As with any educational resource, there are both advantages and disadvantages associated with using OERs in the classroom.
Advantages of using OERs include:
Expanded access to learning. Students anywhere in the world can access OERs at any time, and they can access the material repeatedly.
Modify course resources to better align with learning outcomes. Unlike all rights reserved content, OERs can be modified—excerpted, reorganized, remixed, or revised—to better support the learning objectives of each section of a course.
Enhancement of regular course content. For example, multimedia material such as videos can accompany text. Presenting information in multiple formats may help students to more easily learn the material being taught.
Increase student interaction with course resources. Students can interact directly with OERs in a way that commercial textbooks don’t allow. For example, students can be directed to modify, expand, and/or remix course OERs based on their own research and findings. Such interaction increases critical thinking and writing skills that passive reading and memorization don’t address.
Continually improved resources. Unlike textbooks and other static sources of information, OERs can be improved quickly through direct editing by users or through solicitation and incorporation of user feedback. Instructors can take an existing OER, adapt it for a class, and make the modified OER available for others to use.
Disadvantages of OERs include:
Quality issues. Since many OER repositories allow any user to create an account and post material, some resources may not be relevant and/or accurate.
Time and effort required to adopt OERs. Adopting OERs in the classroom involves additional work on the part of faculty, instructional designers, editors, digital rights specialists, and others in order to find the OERs, adapt/modify them, check them for accessibility, verify any copyright issues, publish the resources in the institution’s LMS, and so forth. These are issues that many colleges and universities have little experience with.
Static formats. Some OERs are published in digital formats that make it hard to download, access, and modify the content.
Intellectual property/copyright concerns. Since OERs are meant to be shared openly, the “fair use” exemption from the U.S. Copyright Act ceases to apply; all content put online must be checked to ensure that it doesn’t violate copyright law.