The Benefits and Challenges of Using Open Educational Resources (OER) by Scott Toscano, Olympia, WA May 11, 2015 This work is licensed under a C reative Commons A ttribution 4.0 Int ernational License .
The Benefits and Challenges of Using Open Educational Resources (OER)by Scott Toscano, Olympia, WAMay 11, 2015
This work is licensed
under a
Creative Commons Attrib
ution 4.0 International Lic
ense
.
Benefits of Using OER
1. Saves costs for students2. Saves time for teachers/instructors – don’t recreate
the wheel3. Teachers/instructors can easily present ideas built
on others’ works4. Expands general knowledge base so people outside
the course can benefit5. Many different types of materials can be OER
including textbooks, courses, pictures, videos, data(bases), and many other kinds of media
1. The quality of resources must be assessed by the user. Social accountability rating systems help this
2. OER are not always well organized or easy to find3. OER may not be available for your area4. The standards to which the content is written and
organized are not always explicit5. Access to OER for those without computers, the
internet, or electricity
Challenges of Using OER