Open educational resources (OER) provide benefits such as lower costs for students, promotion of information sharing and educator collaboration, and flexibility for instructors. However, challenges include potential lack of quality control, high production costs without profit incentives, discontinuity of resources, and incomplete or buried high-quality resources.

1. OPEN EDUCATIONAL
RESOURCES (OER)
Benefits and challenges of using open
educational resources
By Adam Diaz

2. BENEFITS
 Lower educational cost to students
 Promotion of freedom of information
 Promotion of collaboration among educators and professionals
 Flexibility for instructors to develop and customize materials
 Ease of distribution

3. CHALLENGES
 Potential lack of quality control
 Cost to produce without incentive for profit
 Potential lack of continuity
 Potential incomplete information
 Potential for top resources to be buried among mediocre
resources