Witch Way Do You Fly On The Benefits and Challenges Of Open Educational Resources (OER) ?

By: Gail Baldwin

The Benefits are like working with the Good Witch …

Access to 750 FREE quality online courses from leading universities

 

Yale UniversityHarvard UniversityStanford University

Johns Hopkins UniversityCarnegie Mellon UniversityUniversity of California at

BerkeleyMassachusetts Institute of

Technology

The Benefits are like working with the Good Witch…

Preparation for course and retention of knowledge by… *enhancing opportunities for students who took the course and prospective students.    *allowing the opportunity to take a look at the course prior to taking course and being better prepared. *allowing the opportunity to revisit course to refresh and reinforce what was learned in the area studied.  

The Benefits are like working with the Good witch…

OERs are free! OER does not need large amounts of $$$ for compensation for using it. OER allows all students to have the opportunity to learn.OER allows instructors to discover alternative ideas for presenting and teaching subject matter.OER gives instructors various options to point students to alternative explanations for further study.

The Benefits are like working with the Good Witch…

OER gives more clarity and/or certainty regarding reuse of materials.OER gives peace of mind when re-using someone else’s materials. OER resources are licensed to allow the sharing of content.OER eliminates the need to contact the author about making use of his/her work provided that what you want to do falls within the ‘open’ license.

The Benefits are like working with the Good Witch…

Some other benefits of OER are…*OER showcases research.*enhances a university’s reputation as well as that of the teacher or researcher.*shares best practice internationally.*allows for peer review.*maximizes the use and increases availability of educational materials.*raises standard of educational resources by gathering more contributors.

The Challenges are like being around the Bad Witch…

Some concerns with Quality Assurance:

Finding resources that are quality and relevant.

Institutions going through internal review process before releasing them to the public are not open in the sense that the user of the resource can follow them. (text from Open Educational Resources (Links to an external site.) by Jan Hylen, CC-BY (Links to an external site.)).

The Challenges are like being around the Bad Witch…

Another Quality Assurance concern:There is a lack of research data focusing on comparing the amount students learn from OER compared to the amount they learn from prevailing publisher materials. Whether the material is free or expensive, quality does matter. 

The Challenges are like being around the Bad Witch…

Concerns of Sustainability with OER:In the past, many were dependent on one-time start-up funding. Is likely to cease after a few years and maintaining the resources will be difficult and expensive. Maintenance of resources will become obsolete and quality will be lost. Is critical to figure out.  

The Challenges are like being around the Bad Witch…

Lack of public understanding with OER:Since OER is only about 10 years old and recent in education. Due to hugh paradigm shift and attitude change. Because few educators understand the potential and feel threatened.To recognize open licenses (Creative Commons) clearly recognize and reinforces intellectual ownership, making sharing easy while protecting the copyright. 

The Challenges are like being around the Bad Witch…

Non-revocable Creative commons licenses means what?While Creative Commons licenses are completely non-revocable, it is technically not a concern but rather something that OER providers might find challenging in releasing their works since work under the license can be pulled but will not affect the rights associated with any copies of your work already in circulation under a Creative Commons license.

Educators today need to understand the benefits and challenges of OER.

Don’t let the goblins get you this Halloween. Know witch is witch.