A comparison of benefits and challenges in OER use today.

1. OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES:
BENEFITS AND CHALLENGES
JENNIFER PAGE

2. ABOUT OER
 Open education resources (OER) are “teaching, learning, and research materials in any medium that
reside in the public domain or that have been released under an open license that permits no-cost
access, use, adaptation, and redistribution by others” (Green, Illowsky, Wiley, Ernst, & Young, 2018).
 OER exist in a variety of forms (text, images, audio, video) in many locations online. Entire courses can be
sampled through sources such as Open Yale Courses and MIT OpenCourseWare.

3. BENEFITS
 Cost-saving for students
 Openstax (2019) estimates that since 2012, their textbooks “have saved 9 million students over $830 million…this year
alone 3 million students are using (their) books and saving over $233 million.”
 Shows empathy for students
 Building community and instructor-student rapport is important to student success. By choosing OER, the instructor
shows that they understand and empathize with the financial challenges of being a college student.
 Availability of materials
 More and more OER materials are being published than ever before; this trend indicates that finding effective OER in a
few years will probably be much easier.
 Multiple means of representation (UDL)
 Universal Design for Learning posits that giving all students the best classroom experience possible means that content
should be represented in multiple forms (images, multimedia, text, etc.). OER’s growing variety means that instructors can
follow UDL’s principles for free in their practice (ASHA, 2019).
 Models academic integrity and knowledge-share
 We urge students to cite their sources and respect others’ intellectual property. An instructor who uses OER would
effectively model this practice and set a good example for students.

4. CHALLENGES
 Materials aren’t available for all disciplines/courses
 A quick perusal of Openstax’s available textbooks shows dozens available in STEM fields, but only one categorized as
Humanities.
 Quality may not be on par with paid sources
 Some OER may not be peer reviewed or bear other marks of academic assurance like traditional textbooks; instructors
must be careful to check that OER is current and reputable before assigning it.
 Some students prefer print materials
 Kinesthetic learners may prefer to have a physical book to highlight and annotate.
 Materials might not be accessible to users with disabilities (screen readers, captioning, etc.)
 All course material distributed digitally MUST be section 508 compliant. Using inaccessible materials could open the
instructor or college to lawsuits.
 Sustainability is a concern
 Verifying that OER are up-to-date and good quality is a time-consuming and expensive process. Some OER sources or
platforms may not update or renew materials due to lack of funding. As a result, using the same sources for several
quarters or semesters may be challenging.

5. REFERENCES
 ASHA (American Speech-Language-Hearing Association). (2019). Universal design for learning. Retrieved
from https://www.asha.org/SLP/schools/Universal-Design-for-Learning/
 Green, C., Illowsky, B., Wiley, D. Ernst, D., & Young, L. (2018). 7 Things you should know about open
education: Content. Retrieved from https://library.educause.edu/resources/2018/6/7-things-you-should-
know-about-open-education-content
 Pennsylvania State University. (2019). Challenges of using OER and how to overcome them. Retrieved
from https://oer.psu.edu/challenges-of-using-oer-and-how-to-overcome-them/
 Rice University. (2019). Openstax: Our impact. Retrieved from https://openstax.org/impact