This document discusses the benefits and challenges of using open educational resources. The key benefits are low or no cost to students, worldwide accessibility, environmental sustainability, promoting social justice by removing profit motives, and increasing availability of resources over time across disciplines. The main challenges are resistance to change from the traditional publishing paradigm, lack of consistent funding models without profits, needing insider knowledge to locate resources across different platforms, and inconsistent formatting leading to confusing user experiences when searching for materials.

1. USING OPEN EDUCATIONAL
RESOURCES: BENEFITS AND
CHALLENGES
By Michael Wood

2. BENEFITS
 Cost to students – low or none
 Accessibility – worldwide access leverages benefit
 Sustainability – Digital media with low environmental footprint

3. BENEFITS
 Social justice – removing profit motive de-commodifies the
learning process, providing benefits for the common good.
 Increasing availability– over time, more disciplines are
represented, in more depth and subject granularity.

4. CHALLENGES
 Resistance to change– OER is a threat to the traditional
publishing paradigm.
 Funding – Absent the profit incentive, funding of quality resources
can be problematic

5. CHALLENGES
 Patchwork of resource platforms – ‘insider knowledge’ required to
locate resources
 Inconsistent formatting – many approaches lead to duplicative
and confusing information seeking experiences with OER
materials
 Funding – Absent the profit incentive, adequate funding of quality
resources that are the equal of products represented by the
current textbook model can be problematic.