From Concept to Classroom: The Journey of the OpenMRS Academy Fundamentals

One of the biggest hurdles that long lasting organizations such as OpenMRS face over the years isn’t just building their solution, but being able to effectively educate and train the people who use, implement, and extend these solutions.

And with OpenMRS evolving rapidly over the past decade, keeping up was quite the challenge for newcomers and long-time contributors alike. Documentation alone oftentime wasn’t enough and several teams and organizations needed extra guidance, hands-on support, and structured learning to truly grasp the ecosystem.

This need sparked a recurring question from the community: “Why don’t we have something like eCourses for OpenMRS?” That question would eventually shape what is now the OpenMRS Academy: a global training initiative designed to scale community knowledge, lower the barrier to entry, and support sustainable implementations around the world.

But the Academy didn’t start with polished videos and an online platform. It began with us experimenting with new things, in-person workshops, and a shared commitment to turn community expertise into accessible, structured learning.

In this article, we explore the journey of the OpenMRS Academy, from its earliest conversations to its first successful courses and what lies ahead.

The Genesis of the Academy

The idea of the OpenMRS Academy didn’t appear overnight. It traces back to early conversations within the community, particularly at the July 2020 Design Forum, where members of the OMRS19 Planning Team and Dr. Jose Nhampossa from Eduardo Mondlane University (UEM) formally introduced the concept. The discussion centered on one shared concern: how can we sustainably build capacity in the OpenMRS ecosystem?

While the idea was fresh in its formal presentation, it built on earlier community efforts including “OpenMRS University,” a pre-2010s initiative to document and share knowledge through recorded sessions on YouTube.

Although those recordings served their time, they were long and never fully evolved into an interactive course format. But they laid the foundation for what was to come.

Strategic alignment

The Academy wasn’t just a good idea, it directly supported one of OpenMRS’s core strategic goals: building and maintaining capacity among implementers, developers, and end-users across the globe.

For years, onboarding new contributors tended to involve answering a lot of fundamental questions on Slack, which took engineers away from pressing PR reviews. Supporting country implementations often meant flying trainers out for in-person sessions or walking teams through still-growing, overwhelming documentation.

There was a clear need for something more scalable. The Academy became the community’s answer to a long-standing problem: How do we turn OpenMRS knowledge into something structured, repeatable, andaccessible, no matter where someone is in the world?

Conceptual foundation

Following the initial Design Forum discussions, the idea began to take shape in a more structured way. In May 2020, Jembi-MOASIS in Mozambique became the major active member in a new “OpenMRS Academy squad”.

A draft concept note was published to outline the proposed direction for the OpenMRS Academy. It laid out the core goal: to strengthen the long-term sustainability of OpenMRS in low-resource settings by equipping more people with the skills to use and implement the platform effectively.

The concept note proposed a multi-level training structure, starting with a Level 1 “Fundamentals” course designed for beginners. This level would be followed by more specialized, separated Level 2 tracks, each focused on roles like developers, implementers, public-health officials, and end-users.

The audience wasn’t limited to technical contributors. The Academy also aimed to support students, ministry officials, and implementing partners working in the health information space. 

Training materials were to include slide decks, facilitator guides, and SOPs, with early sessions planned to be conducted in Portuguese for local relevance. Jembi-MOASIS then conducted the Academy training in person with some virtual components.

Community feedback loop

True to the OpenMRS way, building the Academy was never a top-down effort. Community members were actively encouraged to review, critique, and contribute to the development of the training materials. Feedback was gathered through Talk posts, collaborative Google Docs, and working group discussions especially around the content and learning objectives of the first few modules.

This open, iterative approach not only improved the quality of the materials, but also helped ensure that the Academy reflected real-world needs and contexts. The result was a program built by the community, for the community, rooted in shared experience and practical insight.

From pilot to platform

In January 2024, the Academy team launched a one-week virtual course open to anyone in the OpenMRS community. This synchronous training covered essential topics like how to use Open Concept Lab, perform automated QA testing, and navigate O3.

This virtual Academy served two key purposes. First, it gave contributors and implementers direct access to live instruction and a structured onboarding experience. Second, and perhaps more critically, it allowed the team to record those sessions, identify gaps based on participants’ questions and feedback, and refine the course content in real time.

Rather than starting from scratch, the Academy team built on these live materials: recordings were edited, quizzes were developed, and together the recordings and updated materials were published directly on the OpenMRS site without any complex hosting setup or added cost. The TutorLMS platform was easy to connect to our existing website, and the behind-the-scenes interface made it easy to set up quizzes and video recordings.

Challenges along the way

Building the OpenMRS Academy was never a smooth, linear process. The team encountered several challenges that reflected both the technical and logistical realities of running a global, community-driven training initiative.

