What Is OpenBoard and Who Is It For?

Updated

OpenBoard is a free, open-source, cross-platform interactive whiteboard application intended primarily for teaching in schools and universities. It runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux, and you can use it with an interactive whiteboard, in a dual-screen setup (a pen-tablet display plus a beamer), or on a plain computer with no extra hardware at all. If you teach K-12 or university classes and want a whiteboard tool you can install and start using immediately, OpenBoard fits that need.

What OpenBoard actually is

OpenBoard is teaching software built around handwriting and annotation. You write and annotate your course material using a pen tablet, an interactive whiteboard, or even a mouse. The project describes itself as "easy to use yet powerful" — a tool meant to help you do your job rather than get in the way.

It is released under the GPLv3 License and maintained by the community on GitHub. According to the site, no registration is required: you download it and start using it right away.

Who it is for

The primary audience is educators:

  • K-12 teachers who want to engage students with interactive courses.
  • University lecturers who want to give a lecture with handwritten annotation.
  • Anyone teaching with a pen display, interactive whiteboard, or beamer setup.

It is not positioned as a general-purpose drawing or design tool, and it is not aimed at corporate meeting rooms. Its design principles come from classroom teaching.

Where it came from

OpenBoard was forked from Open-Sankoré 2.0, which was itself based on Uniboard. The fork was created to refocus the software on its original core purpose — the work of a teacher in a classroom — with ease of use as a priority. Future development follows those same principles.

Who maintains it

OpenBoard is currently maintained by the Education Department (DIP) of the canton of Geneva, in Switzerland. The University of Lausanne, which developed the original Uniboard software in 2003, joined with a logistical and financial contribution. Interest has been growing across Switzerland as well as in Europe and North America.

Supported platforms and hardware setups

Setup What you need
Interactive whiteboard An interactive whiteboard
Dual-screen A pen-tablet display plus a beamer
Computer only No additional hardware

Supported operating systems are Windows, macOS, and Linux.

How to get started

  1. Go to the OpenBoard website and choose the download for your operating system (Windows, macOS, or Linux).
  2. Install it — the site describes installation as easy.
  3. Launch it and begin writing or annotating. No registration step is required.

Quick decision guide

  • Choose OpenBoard if you teach in a school or university, want open-source software under GPLv3, need cross-platform support, and want to write or annotate by hand with or without dedicated hardware.
  • Look elsewhere if you need a corporate collaboration suite, a general illustration tool, or software with vendor-provided commercial support contracts — none of those are what OpenBoard is presented as.

For documentation and help, the site offers documentation and a help section, with the interface available in English, German, French, and Italian.