A (Very) Brief History of Significant Events in OER

• 1994 – Wayne Hodgins coined the term “learning object”
• 1998 – David Wiley coined the phrase “open content”
• 1999 – Richard Baraniuk launches Connections, which later becomes OpenStax
• 2001- Larry Lessig, Hal Abelson, and Eric Eldred founded Creative Commons
• 2001 – MIT introduced their OpenCourseWare project (MOOCs)
• 2002 – UNESCO coined the term “Open Educational Resources” (OER).

• 2007 – The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation adopt a seminal definition of OER
• 2012 – UNESCO adopted the 2012 OER Paris Declaration, an international commitment to OER
• 2018 – The U.S. Department of Education offers its first Open Textbook Pilot grant program
• 2019 – UNESCO updates their definition of OER, creating conversation within the open community about the impact of this change on the ability to reuse OER

This movement continues to gain momentum, and the community of open education practitioners continues to expand. Educators around the world are increasing their use and creation of these resources in their teaching and learning.