The organisation Open Education Global (OEGlobal) 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.
Since 2014, the conference has provided an annual platform for over 1,370 sessions about open education to over 3,385 registered open practitioners who represent up to 76 countries. Collectively, these conferences received support from 104 sponsors.
Previous Open Education Conferences themes were:
2024 (Brisbane, Australia) co-hosted with the University of Southern Queensland, Queensland University of Technology, and the State Library of Queensland: Open is Everybody’s Business
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) under the theme Education Policy and Open Courseware – Assessment and Forecasting the Impact of OCW
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 2005, focused on “Expanding Openness, Broadening Access”.