Quantitative investigation of Faculty OER usage.

1. THE BENEFITS AND
CHALLENGES OF OER’S
BY SUSAN THOMPSON, M.B.A.

2. The Benefits of OER’s
1. Reduction in student costs for higher education
-Tuition fees have risen to unprecedent levels
-Textbook costs have skyrocketed
2. Accessibility to higher education
-Students able to access educational resources wherever they are
-Students able to access educational resources when ever they want
particularly important for working students and those with children
3. Student success increases as more students have access to text books.
-Students previously may not have purchased the textbook due to the high cost.
-OER removes these access issues.
4. Instructors have access to quality educational resources
-Instructors do not have to create all of their materials from scratch reducing
course preparation time
5. Instructors are able to adopt and change OER content to their specific course
-Increases collaborative work between instructors.

3. The Challenges of OER’s
1. Overwhelming amount of information available for Instructors to review
-Instructors must review a lot of information to find suitable resources for their
courses
2. Technically challenged students may have a problem accessing the
information.
3. Some students may still not be able to access materials due to lack of
computers or access to the Internet.
4. Some people do not believe OER have/create value or are of high quality
-This viewpoint devalues OER content and reduces its widespread use
5. Citation issues may occur for some materials
6. Commercial texts have abundant associated information to use with the course.
-experiential exercises, tests, PPT’s