OER provides benefits such as lower costs for students, opportunities for instructors to collaborate and share knowledge across borders, and participation from renowned institutions. However, OER also presents challenges including the time and effort required to locate materials, inconsistencies between collected materials, costs associated with teacher time and professional development, questions around quality and authority of sources, and sustainability issues. Adoption of OER may also not allow for personalization of content or customization to unique learning environments.

1. OER
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Benefits and Challenges
S. Martin / SBCTC: How to Use OER

2. Benefits
• Lower cost to students
• A gateway for instructors to share and collaborate
• Renowned institutions participate (high quality)
• Expand instructor knowledge and perspective
• Sharing knowledge beyond borders
• Suggest the possibility of new ways of teaching beyond textbooks
• An avenue to share work
• An avenue to obtain feedback

3. Challenges
• Difficult and time-consuming to locate materials depending on topic
• Inconsistent tone, coherence, unity of collected materials
• Imposition on teacher time
• Professional development cost
• Production vs. consumption of material
• Quality and accuracy of sources
• Authority and credibility of sources
• Sustainability
• Irrevocable CC license
• Not personalized or customized to unique environments
• Content over process (what are the students doing/learning?)