e-)Learning the invisible history of Europe, Universidad de Murcia (project coordinator), Spain
• 🌿  OER infrastructure and architecture twillo, Leibniz Information Centre for Science and Technology, Germany
• 🌾 OER: Simulated Client Records, Thompson Rivers University, Canada

How We Share: Open Practice Award Category

The open education landscape has been carefully cultivated, enriched, and nurtured by these winners of the 2025 Open Practice Awards. Access all the winners here.

• 🌴 Open Community Led Professional Development: Equity Unbound/ Mid-Year-festival (MYFest), Equity Unbound, Egypt + others
• 🌳 Youth-led Open Education in Crisis Zones: Beyond Classroom Walls Initiative, Beyond Classroom Walls, Yemen
• 🌲 Open Collaboration: #TELresearchers & #HEresearchers, Lancaster University, UK
• 🎋 Open Pedagogy: CONNECT: Empowering Teaching with the CARE-KNOW-DO Open Pedagogy Model, The Open University, UK
• 🪴 Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: “WikiDonne” – a Wikimedia User Group, WikiDonne Usergroup, Italy
• 🌴 Open Pedagogy: Pedagogy Opened: Innovative Theory and Practice, University of North Georgia Press, USA
• 🚿 Student-Led Open Publishing: Open-Access journal kommunikation.medien, University of Salzburg, Austria
• 🪴 Open Collaboration: Becoming a Climate Conscious Lawyer: Climate Change and the Australian Legal System, La Trobe University, Australia

OEGlobal Board Award Winners

The OEGlobal Board Awards category celebrates the remarkable recipients who have truly enriched the open education landscape, gently tending a vibrant field of knowledge and growth. View all these winners here.

• 🌻 Hal Abeslon (USA) wins the Lifetime Achievement Award
• 🌹 Amanda Coolidge (USA) is the recipient of the Compassionate Leadership Award
• 🌸 Sanjaya Mishra (India) is recognized by the Champion of Open Policy Award
• 🌼 Angela DeBarger (USA) is celebrated by the Open Empowerment Award
• 🪻 OER Africa (South Africa) receives the Organizational Leadership Award
• 🌷 La Forge des Communs Numériques Éducatifs (France) is the winner of the Government Leadership Award

The OEGlobal Live awards show was hosted by OEAward organizer Alan Levine, along with OEGlobal Co-Executive Director Marcela Morales and OEGlobal Board President Perrine de Coëtlogon. They were joined by members from the 2025 Review Committee, Laura Henderson (2024 OEAward Winner) from Frontiers for Young Minds (Switzerland), Terry Greene (OEAward Winner 2019 & 2022) from Trent University (Canada), Yasser Tamer Atef (2023 OEAward Winner) from American University Cairo (Egypt), Patrina Law (2023 OEAward Winner) from OpenLearn at the Open University (UK), and Tiffani Tijerina, 2022 OEDAward Winner from University of Arkansas at Little Rock (USA).