Five Benefits and Challenges

of OER

Tara Rodi July 2016

"FTTE tag cloud for 2013" by Bryan Alexander, Future Trends in Technology and Education is licensed under CC BY 4.0

The Benefits of Adopting OERs

Benefits

Creativity

Timeliness

Adaptation to Specific

Populations

Cost effectiveness

Creativity• OER allows educators to create their own courses

from beginning to end, using material that is refreshing, interesting, and engaging.

• OER allows educators to take a fresh look at the material and re-invigorate their teaching methods.

Timeliness• The use of OER material allows us to include

information that may be more relevant to our students.

• OER allows us to use up-to-date material that may better capture our students’ attention and engage them more fully.

Adaptation to Specific Populations

• Community college students face challenges in terms of time, finances and educational experiences. OER allows us to modify material to meet the needs of certain college populations.

• OER lends itself to modifications of material to personalize material for specific populations in ways that more general textbooks might not.

Cost effectiveness• With OER material, we may be able to cut the

costs for our students through OER textbooks, videos, or lectures that convey the material without having students shell out money for expensive textbooks.

"Money plant" by Tax Credits is licensed under CC BY 4.0

Keeping up with Technology (5th benefit)

• OER use and training allows instructors and educators to learn more about technology.

• Exposure to different programs (Flickr, Slideshare, Attribution Builder) allowed us to learn and grow as educators.

• It allows us to use different and challenging mediums in the online world- in effect, giving us a taste of what it might be like for some of our students.

The Challenges of Adopting OERs

Challenges

Consumption of energy- how

long until outdated?

Consumption of time

Finding quality material in

specific subjects

Adoption of learning practices to best help students learn may compete with

technology

Consumption of energy- how long until outdated?

• Creation of OER materials takes time and energy to produce. OER repositories are still being refined, modified, altered, improved, and built. The energy involved in finding and modifying, or in creating material, can be intensive.

• With this said, how long until our material is outdated, and if shared, is taking up internet space, making it more difficult for others to sift through the material out there to find up-to-date, relevant material?

Consumption of time

"Urban consumption" by Nick Hodaly is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

• Finding quality material for an OER course can take a large amount of time.

• Rabbit holes, while interesting, can take time from other life endeavors.

Finding quality material in specific subjects

The current repositories seem to have more open resources in some subject matters as opposed to other subject matters.

As this movement grows in the state of Washington, it may be that more subject matter is shared by other instructors through the training and direction of the SBCTC. We seem to be on the cusp…

http://www.openwa.org/about/

Adoption of learning practices to best help students learn MAY compete with technology trends

"Einstein" by Geralt is in the Public Domain, CC0

Cearley, D. (2016, Jan 15). Top 10 technology trends for 2016. Forbes. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/gartnergroup/2016/01/15/top-10-technology-trends-for-2016/#4d6dd9f5ae93

Verpoorten, D., Westera, W., & Specht, M. (2012). Using reflection triggers while learning in an online course. British Journal Of Educational Technology, 43(6), 1030-1040. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8535.2011.01257.x

Keeping up with Technology (5th challenge)

Young people who have computer access create may better projects.Jeff Werner, CC BY-NC-SA

• It is always a challenge to keep up with the latest technology as instructors. Sometimes, it feels like we are hamsters in a wheel when it comes to technology.

• Oftentimes, students are accessing course material on their phones, and may be missing key material that is only available to them from computers.

"10 top time-saving tech tips" by David Pogue, TED is licensed under CC BY-ND 4.0

“Five Benefits and Challlenges of OER" by Tara Rodi is licensed under CC BY-ND 4.0