Benefits and Challenges

Marianne Le

Everett Community College

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Faculty may be interested in Open Educational Resources (OER) but have concerns about how to implement them.

Dr Preti Taneja, New Generation Thinker, Speed Dating with a Thinker,

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The Dilemma

OER are teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use and re-purposing by others. Open educational resources include full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks, streaming videos, tests, software, and any other tools, materials, or techniques used to support access to knowledge.

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What is OER?

Freedom to tailor materials to the curriculum

Ability to rearrange or rewrite textbooks

Control updates to content

Benefit 1

All students have access to course materials on Day 1

Cost of textbooks is no longer a barrier

Bookstore shortages are not a problem

Benefit 2

Increased student engagement with material

Students can help contribute to the course

Students practice critical thinking and information literacy

Benefit 3

Ease of useCopyright and reuse information is clearly

stated

Depositories of open materials are available

Benefit 4

Innovation and collaboration opportunities

Access materials from highly-regarded institutions

Creating materials builds a faculty member’s reputation

Benefit 5

There are some challenges to implementing OER or everyone would be using them.

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What about the Dilemma?

It takes time to find materialsA class probably needs materials from

many different sources

Instructors are rarely compensated for the extra prep time

Challenge 1

Uneven quality of OER resources

Still in early stages of OER

Only a few depositories include peer reviews

Challenge 2

Web sites may disappear or change

Even an address change can throw off students

Online material can disappear at any time

Challenge 3

Extra effort for every classStudents can follow links and come up

with unanticipated questions

Instructor is responsible for updating the material regularly

Challenge 4

Instructors may need to create or locate their own extras

Workbooks

Labs

Lecture slides

Test banks

Challenge 5

Is OER worth it?

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