Open Education Resources

Benefits and Challenges

Benefit:Use of OER images and videos provide students with the opportunity to interact with material in multiple modalities.

“The Art of Inquiry” by Candice Nast is licensed under CC by 2.0

Challenge:A video may be more entertaining, but is it more educational? A challenge is finding and using quality OER material.

“Only Quality, Okay?” By Aoife is licensed under CC by 2.0

Benefit:Even a focused search for OER can lead to unexpected discoveries.

Journey to Egipt 2013 by the Jetboy is licensed under CC by 2.0

Challenge: The endless world of OER can make for a time-consuming search, taking away from other important instructional activities- like grading!

Lafayette LA by Infrogmation is lisenced under CC by 2.0

Benefit:OER exposes us, as instructors, to “best practices” by people in our field well beyond our usual boundaries.

Double the Exposure, Double the Fun by Nestor Lacle is licensed under CC by 2.0.

Challenge: It takes time to investigate whether or not material is truly open source in order to properly provide attribution and proof of Creative Commons licensing.

Clock Hands by Blair is licensed under CC by 2.0

Benefit:OER can save time. Someone has built the lesson, so use it!

Wheel by Pauline Mak is licensed under CC by 2.0

Challenge:OER is not necessarily sustainable. If a favorite OER repository loses funding, its maintenance is unlikely.

Wind Turbine Green is licensed under CC by 4.0

Benefit:OER makes teaching fun! It is nice to refresh an old lesson with new material.

Fountain by Alan Tankenghoe is licensed under CC by 2.0

Challenge: Is OER- a fad? Washington State is encouraging use of OER, but is this a long-term trend or are we on another finite journey?

Nieve44 by Luz is licensed under CC by 2.0