Adopting OER pros and cons by S Corson.pdf

Five benefits and five challenges of adopting Open Educational Resources (OER).

1. Adopting OER by Sheila Corson is
licensed under CC BY 4.0
ADOPTING OER

2. Overview
Cost-effective for
students
Cost-effective for creators
Abundant
Wider perspectives
Improved visibility
Benefits of OER
Quality assurance
“Shelf-life”
Lack of knowledge
Overwhelming amount
Digital accessibility
Challenges of OER
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3. BENEFITS

4. Cost-effective for students
Benefits
Even when I was a student 20 years ago,
the cost of textbooks was a serious
concern, especially with version updates
rendering past versions obsolete. (I still
bought old versions to save money
sometimes, though.) OERs lift at least one
financial burden off student’s shoulders.

5. Cost-effective for creators
Benefits
I can’t imagine the time and cost involved in
creating and publishing a traditional
textbook - I’ve never even considered
trying. But with the OERs, creators can
share resources they have created on a
smaller scale as time and cost allows.

6. Abundant
Benefits
With the ease of creation, abundant
resources now exist in open platforms. I
might not be able to find a full textbook, but
I can find several smaller works to support
my class.

7. Wider perspectives
Benefits
Because so many more can find
opportunity to share resources, we have
access to a greater pool of perspectives
and experiences. Single textbooks written
by one or two people can lack diversity of
thought and experience, but OERs allow for
more range.

8. Improved visibility
Benefits
In some cases, students want to either see
a class text ahead of time or keep access
after the class. OERs make both possible. It
can mean that they easily share the
concepts they’ve learned with others in
their profession, or use those same
resources if they teach a class themselves.

9. CHALLENGES

10. Quality assurance
Challenges
Although resources may be easily created,
it also follows that the resources may not
be well vetted, properly researched,
properly credited, or fully accurate. It would
be on the instructor to make sure the
materials are correct and well done, adding
time to the adoption process.

11. “Shelf life”
Challenges
Even with resources of high quality at the
time of their publishing, some resources
might end up outdated. Creators might not
have the time or funds available to
constantly update the information when
needed.

12. Lack of knowledge
Challenges
When I began teaching less than two years
ago, I didn’t know about OERs. I suspect
many adjunct faculty in particular are
unaware of the resources or how to access
them. This might be the easiest challenge
to overcome, as institutions become more
open to accepting OERs and train their
faculty in how to do so.

13. Overwhelming amount
Challenges
Although it is great how abundant OERs are
(and more so all the time), it can also be
overwhelming. A search of resources in
various databases could result in many
options, and the instructor must find the
time to look through each, check each for
accuracy, etc.

14. Digital accessibility
Challenges
Although many repositories most likely
have some digital accessibility standards
built in, there are still gaps. Some resources
are not accessible to those with differing
abilities (particularly visually impaired). They
might not be accessible to those without a
reliable internet connection at home, as
part of the digital equity gap, and do not
allow the option for printing or sharing
without a good connection.

15. Summary
Open Educational Resources
(OER) offer cost-effective and
widely available learning
materials, but challenges
include quality assurance and
digital accessibility.