OER: BENEFITS AND CHALLENGES TO USING OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCESBy Curt Pavia

CHALLENGES

1. Quality: Teachers may have a difficult time finding peer-reviewed or similar level of rigor.

2. Availability: As time moves on, sources of open license materials may be taken offline or become obsolete.

3. Training: Faculty may encounter technology learning curves that are beyond their abilities and not have sufficient support or training opportunities.

4. Institutional Support: Institutions may not provide support for faculty, thus making it difficult to implement.

5. Accessibility: OER may not have accessibility built in to the materials, such as closed captions, screen-reader headings/structure and ALT text to images.

Puzzle-1243091_640.jpg by croisy, CC0 Public Domain

BENEFITS

1. Cost: Students will save money with OER, which are usually free or low cost.

2. Use of Materials: Faculty will be able to share the materials without worrying about infringing on copyright laws.

3. Learning Opportunity: The variety of media and web tools needed to implement OER into a course will provide the faculty opportunities to learn more.

4. Social Responsibility: OER can make learning materials available to more people on a global scale.

5. Customize: Some OER will allow the user (faculty) just use part or to modify the content in order to fit their needs.

Successful by Peggy_Marco, CC0 Public Domain