An overview of the benefits and challenges of OERs (Open Educational Resources)

1. A QUICK LOOK AT OERS By De Etta Burrell

2. OERS (OPEN EDUCATIONAL
RESOURCES) DEFINED
"Open educational resources (OERs) are free
and openly licensed educational materials that
can be used for teaching, learning, research,
and other purposes." (Wikipedia article)
These resources have both benefits and
challenges that can be highly debated; so, let’s
take a quick overview of OERs.
10/13/2015 A QUICK LOOK AT OERS BY DE ETTA BURRELL CC BY NC SA 4.0 2

3. OER BENEFITS
 Low costs! Accessing and sharing free materials digitally
reduces the high costs of publishing and printing.
 Different types of materials are available including
textbooks, videos, photographs, clipart, animations,
PowerPoints, lesson plans, worksheets, and quizzes.
 Reworking the material without fear of copyright
infringement helps one to tailor the material to one’s needs.
 Quality of the materials is improving since many of the
providers elicit feedback, revisions, and rankings to help
make them better.
 One doesn’t have to have to be in a particular economic
class to access OERs. “Education can be access by all!”
10/13/2015 A QUICK LOOK AT OERS BY DE ETTA BURRELL CC BY NC SA 4.0 3

4. OERS CHALLENGES
 Although the OERs are suppose to be free, there are
instances where using materials may violate copyright law,
so it may take time to ensure and attribute these works
properly, which can be confusing.
 Quality is still an issue even though it has improved. It
takes time to browse materials and determine if they good
resources or not.
 The independent or stand alone nature of many OERs
may not help some learners who have more success in a
instructor facilitated discussion and feedback environment.
 Using technology can be difficult for some OER users due
to outdated, slow, or otherwise erratic internet connections
10/13/2015 A QUICK LOOK AT OERS BY DE ETTA BURRELL CC BY NC SA 4.0 4

5. FOR MORE INFORMATION
 Go to: http://creativecommons.org/
 Or join a two week course on this topic at
http://www.waol.org/info/training/instTrainingRegV2.
aspx
10/13/2015 A QUICK LOOK AT OERS BY DE ETTA BURRELL CC BY NC SA 4.0 5