Benefits and Challenges of OER

Jessica Anderson, Librarian, Shoreline Community College

Benefits

• Reduces the costs of buying textbooks for students• Available online, 24 hours/day, 7 days/week• Allows educational resources to reach everyone, regardless of

status• Many Creative Commons licenses to choose from to allow more

collaboration• Helps educators collaborate on materials that they may not

have considered using before

Challenges

• Lots of places to look for OER online, not all in one place• Not all disciplines are created equal and some have more

content than others• Not everyone knows about OER or where to start to find it• Takes a lot of time to locate, review, and decide whether

or not the content would meet the needs of a course outcome

• Resources may become obsolete, who continues to check material for updates?