One of the biggest hurdles was the lack of an established, self-paced learning platform. In the early years, even as OpenMRS matured as a product, the absence of a Coursera-style solution made it hard to scale onboarding. In-person training helped bridge the gap, but they weren’t always sustainable. Travel was expensive, and new organizations repeatedly asked the same question: “Why isn’t this online?”

Even when the community pivoted toward virtual training later in 2024, video content came with its own complications. Technical workflows evolve quickly especially in open-source projects and that means training materials could become outdated fast. Creating high-quality videos was one thing, but maintaining them became a moving target.

There were also content-specific difficulties, particularly around designing quizzes for the “Intro to O3 for Developers” course. Testing learners’ understanding of complex technical components required a careful balance of accessibility and accuracy, which meant several iterations and edits to the required quizzes.

Finally, language accessibility proved essential. With contributors and implementers in countries spread out across the world such as in Côte d’Ivoire or DRC, translation became a critical concern. Leveraging ElevenLabs’ Dubbing Studio AI for voice translation helped address this, but it wasn’t perfect, especially when handling regional accents.

Despite all of this, the Academy team pushed forward with a mindset of experimentation using what they had, learning from feedback, and continually improving the experience.

Impact and achievements

Since its launch, the OpenMRS Academy has steadily grown into a key learning resource for the community. As of now, the Academy offers five structured courses covering core topics like OpenMRS Fundamentals, Quality Assurance, Concept Management, Form Building, and O3 Development. These courses range from 1 to 8 hours in length and are hosted on the OpenMRS website using the TutorLMS platform.

Here’s a snapshot of the engagement so far:

• OpenMRS Fundamentals Academy: 745 learners enrolled with a 4.83 (24 ratings)
• QA Automation: 118 learners with a 4.80 (15 ratings)
• O3 for Developers: 36 learners with a 4.00 (1 rating)
• Form Builder Course: 146 learners with a 4.50 (10 ratings)
• Concept Management with OCL: 122 learners with a 4.36 (14 ratings)

Overview of the OpenMRS Academy

These numbers reflect not just growing interest but also learner satisfaction, especially for the flagship Fundamentals course, which continues to serve as a reliable entry point into the OpenMRS ecosystem.

Sustained engagement

Beyond course completions, the Academy has fostered an ongoing rhythm of feedback and iteration. Learners are encouraged to reach out for certificates, which allows the Support Team to verify completions through TutorLMS and track quiz outcomes. This visibility into learner progress has helped inform future improvements and identify where content updates are needed.

On the technical side, integrating TutorLMS proved to be a low-cost, high-impact solution allowing the team to quickly turn raw training videos into structured, trackable courses. And through community meetings and asynchronous support, we have expanded content, handling translations, and testing new delivery approaches.

Looking ahead

After a year of experimentation, growth, and community feedback, the OpenMRS Academy is entering a new phase. The team is now exploring ways to scale both the content and the delivery infrastructure. That means continuing to improve the quality and reach of existing courses, while expanding into Level 2 tracks that cater to more specialized audiences like implementers, advanced developers, and health informatics professionals.

There’s also a renewed focus on sustainability. While all courses remain free, the Academy is considering a shift toward low-cost certification options, not as a paywall, but as a means to assist the Support Team’s staffing and hosting infrastructure behind the platform. This would allow for automated certificate delivery through TutorLMS and reduce the manual overhead currently required to verify completions and send certificates by email.

How to get involved

The Academy remains an open, community-driven initiative just like everything else in OpenMRS. Community members can get involved by:

• Enrolling in available courses via the OpenMRS Academy platform
• Sharing feedback on course content and delivery in comments on courses or on the OpenMRS Forum, Talk
• Contributing translations or updated recordings
• Helping design or test new modules, especially for Level 2 tracks, and sharing feedback on Talk
• Promoting the Academy within local implementations or partner organizations

Whether you’re new to OpenMRS or have years of experience, there’s always room to contribute to the Academy’s continued evolution.

Conclusion

The OpenMRS Academy stands as a powerful example of what a global, community-driven project can achieve when it listens to its members and commits to long-term growth. What began as a recurring question—“Why don’t we have structured training?”—has evolved into a living platform that lowers barriers, builds skills, and helps people around the world contribute meaningfully to digital health.

Through experimentation, in-person training, virtual courses, and a shared sense of purpose, the Academy has not only strengthened OpenMRS capacity but also deepened community ownership. And with ongoing efforts to expand, translate, and sustain the initiative, the Academy is just getting started.

If you’re reading this and looking for a way to get involved—whether as a learner, contributor, or advocate—this is your invitation. Join us in shaping the next chapter of the OpenMRS Academy: Reach out today on the OpenMRS “Talk” forum or on Slack at #Academy.