Open Educational Resources: Benefits and Challenges

Slideshow exploring the benefits and challenges of OER.

1. OER Benefits and Challenges By Erland Cain

2. Benefits Overview Lowers barrier to entry for college students Allows instructors to precisely tailor course materials Can provide compensation for instructors Can provide students with materials in multiple formats Gives instructors unique opportunities to publish their content in professional-looking formats

3. Challenges Overview Outdated materials Lack of quality control Overly-remixed materials Platforms hosting OER could be underfunded and unstable Potential misuse of copyrighted materials

4. OER Benefits

5. Lowers barrier to entry for college students Instructors who offer courses with OER can save their students from paying exorbitant prices for commercial textbooks. Financially vulnerable students can thus pursue higher education more easily if their educational institution embraces the use of OER. "LEEHS 23"  by  US Department of Education  is licensed under  CC BY 2.0

6. Precisely Tailor Course Materials Using OER, educators can tailor course materials to their precise instructional needs. The “revise” freedom afforded by the open license allows instructors to modify the content of existing works to better suit their students’ needs. For example, a philosophy instructor who wants their students to learn about metaphysics could add an original paragraph on Plato’s “theory of forms” to an existing introductory chapter on Greek philosophy. The “remix” freedom allows instructors to take multiple relevant materials and combine them to create a work that fits the scope of their course. "Board"  by  Kevin Doncaster  is licensed under  CC BY 2.0

7. Can provide compensation for instructors Instructors may be able to pursue grants or other professional development funding for adopting, adapting, or creating open educational resources. Some institutions may provide stipends for instructors who take OER training.

8. Can Provide Students with materials in Multiple Formats Instructors collecting OER materials can integrate various kinds of media formats – including formats targeted towards students with vision impairments – into their courses. Instructors using a platform like OER Commons can find audio, video, photo, text/HTML, and even interactive content to imbed in their courses. Platforms like OER Commons offer thousands of materials targeted towards learners with vision impairments (e.g., BRF, or “braille ready files,” for braille readers). "Braille"  by  Ralph Aichinger  is licensed under  CC BY 2.0

9. Gives instructors unique opportunities to publish their content in professional-looking formats Instructors using platforms such as Pressbooks have an opportunity to structure and share their scholarship in a textbook-quality format. Using Pressbooks – or any platform that makes it easy to copy, revise, or remix OER – also gives instructors an opportunity to have their scholarship widely disseminated.

10. OER Challenges

11. Outdated Materials Prominent OER repositories (e.g., OpenMichigan ) have resources dating back almost 15 years. In some instances, these repositories only have older materials representing certain quickly-evolving disciplines. For instance, most of Open Michigan’s courses on public health were published in 2009 and 2011. While these courses were revised, they were done so over 9 years ago. "Old computers"  by  Nicholas  is licensed under  CC BY 2.0

12. Lack of Quality control The vetting processes – insofar as they exist – of OER platforms and organizations might not be as well-supported as those of traditional textbook companies. For example, OER organizations might have less funding (if any) for hiring editors or peer-reviewers than traditional textbook companies.

13. Overly-remixed materials When using OERs that have been repeatedly remixed and revised, one is partly relying on the latest author to accurately attribute, cite, and date the materials that have been organized . The process of repeated OER duplication and revision could ultimately obscure errors in citation and attribution.

14. Platforms hosting OER could be underfunded and unstable Ultimately, OERs are only as good as the platforms they are hosted on. If the platform hosting an exceptional OER textbook is no longer supported, accessing that textbook could become difficult or impossible. Underfunded platforms could likewise provide unstable access to their materials. "DualCrash"  by  Dr. Gianluigi "Zane" Zanettini  is licensed under  CC BY 2.0

15. Potential misuse of copyrighted materials Instructors who are not well versed in copyright law could inadvertently include “all rights reserved” copyrighted materials in their OER, making themselves vulnerable to legal action. Instructors who use artificial intelligence – which is known to repurpose copyrighted materials – to make OER could exacerbate this situation.

16. Thank You!