Benefits and challenges of using open educational resources
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Open Educational Resources (OER) offer benefits such as lower costs, portability, flexibility, control for instructors, and environmental sustainability, but they also face challenges like uncertain availability, lack of selection for certain topics, outdated materials, competition from traditional publishers, and perceptions of lower quality. The advantages can significantly improve accessibility for students, while the drawbacks may limit their effectiveness in professional or technical education. Therefore, while OER presents a promising alternative to conventional textbooks, it requires careful consideration of its limitations.
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Benefits and challenges of using open educational resources
- 1. Benefits and Challenges of using Open Educational Resources Mary Jane O
- 2. • No (or lower) costs for students – Students may still want to print OER resources but this would be much cheaper than buying a published text • Portability – if the OER resource is online – Students can ‘take’ their online OER resource with them wherever they go • Flexibility – Instructors can pick and choose from a variety of resources and pick the resource that fits the particular need
- 3. • Control – Instructors choose when the material needs to be updated, not the publisher • Environmentally Responsible – Online OER materials reduce the amount of paper required to produce textbooks that are only partly used
- 4. • Uncertain Availability – Materials are moved or websites are changed resulting in dead links • Lack of Selection – For some topics OER materials simply don’t exist. This is especially true for topics in prof/tech education where the need for affordability is more crucial. Much emphasis is put on the 4-year transfer core courses, but OER for special topics are few and far between
- 5. • Out-of-date materials – Although may of the topics (like algebra and calculus) don’t expire, some do and when funding discontinues for OER, the likelihood of updates is slim. • Publishers offer some resources that OER can duplicate – Online homework using huge databases of questions are commonly offered by publishers. It is almost impossible to duplicate this valuable resource with OER.
- 6. • Perception of Lower Quality – Many people associate cost with quality. Something given away as free must not be as good as something that costs.