A ground-breaking Kiwi eLearning project led by The Open Polytechnic of New Zealand has gained a prestigious US$100,000 award from the United States-based Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

The annual Mellon Awards for Technology Collaboration recognise the work done by not-for-profit organisations globally in the field of open source software development and collaboration.

This year’s awards were judged by a panel of internationally renowned technology experts led by Sir Timothy Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web.

The Open Polytechnic received the award for its leadership role in a project that makes it easier and cheaper for organisations to deploy eLearning platforms to support online learning for students and employees.

Supported by $1.5 million in funding from the Tertiary Education Commission, The Open Polytechnic project team selected an open source eLearning system, Moodle, and made improvements to it for widespread release.

Eleven polytechnics and three universities, along with several Government departments and a growing number of schools are now using the Moodle system.

The Open Polytechnic was one of 10 winners in this year’s Mellon awards and the only recipient in the Asia-Pacific region. It was also the only winner outside the United States to receive the maximum US$100,000 in prize money.

Finalists for the awards were selected after a world wide public nomination process.

Open Polytechnic Chief Executive Paul Grimwood said the Mellon Award was a significant international honour for his institution and for New Zealand in the eLearning field.

“From The Open Polytechnic’s perspective it is very gratifying to have this kind of recognition both for our expertise and for our ability to take a leadership role in large-scale collaborative eLearning projects.”

Project leader Richard Wyles attended the awards ceremony in Washington DC today with Open Polytechnic Chairperson Douglas Langford.

“Receiving the award shows that the work we are doing in open source technology has significant impact internationally,” Mr Wyles said.

“It is a huge honour for The Open Polytechnic to be judged a leader in open-source development for the educational community. We intend to use the prize money to further our work in this area.”

The Open Polytechnic will again feature on the world stage as New Zealand’s representative at the IMS Global Learning Impact Awards to be held in Austin, Texas in May next year.

The open source project won the national heat at this year’s Learning Impact Awards at the Summit on Innovation on Learning Technology. The Open Polytechnic also recently received a special category award at the New Zealand Open Source Awards.

The other recipients of this year’s top US$100,000 Mellon Foundation awards were the American Museum of the Moving Image and Duke University.