In the UK we have a saying about buses: “You wait ages for one and then three turn up at once.” It’s an idea that can be applied to many of life’s matters! So take a timeline about Open Education….the Open Education Working Group created one last year, and at the time I struggled to find any comparables. Now quite a few have surfaced! It felt only right to share them here:

• Online interactive Open Education Timeline – captures events, projects and activities related to open education all around the globe. Can be edited by any interested party! It has also been linked to the OER Map.
• OER Timeline – Interactive Open Educational Resources timeline from CETIS.
• WikiEducator OER Timeline – Page started at a Learning4Content workshop as a resource to mark significant events in the Open Educational Resources(OER) movement.
• Distance Learning Timeline – Interactive timeline charting the history of this educational movement from Brighton School of Business & Management.
• Timeline of the Open Access Movement – Comprehensive timeline from Peter Suber, overs Open Access, Open Education and Open Data.
• History of virtual learning environments – Wikipedia page on VLEs – system that creates an environment designed to facilitate teachers’ management of educational courses for their students, especially a system using computer hardware and software, which involves distance learning.
• The OU Story – History of Open University.
• OER – a historical perspective – by David Kernohan and Amber Thomas. Paper delivered at ALTC2012 and OpenEd2012.
• Open Education in the 1990s: Revisiting the History of the Open Education Movement by Valerie Irvine, Janet Symmons, and Rich McCue – Plans to make a video about the Open Education Movement.

To finish I’d like to mention a fantastic tool that could be useful for anyone wanting to create a timeline of anything. Histropedia builds on existing information on Wikipedia through Wikidata, a Wikimedia project creating a structured database to support Wikipedia and its sister projects. They use an advanced filter and query system that allow the creation of custom timelines to be created in seconds.

If you know of anymore timelines do suggest them in the comments!