Creating open educational resources (OER) allows faculty to share course modules and teaching ideas with colleagues, helping to improve courses over time. Developing OER exposes educators to new approaches and keeps them learning as they integrate current information. However, creating and updating OER presents challenges as it takes significant time and effort to thoughtfully select reliable materials and reinvent curricula.

1. OER: Benefits and Challenges
Mary Ann Medlin, Ph.D.
July 2015
CC BY-SA 3.0

2. Creating material in OER
• Allows you to prepare modules that you, and others, can use in
multiple courses
• Allows sharing of ideas about teaching with colleagues who can
augment your own ideas
• Sharing your work with others will make you conscious of the need to
update materials

3. The preparation of these materials
• Will send you on frequent searches for new material to use in your
classes—a worthy journey in itself
• Will expose you to new ways of thinking about topics you have taught
perhaps for years—it means you will be a student too
• And perhaps most importantly will keep you learning more about
integrating current information into what you teach—there is never
an end to learning

4. The challenges
• It takes time
• It takes rethinking of what you know
• There will always be new material
• It is up to you to make sure that the material is reliable, valid, and
objective
• It will keep taking time