Overview of Benefits and Challenges of Open Educational Resources. Created for OER:101 January 2023

1. OPEN
EDUCATIONAL
RESOURCES
Stephanie Solomon​

2. BENEFITS AND
CHALLENGES
Overview:

3. BENEFITS
 Low cost or free resource- As more and more editions of the same
textbook are being produced more rapidly – up to once a year! - students
are forced to keep spending more money on required texts. With OER,
they don’t have to.
 Ease of getting material – Students can have access to the material both
before and after class as well as during in order to be better prepared and
for indefinite review. Often, online textbook access is removed after a
certain period of time.
 Increases availability – students may have access to materials online or if
necessary, a low-cost printable version. This is important if a student does
not have reliable Internet access.
 Review by others – If I post something, other instructors can make
comments and suggest ideas to make it better!
 Flexibility – If I need to update or change certain aspects – depending on
licensing – I can.
Open Educational Resources 3

4. CHALLENGES
 Finding resources for my students – For my field, I must look in many
different places and it takes a while to find materials that work for
specific outcomes and specific levels.
 Quality – finding quality material also takes time
 Accessibility – sometimes I need to make sure that the material is
accessible for all my students
 Attribution – Is everything licensed correctly? Am I using it as the
author has prescribed?
 Heavy workload at first – finding, modifying materials if necessary,
making sure its accessible, and everything is licensed correctly will
initially take some time.

5. THANK YOU!
Stephanie Solomon
Stephanie.Solomon@seattlecolleges.edu
Created for OER:101, January 2023