Exploration of the Benefits and Challenges of Using OER

1. Jan Richards
Pierce College

2. Benefits of OER
Cost Effectiveness &
Sharing Data
 The highest quality educational
content can be made available
worldwide to any interested
person at no cost and without
elements of piracy or copyright
infringements.
 Ability to develop computer-based
multimedia and video
materials with unlimited access
 Those who share materials
openly have significant
opportunities to build their
individual reputations and
institutional awareness

3. Benefits of OER
Quality & Cost of Data
 Creates more opportunities
for finding good materials to
use in an indeterminate
range of educational
environments – both online,
hybrid and face-to-face
classroom formats
 Because OER removes
restrictions around copying
resources, it can reduce the
cost of accessing educational
materials, both for the
instructor and their students

4. Challenges of OER
Cost Effectiveness
and Freedom
 The issue of freedom and its
definition has been widely
debated since the advent of
open licenses, and privacy in
a digital age is part of this
bargaining and sharing
information
 The most cost-effective way
to develop and procure
resources for use in teaching
and learning is to explore all
available options, rather than
excluding some on principle.

5. Challenges of OER
No Oversight
 Responsibility for assuring the
quality of OER used in teaching
and learning environments
resides with the institution,
program/course coordinators,
and individual educators – but
there appears to be nothing
beyond the source itself to
regulate materials shared.
 Sharing of materials provides
institutions opportunities to
market their services –
perhaps giving advantages to
those in positions to profit
 In most instances, a user has
enormous latitude to adapt
OER to suit contextual needs
where the license allows
adaptation

6. The Experience of OER
Technological Expertise
 There are vast areas of legal expertise and ways to
harness various levels of resources on the web that is
daunting and technologically isolating. E-learning
sources in technology aided learning can include
features like animation, streaming video, blogging,
podcasting, etc. Not all teachers have the skills to
use the applications which can create e-learning
resources and some faculty members may feel the
threat of being left behind in their institutions
without proper training to use them.