Challenges of Using OER and How to Overcome Them

 

There are many benefits to using OER in the classroom; however, there are also some drawbacks. The biggest challenge that instructors face when adopting OER is best encapsulated by the phrase "availability may vary."

 

Below is a table that provides the most frequently cited challenges to using OER. We have provided some possible solutions to help overcome these challenges.

Obstacle /Question	Solution
Time to spend on adapting, adopting, and authoring OER.	There are many resources that help faculty find, adopt, adapt, and create OER. Many are provided on this website. If you are not able to find what you are looking for please contact your local librarian, instructional designer, or send us an email and they/we will be happy to assist you to make your project manageable in the time you have to spend on it.
Quality- how to determine what are high quality resources.	There are a number of evaluation tools that you can find on the Evaluation page of this site. In addition if you are looking for high quality resources that have been peer revised check out the Find page. The resources that we have linked to are from reputable sources and include resources that have been through a peer review process.
Licensing questions. How do I know what I can adapt and when creating my own content how do I determine the license?	Creative Commons does a great job in explaining the various types of licensing which we have linked to from the Licensing page. If you have questions don't hesitate to contact your local librarian, learning designer, or Brandy Karl, Penn State's Copyright Officer bak25@psu.edu
Time to keep the resources updated and current.	Some faculty have expressed that keeping OER up to date and current isn't really any extra work. Resources are updated from OER providers such as Open Stax, BC Campus. Others have said that a quick search for new content is manageable in conjunction with their beginning of the semester course preparation.
What if my students want a print version of the textbook?	Most OER textbooks are available in low cost print versions. Press Books allows users to download e-books as a PDF. If you would like to include a print option for your students get in touch with your local learning designer or book store and they will be happy to help you.
What if my students want access to the content after the course has ended?	As mentioned above most OER textbooks are available in a low cost print version. This allows students to maintain a copy of the material after the course has ended.

 

Attribution: Challenges of Using OER and How to Overcome Them | OER and Low-Cost Materials at Penn State (psu.edu)

 

 

 

 

Transforming your course to include OER can be as simple as switching one material for another or as radical as completely changing your teaching style. This chapter outlines some key considerations and questions you should ask yourself before adopting or creating OER.

How will using OER improve your course? 

When integrating OER into your course, you have the opportunity to critically evaluate your methods and alter them to better meet your needs. One way to go about this is to use backward design for your project. 

Backward design is a framework for planning your course around its intended outcomes. There are three stages to the backward design process:

1. Identify desired results,

2. Determine acceptable evidence, and

3. Plan learning experiences and instruction

You might notice that this approach does not end with "create and/or curate educational content." Instead, it ends with more planning. The purpose of backward design is not to be done with your course transformation in a quick 3-step process. Instead, it asks instructors to question the processes and materials they currently use and to start over by plotting out what is needed to meet course outcomes. 

Considerations

• What do I want my students to learn?

• How will I communicate to students that the concepts I present are valuable?

• How will I assess my students

Thinking critically about the purpose of your course and the learning outcomes you want your students to meet is one way to ensure that you provide an excellent learning experience for your students. 

Who is your audience?

Once you've decided that you're ready to use OER in your course, it's important to consider your target audience(s). 

Considerations

• Do you have a primary audience? For example, majors or non-majors.
• Does your audience belong to a specific geographic location or ethnicity?
• Are there culturally differences you need to consider before creating your OER?  

Although your OER may be used by educators around the world, you can create it with your local audience in mind. One of the great things about open licenses is that it grants users the right to adapt your work. Because of this, educators in other countries can translate your OER into their native language or add examples relevant to their cultural context.

Does the OER you need already exist?

 It is generally a good idea to look around at what content is available for your course before creating something new. There are two reasons for this:

1. The OER you want to create/use may already exist in the format you want.
2. Your own teaching materials could be adapted for use as OER. For example, lecture notes can be an invaluable teaching aid for courses with no excellent textbooks available.

Considerations

• What changes would you need to make to share your own content as an OER?
• What types and formats of OER are you looking for?
• Where should you begin your search?

How will you disseminate your course OER?

Whether you are using an OER as-is or creating something from scratch, one of the first considerations you should take into account how you will share the resources(s).

Considerations

• Will you host created OER in an institutional repository or a third-party platform?
• How will you make evident when you (or their creators) post updates to the content?
• During your class, how will students access the OER?

What expertise is required to use or create OER?

Creating an OER can be a considerable amount of work, especially if you're starting from scratch. It's important to consider all aspects for your project including instructional design, technology, and graphics before you jump in.

Considerations

• What aspects of the project are you most and least comfortable with?
• What support is available at your university to help you structure, develop, and disseminate your project?
• Is there support available to make your OER accessible in multiple formats?

Integrating an existing OER into your curriculum doesn't need to be a one-man job. Instructional designers and Southern University Librarians can provide guidance to help you incorporate open resources into your course.

Could your OER be easily reused or repurposed?

One of the primary benefits of OER is that they are reusable. When adopting an existing OER, you'll want to choose one that isn't so specific that it can't be adapted to your needs. Similarly, if you create your own OER, making it easy to adapt will broaden its use among other instructors.

Considerations

•  In what format could you make your OER available? 
•  What formats are you used to working with for your own work?
•  Is your chosen OER designed in such a way that you can pick and choose what content to use?

1. Attribution: This chapter was adapted from "Considerations before using or creating an OER" from The ABOER Starter Kit, by Technologies in Education at the Faculty of Education, the University of Alberta, available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. ↵
2. AvenuesdotOrg. "Grant Wiggins - Understanding by Design, Part 1." Youtube video, 10:51. February 28, 2013. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4isSHf3SBuQ ↵
3. Wiggins, Grant and McTighe, Jay. Understanding by Design. Alexandria: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2005. ↵