OER Digest 10 Year Anniversary Reflection - October 1, 2025

THE OER DIGEST’S 10 YEAR ANNIVERSARY REFLECTION

It’s been 10 years since I sent out the first OER Digest. The field was growing rapidly: OpenEd conferences were expanding year over year, new organizations were being founded, networks and communities of practice were thriving. Myself and many others were coordinating a significant push around federal support for open education, working closely with Obama administration officials and champions in congress. We were spending so much time on phone calls, trying to keep up with everyone’s presence in the field and who was doing what, it became impossible to maintain - so instead, we started stuffing all the key updates into one regular, standardized email for the community. Thus, the digest was born.

These interesting - and occasionally embarrassing - early editions are preserved on oerdigest.org for your viewing pleasure, including our first-ever OER Digest edition from October 1, 2015.]

It’s been a decade since then, and the world has changed quite a bit. We’ve seen a rapidly changing technological landscape upend traditional structures both within education and without, challenges to the independence of academic (and other institutions), surging efforts to privatize public goods, and fundamental changes to our democracy.

In parallel, the open education community has matured - and had to adapt - as well. There has been a significant shift toward, and prioritization of, community: leadership, ownership, shared values, and norms. This includes community ownership of the OpenEd Conference, as well as the development of a new national association for open education in the U.S. that can support projects like the OER Digest. 

In the coming years, we will need to support and protect each other, embodying those core values of sharing knowledge, freedom of expression, inclusion, authenticity, empathy, and more. It won't be easy - but I have faith that together, we're up for the challenge. Here's to the next 10 years of open education. 

-Ethan Senack