Assignment Module 7

1. Benefits and Challenges of Using
OER
Making a Virtue of Necessity
Gayatri Sirohi, Instructor, English, Highline
College, Des Moines, WA

2. Challenges
• Finding quality material
• Getting students to equate free with quality
• Needing to constantly ensure that the source
material still exists
• Getting too invested in what has been created
to jettison it
• Getting others to feel equally interested in the
OER created by another individual

3. Benefits
• No cost to students
• Reducing hurdles to access
• Tailor made content can be made very
relevant to students
• Can be updated regularly without adding to
cost to the student
• Can be seeded to others in the department/
education community and allowed to evolve

4. …Making a virtue of necessity
• Can the challenges be turned into benefits?
• Finding quality material ensures that the
instructor is invested in what she or he
creates.
– Yes, quality becomes relevant when students see
the benefits accruing.
– Getting invested in quality allows for constant
tweaking to ensure the best and most up-to-date
material

5. …Making a virtue of necessity (cont.)
• The biggest issue with OER is that once
created it might sit at your desktop and garner
no interest from other educators.
– Is this wasted effort?
– Not if openly sharing means that derivative works
can benefit the original instructor (and others as
well).
– Allowing the course to evolve and take on
interesting dimensions is surely worthwhile.