Some Benefits of OER

1. By Kurtis Willden
Pierce College
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

2. Benefits………Cost Savings for Students
Students can learn relevant subject matter from a
number of free sources which include universities.
Underprivileged people can now have access to learn
info on many subjects FREE providing FREEdom for
educational growth.

3. More Benefits.....
Students can access some of the Free OER’s prior to
enrollment into a university, thus helping the student
prepare for classes, tests, or help decide a path of
study.
Students can share “nuggets” of information from
OERes across social media plate form with little
effort.
OER’s information can be used from no-restrictions to
some limitations, providing instructors the ability to
use, build and/or maintain courses.

4. Challenges.....
What OER’s contain information that is not only useful,
but has the quality checks to ensure information is of
good quality and proper Creative Commons
assessments.
Some OER resources may not have long term support
(i.e. due to funding) and may become out of date or
non useable.
Some OER resources are not organized in an efficient
way to be able to search and use potential valuable
content.

5. More Challenges.....
Once you apply a Creative Commons and submit your
resources for use, there is no turning back, you
cannot stop those from using it. Others can also pass
it on with the limitations that you established with the
initial submission.
OER material or courses may still require the use of
textbooks in order to meet the institution /course
objectives. Lower cost textbooks are available but
limited.

6. ..... Some of My Future State Hopes
Development of Quality Checks that allow users to
understand Value of specific OER. Like Consumer
Report assessments.
All Institution of Learning standardize the use of OER.
Provide Free Computers loaded with OER to
underprivileged.
Improved OER’s Interactive tools and websites are
developed with “Free Use” software tools.