2. Benefits
1. Saves money on textbooks for students .
2. Provides an array of materials for both students and instructors to use.
3. Free resource for anyone – if they know about it and have internet access.
4. Material can be updated, allowing for continuous improvement – good
for disciplines in which change is happening all the time.
5. Instructors are able to see what other instructors consider to be “big
ideas” – not all instructors agree on what is most important in content.
3. Challenges
1. Not all disciplines/content areas have OER – many don’t have any…
2. While others may be able to update OER work – are the updates correct?
Is material getting watered down or simply wrong?
3. OER resources may save money, but don’t always include all the resources
that a really good textbook might.
4. Finding OER’s isn’t quite as easy as I thought – will it be for everyone?
5. Time – creating an OER or updating an existing one, would take a healthy
time commitment – in some content areas faculty teach a number of
courses…is there time?
