The Best of the Best in Free Online Education
This year's People's Choice Awards contained a lot of tight races and every vote counted! We received over 20,000 votes for the contest from free education enthusiasts around the world. Who took home the prize for each category? All of the winners and finalists are listed below:
Best User Experience
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Winner:
American Museum of Natural History: students and teachers can benefit from one of the world's largest museums of natural science, the American Museum of Natural History. The museum provides various activities and opportunities for teaching, learning and research.
Finalists:
- Flat World Knowledge
- UC Irvine OCW
Best Video Lectures
Winner:
- MIT OCW: since 2007, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has provided its OpenCourseWare program to anyone, anywhere in the world. MIT provides a large number of courses in a variety of disciplines free of charge through the program.
Finalists:
- UCLA Video Lectures
- TedEd
Best Non-Video Open Education Resource
Winner:
- Students Circle Network: the Students Circle Network was established in 2010 as an educational social network. The organization provides college and high school students all over the world with free course materials and access to resources like live help, scholarships and study groups.
Finalists:
- Wikiversity
- OER Glue
Most Engaging Resource
Winner:
- FGV Online is available through the Getulio Vargas Foundation in Brazil. The program is part of the OpenCourseWare Consortium and offers free learning materials online to individuals all over the globe.
Finalists:
- Khan Academy
- iTunesU
Best Instructional Supplement
Winner:
- Learner.org: with a goal to advance and elevate the educational experience in American schools, Learner.org provides free access to educational video programs and print materials to K-12 teachers. Resources may be used in the classroom and at home by students.
Finalists:
- The College Open Textbooks
- DNA from the Beginning
Most Interactive Resource
Winner:
- Open Culture focuses on worldwide learning that lasts a lifetime. By providing a collection of various educational resources from around the Internet, Open Culture allows individuals to have easy access to educational materials, like textbooks, courses and lessons, for free.
Finalists:
- Bridge to Success
- Tufts OCW
Most Open Resource:
Winner:
- Open Michigan: the University of Michigan offers free access to educational materials at the college through its Open Michigan program. Offering access to learning modules that include lectures, textbooks, tutorials and image galleries, Open Michigan is sharing education with the public through a free platform.
Finalists:
- DS106
- Kansas State University Human Nutrition (HN 400) Flexbook
Most Progressive
Winner:
- African Virtual University, established in 1997, is an African educational resource, providing free education to individuals on that continent. The university bridges language barriers by offering multilingual materials.
Finalists:
- Process Arts
- Open Badges
Best New Face in the Free Education Movement
Winner:
- Coursera partners with top universities to provide free, online courses. These courses provide students with lectures, tests and interactive exercises in subjects ranging from humanities to computer science to biology.
Finalists:
- Udacity
- CrashCourse YouTube
Best Advocate for Free/Open Education
Winner:
- Nicole Allen, Textbook Rebellion organized over 2,000 professors in support of open textbooks. Her accomplishments in this field include being the textbook advocate for The Student PIRGs and the campaign director of Make Textbooks Affordable. Ms. Allen has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Time, The Los Angeles Times and US News and World Report.
Finalists:
- Nick Shockey, Right to Research Coalition
- David Wiley, BYU
