Pros/cons of Open Education Resources (OER)

1. OER – Reliable Resource or
Fleeting Fancy?
By Kirsty Jones
Tacoma Community House
April 2014

2. Reliable Resource - Benefits
• Free
• Accessible 24/7
• Modifiable/customizable
• Stops re-invention of the wheel
• Promotes collaboration
• Accessible to students and teachers
• Great supplement
• Allows students to extend their learning

3. Benefit #1
• Free
• OER is absolutely zero-cost by design
• This cost benefit extends to all – students and
teachers

4. Benefit #2
• Accessible 24/7
• No waiting for textbooks to be
shipped, tomorrow’s lecture, or next week’s
assignment
• Students can self-pace through much of the
material

5. Benefit #3
• Modifiable/customizable
• The “O” in OER means “open”, and OER are
just that
• Materials can be
copied, changed, distributed, modified, added
to, or incorporated

6. Benefit #4
• Halts the need to re-invent the wheel
• Teachers no longer need to constantly tweak
course materials each teaching cycle
• Get inspired, learn new things, and present
material in a different way
• Two brains are better than one, and a world
full of ideas is even better!

7. Benefit #5
• Promotes collaboration
• The ability to share and modify materials
encourages teachers and students to integrate
others’ materials with their own
• The ability to edit can also result in more
people verifying and improving one person’s
work

8. Benefit #6
• Accessible to both students and teachers
• No special log-ins, accounts, or passwords are
needed
• Students can access materials without teacher
instruction, direction, or control
• Teachers don’t need to manage students’
online learning

9. Benefit #7
• Allows students to learn on their own outside
of a structured setting
• Students can greatly increase their time spent
studying, their access to materials, and what
they want to learn
• Students are no longer confined to
institutionally settings, especially when this
may not be accessible

10. Benefit #8
• Great supplement for teachers and students
• Students can look for extra help on their own
• Teachers can provide remedial help and extra
challenges, respectively, to those who need it
• Teachers don’t have to spend a lot of time
preparing supplemental material

11. Fleeting Fancy - Drawbacks
• Difficult to find
• Participation in OER community requires
knowledge of copyright, Creative
Commons, etc.
• May require customization before integration
• Requires internet access
• Not universal design
• Continuity not guaranteed

12. Drawback #1
• May be difficult to find/verify
• Anyone can post anything – the good, the
bad, and the ugly
• Unlike published material, there is no
standard editing process
• Materials may be
wrong, outdated, inaccurate, etc.

13. Drawback #2
• To fully participate in OER community
(finding and sharing resources) requires
knowledge of copyrighting, creative
commons, public domain, etc.
• This is not basic knowledge for most teachers

14. Drawback #3
• May require customization to be fully
integrated into classes
• While the ability to customize is a benefit, OER
may be so piecemeal or only partially relevant
to your course that serious customization may
be necessary to properly integrate/use the
OER in your course

15. Drawback #4
• Requires internet access
• This may not be easily or constantly accessible
to students/teachers
• Not all materials are available for download

16. Drawback #5
• OER isn’t necessarily universal design
• May be difficult for students with disabilities
to access
• There are no standards for uploading OER that
would require them to be accessible to those
with disabilities

17. Drawback #6
• Continuity of access is not guaranteed
• Since OER is web-based, webpages containing
OER may disappear or be modified at any time
• Creative Commons licenses may be revoked by
the creator