A brief description of the benefits and challenges associated with open educational resources (OER) for use as instructional materials.

1. ShawnHunstock,CPA
OER: BENEFITS
AND CHALLENGES
IN HIGHER
EDUCATION
And, what does OER have to do
with this tree? 

2. ShawnHunstock
CPA
BENEFITS
OF OER
Insert random Latin
phrases here.
2

3. ShawnHunstock
CPA
BENEFITS OF OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES
Open Educational Resources (OER) provide students, instructors and others with the
following benefits:
• Cost savings for students. Rather than waiting for financial aid to come in so they can then
purchase the textbook and sign up for online publisher content, students can get started learning
right away at the start of the quarter.
• Additional breadth of materials. In subject matters where there are not a lot of published opens
available, using, or authoring, OER gives the instructor additional options for textbook or
course material adoptions versus just what is available from publishers.
• Additional opportunities for peer review. As materials are disbursed and used in classes, there
are additional opportunities for feedback on content from other instructors, students and others.
• Adaptability of course materials. Depending on the type of open licensing, the materials could
be used by instructors and reformatted, edited or otherwise adapted to the specific needs of that
course and that instructor. This provides an advantage over an instructor starting from scratch
to build their own course materials.
• Diversity in pedagogical approaches. Particularly in subject matters without a lot of available
materials, opening the course to OER resources provides not just new or different materials, but
potentially allows for different thoughts or theories on how to approach and present the subject
matter with students.
3

4. ShawnHunstock
CPA
CHALLENGES
OF OER
Insert other random
Latin phrases here.
4

5. ShawnHunstock
CPA
CHALLENGES OF OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES
Open Educational Resources (OER) potentially come with some of the following
disadvantages:
• Quality control. Materials that are intended to align with laws, regulations, prescriptive
standards of professional conduct or professional standards, etc., might not go through the same
review and quality control process as other published and licensed works. “Cheaper” for the
student does not necessarily mean better.
• Lack of availability. Some subject matters have not widely incorporated OER materials into the
instructional content, meaning instructors might not have many resources to utilize.
• Outdated materials, references, etc. Given that the author of the OER materials has no financial
incentive to update their work, the risk is that those materials might become outdated,
irrelevant or even incorrect as standards, laws, common practice changes over time.
• Lack of availability of add-on materials or course enhancements. Many textbook authors and
their publishers offer online content intended to enhance the learning experience such as
videos, tips and tricks, homework hints, etc., and with OER materials these extra items are less
likely to be available.
• Time. Searching for available, relevant material takes time that instructors might not have
versus adopting a textbook that appears to address all the intended course topics and is easier
for the instructor to adopt.
5

6. ShawnHunstock
CPA
THE BURNING QUESTION
What does a picture
of a tree (or rowing
skull --->) have to
do with OER?
• They have absolutely nothing to
do with OER. They were
included in a “free” PowerPoint
format available for download
and I went with it. 
• Random Latin phrases that also
came with the PP were deleted
for your sanity and mine.
6

7. THANK YOU
Shawn Hunstock, CPA shunstock@wvc.edu
ShawnHunstock
CPA