Table 1 Milestones in OER-related developments in Austria, Germany and Switzerland

First free online content initiatives

Origins in 1996: http://www.aeiou.at, collection of Austria-related information

Foundation of the German-speaking (not necessarily German) Wikipedia in 2001

SWITCHcollection - National Learning Object Repository in 2009

Funding/Start of Creative Commons Chapter

2004

2007

2007

First OER working groups

Since 2015: OER working group at FNMA

Since 2006: “Bildungsbündnis Open Content”

About 2010: OER SiG @ Eduhub

First conference

2007 (final OLCOS conference in Salzburg named EduMedia)

2007 in Stuttgart (Open Content)

2013 in Berlin (Wikimedia)

2019 in Luzern

OER policies

Several OER projects were funded by the ministry since the 2010ies, but their usage of open license was not obligatory. In 2015, the chancellor took OER explicitly in his digital agenda

2014 funding of two bigger projects: an OER portal and a mapping project, 2015 funding for several OER projects

No explicit OER policy or public funding so far.