Open Educational Resources (OER)

Very often, justifications for OER center around its radical utility for students. While this is certainly true, there are direct benefits for faculty to use, create, and promote OER. Let's go over a few of those benefits in detail!

• Evolve your teaching practices:
  • Implementing OER—especially when remixing it, or creating it from scratch—allows faculty the opportunity to evolve their teaching practices by using materials that are tailored to their course and subsequently serve students (and the faculty themselves) better!
• Showcase innovation and creativity:
  • Hand-in-hand with evolving your teaching practices, creating OER can also showcase your innovation and creativity as an academic! 
• Build out your professional network:
  • As knowledge and implementation of OER grows, so too does the number of academics involved in the movement. By joining professional organizations, attending OER-centered conferences, and collaborating in creating OER, faculty can expand their professional networks in new and exciting ways! For more on OER-specific organizations and events, see the subtab of this page.
• Sustain ties with alumni:
  • Because there are no cost barriers associated with OER, alumni have the opportunity to access critical and innovative materials created by their fellow school-mates. This provides a unique opportunity to keep alumni involved and excited about knowledge production from their alma mater. 

NB: This section was influenced by LibGuides created by SUNY, University of Montana, and University of the Pacific.