Benefits and Challenges of Open Educational Resources

1. Open Educational Resources:
Benefits and Challenges
Ali Armstrong, Shoreline Community College
alison.armstrong@shoreline.edu
November 19, 2021
Licensed Under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

2. Overview of Benefits and Challenges of
Open Educational Resources (OER)
Benefits
 Reduces costs for students
 More equitable for students
 Permits more control over content
 Supports other instructors by creating and sharing work
 Provides education in OER and could benefit instructor
Challenges
 Accessibility concerns
 Sustainability issues
 Quality assurance issues
 Non-revocable nature of Creative Commons Licenses
 Requires education in OER

3. Benefit #1
Reduces costs for students
Textbook prices are extraordinary, especially in
STEM fields.
 The prices can be prohibitive and cause
students to choose other fields or skip certain
courses.
 Two-thirds to three-quarters of college students
are not purchasing their textbooks – and try to
get by without them. This is an equity issue!

4. Benefit #2
More equitable for students
Traditional textbook costs affect students
 Due to overpricing and student financial status,
many students go without
 Switching to OER can help more students have
access to required and critical learning
resources (texts, homework platforms&
interactive learning tools)

5. Benefit #3
Permits more control over content
 Instructors can better tailor resources for meeting
the specific Learning Outcomes for a course.
 Allows for editing, adapting, and sharing course
material
 In turn, this could result in more student
engagement

6. Benefit #4
Supports other instructors by creating
and sharing work
 Gives value to the work of colleagues who have put in
time and effort in the creation of OER content
 This recognition can benefit those creators professionally
 Sharing your work can lighten another instructors load
and may just allow them the time and space they need to
create additional OER.

7. Benefit #5
Provides education in OER and Could
Benefit Instructor
 As mentioned on the previous slide could benefit
instructor by offering recognition of a creator’s
contribution to OER
 Transitioning to OER requires learning of copyright,
licensing, and information literacy topics which could
increase your value in your job position or help expand
career opportunities.

8. Challenge #1
Accessibility concerns
 Accessible OER is difficult to find.
 Not all repository indicates whether a resource is
accessible or has been reviewed for accessibility (leaving
the faculty adopting the resource to make their own evaluation
and modifications -> see Challenge #2).

9. Challenge #2
Sustainability issues
 Many OER projects were completed with one-time
funding sources (e.g., grants). After initial funding is
discontinued, maintaining the resources is difficult and
expensive. Without updates and technological advances
the resources will likely become obsolete and thus the
quality becomes less than
 Important to determine how to sustain these initiatives in
the long run
 Burden on instructors to update review and update
resources, including accessibility

10. Challenge #3
Quality assurance issues
 With the growing number of resources becoming
available (yay), there will be issues regarding
evaluation/review of the content for accuracy,
quality, and relevance.
 Data regarding assessment of student learning
outcomes using these materials is lacking.

11. Challenge #4
Non-revocable nature of Creative
Commons Licenses
 Creative Commons (CC) licenses are completely non-
revocable.
 If your work was obtained under a Creative Commons
license, you cannot stop someone from using the work
according to that license.
 Even if you wish to pull your work from the CC, any
copies of your work already in circulation under a
Creative Commons license.

12. Challenge #5
Requires education in OER and
Considerable Research
 While transitioning to OER can be a good move for
many reasons, including Professional Development, it is
not a simple thing to implement.
 Transitioning to OER requires knowledge of copyright,
licensing, and information literacy and acquiring quality,
current, and relevant content in certain fields is difficult.