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