Fifteen years ago, Open Education Global (OE Global) established the Open Education Awards for Excellence to honor noteworthy contributions by people and organizations in the open education community and to celebrate exemplary open educational resources and innovative open practices from around the world.

This year, from a field of more than 200 nominations, OEGlobal selected four winners in each of three categories—“People of Open,” “Open Assets,” and “Open Practices”—as well as four “Special Awards for Contributions to Open Education.” The four special awards, OEGlobal’s highest honor, recognize those who have had a “sustained, extraordinary impact on the Open Education movement.” We are delighted to share the news that MIT OpenCourseWare has been named as one of the four winners in this category for 2026.

The announcement of MIT OCW’s award cites the basis for the recognition in brief:

This Special Award honors MIT OpenCourseWare’s invaluable contribution to the field of Open Education in general and specifically to Open Education Global as leading to creation of the OpenCourseWare Consortium in 2005. We and much of open education would not be here in 2026 if not for the vision of MIT OCW.

The document nominating MIT OCW for the Special Award goes into more detail:

Since its launch in 2001, MIT OpenCourseWare has demonstrated visionary leadership by freely sharing materials from more than 2,500 MIT courses—unlocking knowledge to a world-class education for over 500 million learners worldwide.  

As the first institution-wide initiative of its kind, MIT OpenCourseWare catalyzed a global shift toward open educational resources, inspiring universities and individuals around the world to follow. Its commitment to openness, quality and reuse—allowing materials to be adapted, remixed and shared—has empowered educators and learners alike, from students enhancing their studies to entrepreneurs driving community impact.

Accepting the award on behalf of his whole team, MIT OpenCourseWare Director Curt Newton expressed gratitude for the role MIT OCW has played in pioneering open education, as well as satisfaction at seeing the flourishing of open education worldwide: “What a thrill it is to witness year after year the incredible richness and energy that’s going through this whole community as shown by all of these nominees and awards. What an honor it is year after year after year doing this work to keep ‘losing market share’—I can’t think of a better thing.”

Of course, whatever we at MIT OCW accomplish, we are only able to accomplish because of the much larger network of people who have supported and continue to support what we do. Our thanks go out not only to our colleagues in the open education movement, but also to all the thousands of donors whose contributions make our continuing work possible, and to the hundreds of millions of learners who power us with inspiration.

Incidentally, another of the Special Award winners has a close personal connection to MIT OCW: Steve Carson, former director of communications and external relations for MIT OpenCourseWare and first president of the board of directors of the OpenCourseWare Consortium—now the Open Education Consortium. Steve also helped establish the Open Education Awards for Excellence back in 2011, and after leaving MIT OCW he remained our colleague in MIT Open Learning for many years, serving as associate director and head of operations for the Abdul Latif Jameel World Education Lab.

To learn more about the awards and each of this year’s winners, see OEGlobal’s own announcement of the 2026 honorees. And to get a sense of the exciting breadth of vision and depth of commitment in today’s worldwide open education community, browse a listing of all the hundreds of individuals, organizations, and open educational resources nominated for this year’s awards.

(Image courtesy of OEGlobal. License: CC BY.)