Benefits and Drawbacks of Open Educational Resources

Benefits and Drawbacks of Open Educational Resources

1. Benefits and Drawbacks of Open Educational Resources River Zorich

2. Avoids copyright problems Benefits Saves money for students Equity and inclusion Supports knowledge sharing Flexibility of resources

3. OER allows instructors to utilize free, open source textbooks or learning materials for students. This allows students to save money using these classroom resources compared to buying a new or used textbook. Due to the 5 Rs of OER–retain, revise, remix, reuse, and redistribute–this allows for instructors to build off of other’s OER to create something unique for their course, update the resource, expand upon the topic, and more. Saves money for students Supports knowledge sharing

4. OER promotes equity through free resources and removes a large financial barrier to a course. Equity and inclusion Copyright can be a challenge especially if instructors require a large amount of resources across a variety of sources. OER empowers the user to use the resource without worry about copyright. Avoids copyright Similarly to the earlier point of supporting knowledge sharing, the 5 Rs of OER mean that instructors can create the specific resources they need for their courses. Flexibility of resources

5. Limited offerings Drawbacks Finding resources Accessibility Quality assurance Non-revocable

6. Finding OER can be difficult and time consuming. This course has provided us with the skills and resources to better find materials (see Open Washington). It can be difficult to judge the quality and relevance of materials. Many institutions have an internal review process for OER, but that is not always open to the public. Finding resources Quality assurance

7. Digital accessibility of resources is an important aspect of digital resources–whether it is OER or a website. Oftentimes, accessibility can fall to the wayside. Accessibility OER may not exist for particular topics (especially advanced topics) or in particular languages. Limited offerings Creative Commons licenses are non-revocable, which means that you cannot stop someone from using your work according to the license if they obtained it under a Creative Commons license. Non-revocable

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