The document discusses the benefits and challenges of using Open Educational Resources (OER). The main benefits are: global access to a variety of free resources saves instructors' and students' time and money; allows for more creative curriculum development; and fosters collaboration and continually updated materials. However, key challenges are: sifting through resources is time-consuming; quality can be hard to discern; funding risks end if OER use; onboarding new staff; and ensuring internet/computer access. Overall, the benefits outweigh the challenges for providing open resources.

1. Benefits and Challenges of Using
Open Educational Resources
(OER)

2. To Use or to Not Use?
 Benefits
 Open (global) access to a variety of resources
 Saves time for Instructors
 Saves money for students
 Allows for more creative and unique curriculum
development
 Collaboration and fostering of updated
materials by faculty
 Continues to strengthen internet and computer
skills of faculty and students
 Challenges
 Time consuming to sift through resources
 Hard to discern quality
 The risk of losing funding for continued OER
use and access
 Onboarding new staff and encouraging the
addition of new content
 Understanding and accessing many new
websites, resources, and programs
 General access to internet and computers

3. Benefits
 Open (global) access to a variety of resources
 Having open access to world wide ideas, lessons, perspectives, values, and resources has the
potential to provide a much broader education to students, especially when thinking about
limited access to education in rural area. Many of these populations have had little exposure to
multicultural environments. These resources have the potential to give them a global perspective
without leaving their area.
 Saves time for Instructors
 I literally work full time hours for part time pay. Part of this is due to wanting to provide quality
instruction and materials. OER resources is a way in which to attempt to not regularly “reinvent
the wheel” and find solid material already available.

4. Benefits
 Saves money for students
 It is most students at the community college level that are struggling to fund their education (and
their life). Acquiring more debt is not the answer. This is an obvious need and solution to this
challenge.
 Allows for more creative and unique curriculum development
 Being able to pull from multiple resources does not restrict you to one book or resource, which
can limit the perspective and information on the subject. I would imagine if you had students
purchase a book, you would try to limit if to one, to save on cost. OER resources allows you to
expose students to multiple ideas, thoughts, and arguments on various subjects, as their easily
accessible.

5. Benefits
 Collaboration and fostering of updated materials by faculty
 Using materials that can be published regularly and instantly, gives you resources that are current
and more relevant to today’s constantly changing world. It also allows you to receive material
from a wider audience, i.e. someone who may not necessarily publish an article or a book, but
may make a lesson or photo available for public use.
 Continues to strengthen internet and computer skills of faculty and students
 Even though my classes are grounded, I have had to constantly work on improving my computer
skills to keep up with college expectations these days. Taking Canvas and OER classes are just
part of the opportunities, and expectations, of the skills we should all have in this day and age.

6. Challenges
 Time consuming to sift through resources
 Looking through the large amount of resources available on OER already seems overwhelming.
It is going to be time consuming, initially at least, to find what I’m looking for, and to be sure it
works for my needs.
 Hard to discern quality
 Somehow I made the assumption OER resources had been through some kind of vetting process,
to be sure they are high quality teaching resources. I understand now, that is basically for you to
do and decide. More time.

7. Challenges
 The risk of losing funding for continued OER use and access
 I wasn’t aware that OER was started by a single grant, and was therefore in danger of ending, or
many resources being difficult to access or expensive to maintain. Let’s hope the success of OER
propels its use and funding into the future.
 Onboarding new staff and encouraging the addition of new content
 It seems the use of OER is completely voluntary, which doesn’t encourage growth of new material
or accountability of using resources properly.

8. Challenges
 Understanding and accessing many new websites, resources, and programs
 This may not seem significant for some, but in the short amount of searches I did for online
resources in OER, I found many sites wanted you to start accounts, which includes yet more
usernames and passwords. This can feel overwhelming and create barriers.
 General access to internet and computers
 With my IBEST population, the reality is that students do not all have access to computers and
internet access. Many of them also have challenges being on campus enough to do their work
using college computers. There is often a shortage of computers available on campus, and staff
knowledgeable enough to support them with their growing needs. I’m sure this is a challenge
with many populations and communities.

9. In the end, the benefits outweigh the challenges by far. I am eager to start
using OER resources, and see what they have to offer. I’m hoping they will
significantly cut down my planning time and allow me to continue to not
require students to purchase class materials. I’m also excited to see what
colleagues are producing in my fields and share new ideas with students.
Thank you for the class and continued professional development!
Mandy Aaberg, IBEST Instructor, Pierce College

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