The organisation Open Education Global (OE Global) was formally launched in 2008.
However, its legacy is far older, rooted in open courseware. The first manifestation of the current organisation was the Open Courseware Consortium (OCWC), which then evolved into the Open Education Consortium. View the 10th Anniversary timeline created in 2018.
Given this history, the OEGlobal Conference has been held in various forms since the OCWC Global Conference in 2005. The OEGlobal conference is one of many long-term interventions and annual events hosted by OEGlobal to facilitate the work of Open Education communities around the world as they share, collaborate, assist, support, and celebrate each other’s efforts in advocating, leading, creating and driving open education globally.
Historically, the OEGlobal Conference has been an in-person event co-hosted by academic institutions worldwide. During COVID-19, this model was altered with two online conferences hosted in 2020 and 2021. The online conferences allowed more global members to attend than ever before. Since then, online activities and live streaming have been incorporated into each annual event to bring the online and in-person attendees closer.
Previous Open Education Conferences themes were:
- 2023 (Edmonton, Canada) co-hosted with NorQuest College: Building a Sustainable World through Open Education
- 2022 (Nantes, France) co-hosted with Nantes Université: Implementing the UNESCO OER Recommendation Action Areas
- 2021 (OEG Connect) co-hosted with Nantes Université: UNESCO OER Recommendation action areas
- 2020 (OEG Connect) co-hosted with Taipei Medical University: Connecting the global open education community
- 2019 (Milano, Italy) co-hosted with the Politecnico Di Milano: Open Resources for an Open Future
- 2018 (Delft, the Netherlands) co-hosted with the Delft University of Technology (TU Delft): Transforming Education through Open Approaches
- 2017 (Cape Town, South Africa) co-hosted with the University of Cape Town: Open for Participation
- 2016 (Krakow, Poland) co-hosted with AGH University of Science and Technology: Convergence through Collaboration
- 2015 (Banff, Canada) co-hosted with Athabasca University in collaboration with Open Praxis from ICDE: Entrepreneurship and Innovation
- 2014 (Ljubljana, Slovenia) co-hosted with Knowledge4All and Institut Jožef Stefan: Open Education for a Multicultural World
- 2013 (Bali, Indonesia) co-hosted by APTIKOM Indonesia: Delivering quality education to your fingertips
- 2012 (Cambridge, UK) co-hosted by Queens College, Cambridge University: Openly Collaborating to Enhance Education
- 2011 (Massachusetts, US) co-hosted by Massachusetts Institute of Technology: Celebrating 10 years of OpenCourseWare
- 2010 OCW Consortium Global Conference (Hanoi, Vietnam)
- 2009 OCW Consortium Global Conference (Monterrey, Mexico) co-hosted by Tecnológico de Monterrey: Content, Creativity, Infrastructure
- 2008 OCW Consortium Global Conference (Dalian, China) co-hosted by Dalian University of Technology and China Open Resources for Education.
Previous meetings:
- 2006 OCWC Global Conference (Kyoto, Japan), co-hosted by Kyoto University
- 2005 OCWC Global Conference (Utah, USA), hosted by Utah State University Logan
