Open Educational Resources (OER) may include a range of material: a chart, a full textbook or even an entire pre-written course available for anyone to freely use by the creator or the creator's affiliated institution. Many OER creators are affiliated with academic institutions such as libraries and universities. The creation of the materials is often funded by grants or charitable organizations such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Many institutions also have their own internal incentive scheme for the creation of new materials. These materials are peer-reviewed as rigorously as traditional textbooks, or materials submitted to scholarly publications.
Benefits:
OER are an innovative response to steep prices and stifling contracts by traditional textbook publishers. Instructors may search for a textbook or various other materials with which to supplement their course, customizing the materials they choose (perhaps a chapter from this book, an assignment from another, re-write a passage from yet another) in order to best suit the needs of their students, and their own teaching style. The currency and accessibility of a traditional publisher's textbook is determined by the publisher, who may print a new edition each year. Instructors working with OER materials can literally write their own textbooks, draw examples and materials out of current events, and make revisions to their materials as often or seldom as they deem necessary.
OER lessen the financial burden of the student. Free texts and materials means, depending on the subject area, saving from one hundred dollars to several thousands of dollars a semester. This savings lessens student debt by giving students the option to take out fewer or smaller loans, and to use that money for other expenses. The economic impact cannot be overstated when considering community college students who often have families to support, are going back to school because of radical life/career changes, or are people from low income or impoverished communities. Every lessening of the considerable financial burden of college makes higher education more accessible to more of the population.
Drawbacks:
Drawbacks to transitioning instruction materials to OER include issues with limited availability. Materials available for a more complex math class may be widely available, but remedial level course materials difficult to find, or perhaps materials in the life sciences abound, but materials relating to art history are few and far between. Instructors who still wish to use OER may be forced to adapt the content of their courses to work with what is available, with possible editing and tweaking of their own, or resort to assigning texts from traditional publishers.
Future:
As more members of the academic community choose to create new, or make existing, resources available, these options will increase and improve in nuance and applicability.
