What are the challenges in using OER?
Below are some of the challenges of using/providing open educational resources.
Quality Assurance
A growing number of digital resources are available. Teachers, students and self-learners looking for resources will not have trouble finding resources but might have a harder time judging their quality and relevance. Many institutions that supply OER go through an internal review process before releasing them to the public but these processes are not open in the sense that the user of the resource can follow them (text from Open Educational Resources by Jan Hylen, CC-BY). Also 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.
Sustainability of OER
Many OER initiatives begun in recent years were dependent on one-time start-up funding. Although some projects have a strong institutional backing, it is likely that the initial funding will cease after a few years and maintaining the resources will be difficult and expensive. Without maintenance the resources will become obsolete and the quality could be lost. Therefore it is critical to figure out how to sustain these initiatives in the long run.
Lack of public understanding about OER
At just over ten years old OER is a very recent development in education. It requires a huge paradigm shift and attitude change and this is a much bigger challenge than introducing a new tool or knowledge. Many in education do not understand the potential of OER and feel that it threatens their ownership of intellectual property. It takes some time to understand that open licenses, such as Creative Commons licenses, clearly recognize and can reinforce someone’s intellectual ownership. The open licenses are simply to make the sharing process easy while protecting the copyright.
What other challenges do you see?
Below are presentation slides that discuss the benefits and challenges of OER prepared by Washington State Community and Technical College faculty.
- The Road Ahead Open Educational Resources Touting the Benefits while Recognizing the Challenges by Pat Pickering
- Open Educational Resources by Amy Hammons
- Open Educational Resources: Should I Use them? by Leo Hopcroft
- In Favor of Open Educational Resources by Bev Farb
- Open Educational Resources: Weighing the Benefits and Challenges by Debi Griggs
- OER: Benefits and Challenges by Tamara Ottum
- OER: The Good, The Bad by Nancy Scofield
- Pros and Cons of OER by Barbara Jacobs
- OER-The Future Picture of Online Education? By Tom Pickering
- Benefits and Challenges of Using OERs by Debbie Crumb