Benefits and challenges of open educational resources

1. Open Educational Resources
Kaitlyn Straton
Reference & Instruction Librarian
Pierce College

2. Benefits
• Little to no cost for course materials
▫ Allows access for marginalized and disadvantaged persons who could not
otherwise participate in higher education
▫ Maximizes taxpayer dollars for public institutions
• Fosters a community of learning
▫ Assuming access, anyone can participate by creating and sharing OER
▫ Informal learning promotes lifelong learning and improves society
• International movement
▫ Opportunities for institutions to collaborate regardless of geographical
location
▫ Wide, global audience
• Competition
▫ Institutions desire positive public opinion, want to create the best OER
and OER courses to compete for users
• Access to prestigious universities
▫ MIT, Yale, Harvard and Stanford, to name a few
▫ Ability for prospective students to examine course materials before
applying and/or enrolling

3. Challenges
• Access
▫ No centralized repository for easy access or metadata standards
▫ Relies on technology and Internet capabilities that disadvantage
poor and marginalized persons
• Quality
▫ Accuracy of information and peer-review processes
▫ Possible cultural bias
▫ Exceptional, traditional resources may be copyrighted
• Ownership
▫ Purpose is for author to be attributed but not retain ownership
which is a hard sell for publishers
• Funding
▫ Many OER projects are grant funded and not ongoing
• Resistance to change
▫ Time consuming to find new, suitable resources
▫ Lack of incentives for instructors to adopt OER