In this
section, I learned that the definition of an OER is more complex and ambiguous
than it first appeared. What adds to the
complexity is that different organizations have different definitions of open
content. Until there is full agreement on and adherence to a clear definition
of OERs, it will be difficult for educators to use these resources without fear
of legal action. It is clear that cost and access should not be barriers to
open content. Confusion about legal issues should also not impede the use and
distribution of OERs.
It was
interesting to see it spelled out that OERs do not lead to the economic
downfall of institutions. However, I would have liked to see clear economic
models showing various ways in which OERs both improve and hurt the revenue of
institutions, if such data exists. It would also have been nice to the impact
of different models on students’ and professionals’ budgets, as well as data on
the benefits of learning for their careers.
The topic
of producing editable OERs came up. This is a topic that deserves more
attention since OERs are available in a large variety of formats that are not
editable in terms of content and language. For example, PDFs, videos and audio
files cannot be easily edited for content; indeed, a whole new file would have
to be created to make modifications or translations. For OERs to be
transferable, and to avoid having people recreate the same content over and
over again, there should be standards and guidelines in place for the creation
of such reusable and editable content.
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