BENEFITS AND CHALLENGES OF OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES

Mary Galagan, Pierce CollegeJanuary 2017

OPEN EDUATIONAL RESOURESOpen Educational Resources (OER) are educational materials that reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license that permits their free use and re-purposing by others. (definition by Hewlett Foundation)

Introduction

Benefits: Free or Inexpensive

Published textbooks have continued to rise in price, causing financial issues for many students. In the dental hygiene program, it is not uncommon for each course to have 2-3 required textbooks. Each of these textbooks average in cost from $150– 200. Consequently, some students chose not to purchase all of the required textbooks, making it problematic to learn course material.

OER sources are free to students with online access and dependent upon the source, may even be downloaded.

Benefits: student ACCESS Enhances ability of students for equal access of

quality global educational material. When course materials are augmented with online OER sources., it allows students to access course content at their own timeline and return to reuse materials. It therefore affords students admission into the learning environment

Benefits: Student Engagement

Students are provided sources outside textbooks. This provides them an opportunity for exploration into other content-related course material. It expands their engagement in knowledge beyond textbook information and in doing so, enhances critical thinking skills and ownership of learning.

Benefits: Flexibility/ CustomizingProvides instructors flexibility to choose relevant online materials, whether images, course material, or entire textbooks. It affords instructors the opportunity to customize OER materials to their specific course needs. This in turn facilitates achievement of course learning objectives and student outcomes. It further provides instructor proficiency in the use of online sources as adjunct course material sources. This allows instructors to keep abreast with tech savvy students. You are never too old to learn something new!

Benefits: Collaboration

Educators can collaborate with other educators in their field of expertise. This may entail sharing course materials and/or seeking peer review of course content. This is an opportunity for membership in an OER community-based education network that facilitates curiosity for learning, growth in teaching ability, and perhaps sustainability of educators.

Challenges: limited resources

Dental Hygiene is a specialized health-related field and as such there proved to be almost no OER related resources. So although it is a great resource for both instructors and students to explore, it currently has miniscule application to dental hygiene educational content.

Challenges: time constraints

Modifying and supplementing course content is time consuming and often done beyond instructors’ standard work week. Utilizing OER is laborious as there is an overwhelming amount of information to search through to locate and compile relevant sources. Moreover, correctly citing sources is painstaking and has a steep learning curve when first learning the process.

Challenges: Student Issues

Students require online access and computers to use OER sources. Some students may have smart phones (a separate integration issue) but not have computers at home or access to an online server. This means longer hours in schools libraries as a means to access course materials. This may prove difficult if not impossible in light of student work schedules and family responsibilities.

Challenges: QualityThere are currently no OER standards related to quality or accuracy of sources. Because of the lack of formal review procedures, it is difficult to ascertain valid and reliable OER sources. Instructors may therefore be hesitant to augment course content with these online materials.

Chalenges: FUTURE OF OER

Currently many OER programs receive grants from collegial institutional funds. While ORE is trendy and very popular at the moment, the question is does it have sustainability? Will it continue to be adequately funded in the future? If not, what does this signify with regards to integrated OER course content?

THANK YOU

For examining selected benefits and challenges of Open Educational

Resources