Benefits & Challenges of Open Educational Resources (OER)

By Andrea Lupson

Benefitsof OER

Just to name a few

A Few Benefits

• Reusability of materials• Helps prepare for course retention (and

retaining knowledge afterwards)

• Wider availability of academic content and focus on the learning experience with a variety of choices.

• Access to quality choices

A Few More Benefits

• Using OER’s, the cost for materials goes down significantly for everyone (teachers, students, parents, etc.)

Another Benefit

A few Excellent Sources for OER• http://www.openwa.org/find-oer/

• http://www.oeconsortium.org/courses/

• https://www.oercommons.org/

OERCHALLENGESJust a few to mention

Challenges

• Quality Assurance of information• Sustainability of OER (funding)• Non-revocable nature of CC licenses

Once someone’s received an item from OER they can use it.

More Challenges

• Finding exactly what material you’re looking for. There might not be anything you can use,

causing you to make a “U-Turn” to find something else.

Or there might be too much to go though, making it hard to narrow down the most appropriate one.

Another Challenge

• Lack of public knowledge and understanding of OERs. They don’t know it’s out there!

Difficult Classes to find Specific OER related content (not impossible, but more difficult)

• Records Management • Introduction to Computers (IT 101)

What can we do to help?

• Put more information out there!• Let others know it exists!• Stay up-to-date with OER information/trainings.• And more!