why Open Educational Resources are important for faculty and students
For students, OER offers equitable access to information resources. And since they are most likley digital, the convenience of access when and where and how they need and want it. (opens a short video) For those with accessibility issues, OER are generally made with helping technologies in mind, so that differently-abled students can use adaptive technology to assist them. OER promotes and fosters lifelong learning. (like me, right now!)
OER empowers teachers to create their own education tools and resources. They are not bound by what a publisher might offer but can rely on their own expertise to judge and create and borrow form others. When participating in OER creation, educators become part of the Scholar - learner community. and can benefit form each other's knowledge and expertise. Because items have open sharing CC licenses, it takes the worry about copyright away. They know for certain want can be done with the material at hand.
In an interview, Sarah Hare, an OER advocate in libraries mentions, that for her, participating in open pedagogy and student-created OER helped to spark fruitful conversations with faculty about instruction.
"To OER outreach is a unique intersection of the best parts of my scholarly communication/ open work and my instruction/ pedagogy work. It’s an opportunity to talk to faculty about open access, Creative Commons, instructional design, publishing, and even discovery, preservation, and metadata while also working to increase student retention and access to higher education."
Interview. Sarah Hare. Library Juice Academy blog
A final thought, research shows that learners can have better outcomes when their teachers choose OER. is there any better reason than that?!