The document discusses open educational resources (OER). It defines OER as teaching, learning, and research materials that are freely available under open licenses allowing their use and modification. The document outlines several benefits of OER, including being free of cost, their abundance online, and ease of searching. However, it also notes challenges like reviewing materials for accuracy, choosing materials suited for one's needs, and properly understanding open licensing terms for legal use. In conclusion, the author is a strong proponent of OER but emphasizes the importance of understanding associated policies for compliant use.

1. OER
• The benefits and challenges of OER
A riveting presentation by Curt Moon
"OER" by Curt Moon is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA
4.0

2. What is OER?
• The below definition is from the creative commons,
https://creativecommons.org/about/program-areas/education-oer/
• “Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching, learning, and
research materials that are either (a) in the public domain or
(b) licensed in a manner that provides everyone with free and
perpetual permission to engage in the 5R activities.
• Retain – make, own, and control a copy of the resource
• Reuse – use your original, revised, or remixed copy of the resource publicly
• Revise – edit, adapt, and modify your copy of the resource
• Remix – combine your original or revised copy of the resource with other
existing material to create something new
• Redistribute – share copies of your original, revised, or remixed copy of the
resource with others”
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SA-NC

3. Benefits
• Using OER materials have numerous benefits for both student and
instructor
• This is just a small list of 5 benefits and certainly is not an exhaustive
list
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4. Benefit #1: PRICE, PRICE, PRICE!
• Its very hard to beat the price of OER materials
• I can recall quarters in the later 90’s and early 2000’s when my books
would cost upwards of $500
• Not every student has an extra $500 laying around to spend on
learning materials
• OER materials are a great way around the price of learning materials!

5. Benefit #2: Abundance
• There is no shortage of OER materials out there!
• If one thing doesn’t work for you then you can search through many
more
• NOTE: Of course, not every subject will be represented the same.
While searching for biology materials I found a plethora of things. I
searched for “underwater basket weaving” and got nothing…
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6. Benefit #3: Ease of Searching
• We live in the information era for sure and we have a valuable tool
called the internet where we can search for nearly anything.
• This goes along with Benefit #2: Abundance
• Lots of user-friendly places to search for OER materials
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7. Benefit #4: Flexibility of Materials
• You can find OER materials for every level of education
• Most of what I found while searching for biology materials was
geared towards college level learning
• There are early learning resources all the way up to med school
materials available
• SIDE NOTE: Found some great worksheets for my 4 year old so he can keep
those ABC’s sharp over the summer 

8. Benefit #5: You don’t have to reinvent the
wheel!
• The instructor in me loves this the most!
• Why build all your materials from the ground up? That is very time
consuming to do
• Instead, find OER materials that fit your needs or materials you can
tailor to your needs (if that is allowed of course!)
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9. Benefits…don’t exist without challenges…
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10. Challenge #1: Reviewing the material
• I have been asked to review OER texts on a few occasions and it takes
time
• While this isn’t hard it is mind numbing and you can miss important
things that should be addressed before using in the course

11. Challenge #2: Accuracy
• This hasn’t been a huge issue in the OER materials I have used but it
has caused some confusion
• If you miss things from Challenge #1 then your lectures may not
match what the OER materials are saying
• BELIEVE ME, students will find this and let you know!
• This has caused questions on assessments to be tossed out then you
need to make sure you “re-teach” the subject matter
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licensed under CC BY-SA

12. Challenge #3: Choosing the right stuff
• With abundance comes the challenge of choosing the right stuff for your
course
• I have fallen into this pit a few times
• It happens like this: I find this awesome OER material that is perfect (at
least I thought) for the course and low and behold its full of information
that wasn’t taught in the courses leading up to mine (face palm…)
• Learning objectives help to get around this a little bit but I recommend
making sure the class will have the right knowledge to do/use the material.
• NOTE: My sons wanted a mario pic somewhere in this ppt….I am just doing
what I am told…
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NC-ND

13. Challenge 4: Using resources correctly
• I am finding that not all OER materials make this obvious (I wish they
would…)
• Last thing I want to do is do something wrong while using an OER
resource
• Full disclosure: I am super guilty of this. While its easy to find these
great resources, its not always obvious what restrictions they have
• I looked back at a few OER materials I have used and most I did things
right but a few I changed, and I was not supposed to (face palm…)

14. Challenge #5: Learning about OER materials
• Why is this not mandatory?! (No seriously, it should be mandatory…)
• Ignorance is not always a valid excuse, and I will fully say that I was
very ignorant on how OER works (until this course)
• This is sad because I had been using OER materials prior to this course
and not always following the rules (face palm…)
• Since this course (or similar) are not required, it allows users of OER
materials to not always follow the rules
• These rules are not always spelled out and with a simple month-long
course you can figure out how to use them correctly
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under CC BY

15. Final Thoughts
• Over-all I am a huge fan of OER materials
• The price and abundance of materials is a huge draw but not needing to re-invent the wheel each time
• I encourage everyone to give OER materials a try and to seek out a course to help them understand what
OER is all about!
• NOTE: My 7 year old son thought this needed a pic of a white shark attacking a seal…
This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-NC
This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-
SA-NC
This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-
NC-ND