Whether at the conference in Denver or tuning in from around the world, participants of OpenEd25 said they felt a sense of connection and community at the October 28-30 event.
This year’s hybrid Open Education Conference attracted over 1,600 participants including 480 in-person and more than 1,100 online. Headliners Colorado Governor Jared Polis, best-selling author adrienne maree brown, and Louisiana’s Commissioner for Higher Education Dr. Kim Hunter Reed gave keynote addresses.
With the conference theme, “Eyes on the Horizon,” presentations focused on finding a path forward and tools to confront challenges in open education. The goal was to consider open education’s impact and ways to work toward a more welcoming, responsive, and sustainable education system for everyone.
The event included a wide array of sessions, including a new addition of pre-conference and post-conference workshops. Almost 200 volunteer reviewers sorted through proposals to craft the final program. Topics included AI and emerging technologies, intentional community building, students as open education leaders, and open education as resistance.
“The vision was to come together to figure out ways to sustain the work long-term without getting distracted by the problems happening now. If we get bogged down, we are never going to reach that horizon,” said Ash Barber, chair of the OpenEd25 advisory board. “We want to support people to be able to take steps and to find joy in the work again.”
This was her fourth OpenEd conference, but the first time face-to-face for Barber, an academic librarian and senior coordinator for the OER Collective with the Council of Australasian University Librarians. She said she particularly enjoyed speaking with every presenter in the poster session to learn about all the ways that OER is making an impact in their local contexts.
“Having this opportunity to connect with everybody every year is so revitalizing,” Barber said. “It makes me feel invigorated to keep going and take new ideas forward.”
Katie Harding, a librarian at McMaster University, attended her first Open Education conference in 2018 when she was a SPARC Open Education Leadership Fellow. This year, she was a virtual attendee, volunteer, and first-time presenter. Harding said she had been inspired by a past OpenEd conference presentation with student textbook affordability leaders to develop a program for student leaders in open education at her institution. This year, she organized a panel with McMaster’s Student OER Advocates to share their experience. “It was a very full circle moment for me,” she said.
Harding, who was part of the conference program committee, said she valued the practical insights and chance to network with other OER professionals from Canada at the event and plans to volunteer again next year.
Pranjal Saloni, vice chair of the advisory board, said she liked having more global voices and student perspectives in the foreground at this year’s conference. She also thought the buddy program, pairing first-time attendees with experienced conference goers, was a success.
Saloni works as an open education lab manager at Ontario Tech University and presented on cocreating OER with students. She said she learned from other panels, including one with U.S. PIRG students involved in statewide efforts to raise awareness of OER.
“What was pure magic was that the students were volunteers. They are not getting any monetary incentive to do this, yet they are still here talking passionately about OER,” she said. Nothing province-wide exists like that in Canada, Saloni said, and after hearing about it at the conference, she would like to try to start a small student advocacy group on her campus.
This was the first OpenEd Conference for rehshetta, a graduate student in education studies at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. They presented on the value of open pedagogy, using Creative Common and Open Stax resources, to teach students who are incarcerated. “It has led to a collaborative space behind bars and allowed students to feel a deeper level of autonomy with their education,” rehshetta said.
They also participated in the closing plenary panel of graduate students discussing OER research and why it is necessary in educational spaces.
“Openness leads to a depth of education that, honestly, would not be available otherwise,” said rehshetta, who described OpenEd25 as refreshing, inspiring, and full of a sense of camaraderie. In Greenboro, rehshetta would like to explore hosting a half-day symposium in Greensboro to spread the word about OER on her campus.
Franklina Addae, a graduate student at the University of Northern Colorado studying applied statistics and research methods, is also trying to increase faculty and student involvement in OER on her campus. She said she enjoyed the conference sessions about AI’s impact on open education and practical tips for OER adoption. Addae spoke on a student panel about the future of OER and the value of reduced textbook costs in the lives of students.
“Open education doesn’t have to be perfect to make a difference. You have to start somewhere,” said Addae, who appreciated the professional connections she made at the conference. “I’m happy about the leadership team for bringing OpenEd25 to light.”
Nicholas Swails, dean of academic affairs and online learning at Colorado Northwestern Community College and a member of the Colorado OER Council, presented on his institution’s success in developing two zero-textbook cost (ZTC) degrees and the importance of Colorado’s OER grant program (See Colorado’s Continued Commitment to OER Benefits Students Statewide).
“Everybody just wanted to know, ‘What’s the golden ticket you pulled off to make this happen?’ I don’t think there’s a perfect answer,” Swails said of his institution’s work towards two ZTC degrees. “We approach this project as a bottom-up and top-down approach. It just took one faculty member to start it, but it would not have been successful if we didn’t have support from our president, vice presidents and deans all the way down.”
It’s important too, Swails said, to have OER champions, reward them for their efforts, and celebrate every step in the process. OpenEd25 was a chance to bring these changemakers together to share best practices—and hear about the difference open education is making in learners’ lives.
“It’s always great to hear from students about the impact that open education has on not just their success in the classroom, but their satisfaction,” Swails said. “It can be truly representative of who they are, their lived experience, and change their mindset about what education is: that education is not transactional, that it’s transformative.”
OpenEd26 will be a fully virtual event taking place from October 27-29, 2026, with the intent to move back to a hybrid format in 2027.