2 Benefits of OER
Learning outcomes
By the end of this chapter, you will be able to:
- Describe the benefits and opportunities of OER for teaching and learning
- Understand the challenges and arguments against OER
- Identify how libraries and you can support open education and the OER movement
We started thinking about the significance of OER and why they are important in Chapter 1. Now we’re going to explore the benefits of OER in more depth, considering a) their significance from a social justice perspective and b) the opportunities that arise from their flexibility.
OER, social justice and equity
OER provide a level of social justice to education. The current for-profit model of educational publishing offers no such relief. Dr Sarah Lambert (2018) identifies three main ways in which OER provide social justice: redistributive justice, recognitive justice, or representational justice:
Redistributive justice is the most long-standing principle of social justice and involves allocation of material or human resources toward those who by circumstance have less. Recognitive justice involves recognition and respect for cultural and gender difference, and representational justice involves equitable representation and political voice.
Let’s explore each of these in more depth, with some examples.
Redistributive justice
Like in the US, the cost of textbooks has increased in Australia, leaving many students struggling to afford them (Nagle & Vitez, 2020; Lambert & Fadel, 2022). In the past, students could avoid buying textbooks when libraries kept multiple copies of required texts for loan. In this new age of ebooks and online learning, however, publishers have been able to subvert traditional library models. Limits on simultaneous ebook users, inability to download content for offline reading, and cumbersome DRM make avoiding textbook costs increasingly difficult (Lambert & Fadel, 2022).
OER reduce the cost barrier to people from lower socioeconomic circumstances who struggle to afford educational materials. A US study showed improved outcomes for students from poor and minority backgrounds when OER were adopted. Not only did the students’ grades improve, but so did course retention rates (Colvard, Watson & Park, 2018).
The COVID-19 pandemic has worsened the pressures on all student populations, especially those from existing underprivileged student populations. From food insecurity to precarious work, COVID has exacerbated existing economic challenges. The use of OER has gone some way to lessening the burden faced by students (DeRosa, 2020).
Do: Textbook cost activity
We know that textbooks costs can be astronomical, but it can be hard to fully grasp the impact moving to an OER can have. So, let’s do the maths! Download this interactive PDF.
Now let’s consider the second form of social justice identified by Dr Lambert (2018): recognitive justice.
Recognitive justice
OER allow the recognition of groups and individuals often excluded from the academic sph