Open educational resources (OER) are freely accessible, openly licensed educational materials that can be used for teaching, learning, and research. Some key benefits of OER include lower costs for students, allowing educators to adapt and distribute materials freely, and increasing global access to education. However, challenges include ensuring consistency of quality across OER and addressing fragmentation without a central location for all OER resources.

1. The Benefits & Challenges of Open Educational
Resources (OER)
Ray Chew
July 2017
v2017.0.1
License: CC BY NC SA 4.0
Presentation made with LibreOffice 5.3 for Linux

2. What is OER?
● Open Education Resources (OER)
– Defined: “Open educational resources (OER) are freely accessible, openly
licensed text, media, and other digital assets that are useful for teaching,
learning, and assessing as well as for research purposes” [Open Educational
Resources, Wikipedia]
– Education‘s equivalent to Open Source Software/Technology
● “Open” is often considered to be “without costs” but does not mean
“without conditions”
– Consider licensing options: Public domain vs. Open License vs. All rights
reserved copyright

3. Benefits of OER
● Lower costs of textbooks – for students with limited resources
● Free as in Freedom – for educators to revise, adapt, distribute
● Increase global access to resources – for students worldwide
– Not dependent on publishers/distributors business model
● Increase transparency of textbook creation/publishing
– Peer review

4. Challenges of OER
● Quality Standard – consistency of quality may be of issue
● Coverage of topics – may not be equal across all educational
levels
● Fragmentation of OER resources – no central location for all
things OER

5. OER Resources
● Hewlett Foundation’s Open Educational Resources:
www.hewlett.org/strategy/open-educational-resources/
● Models for Sustainable Open Educational Resources, Stephen Downes, National Research
Council Canada, 2007. Available online at
http://www.cdlprojects.com/cmc11blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/IJKLOv3p029-044Downes1.pdf
● OER Commons: www.oercommons.org
● OER World Map: https://oerworldmap.org/
● WA OER: www.openWA.org
● “What Is OER? Answers to 5 Questions About Open Educational Resources”, Sarah D.
Sparks, Education Week, March 30, 2017. Available online at
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2017/03/29/what-is-oer-5-questions-about-open-oer.html?

6. Questions
Note: This document is a “work-in-progress”. Send ideas and
comment to:
● Ray Chew (raytychew@gmail.com)

7. Questions
Note: This document is a “work-in-progress”. Send ideas and
comment to:
● Ray Chew (raytychew@gmail.com)