By the end of this lesson, you will be able to:<\/p>\n
Open Educational Resources (OER) offer a number of advantages to closed or fully-copyrighted content, but each person will find their own reason for adopting or promoting OER use. The two primary motivators for the UH OER initiative are:<\/p>\n
There are many factors at play when discussing these reasons, so we will begin to unpack them below. The hope here is that you will be able to discuss various motivations behind OER with a sense of depth beyond the basic argument — which is more likely to lead to action.<\/p>\n
Quite possibly the easiest motivating factor to understand is the cost savings associated with switching to an OER text. With textbook and homework codes for a single course reaching $300-400 per student, significant cost savings can be achieved with the adoption an OER textbook.<\/p>\n
More detailed aspects of the cost savings motivation are:<\/p>\n
OER come with a set of permissions that allow instructors to engage with content in unique and valuable ways which are not allowed with traditional content. From simple things such as correcting typos or grammatical errors to more involved activities like updating the content with the latest research, OER allow faculty to have full control over the material.<\/p>\n
This shift in the relationship between faculty and content takes time and careful guidance, but here are some of the interesting and innovative ways OER is already being used at UH:<\/p>\n
Remember, the above are things that OER enable based on their reuse rights — if there is no open license, we are very limited in what we are allowed to do.<\/p>\n