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advantages and disadvantages of big/little OER

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Big OER

Benefits: uniformity, collected and curated, support, stability, production value

Drawbacks: limited by project/budget demands, formal and/or informal entry barriers (i.e. coding skills)

Little OER

Benefits: low-cost/no-cost, flexibility, anyone/anywhere production

Drawbacks: potentially low presentation/production value, dispersed and unorganized

The benefits and drawbacks of big OER seem, to me, to indicate that they are probably more applicable to open courses. Open courses benefit from uniform designs, high production values, and uniformity. The drawbacks are easier to overcome because of the institutional resources that can be devoted to designing courses. I see these as being aimed at administrative and management personnel (or, if designed for learners to use, to motivated subject-specific learners).

The benefits and drawbacks of little OER seem to be geared more towards teachers (or for modular, unplanned, spontaneous, or casual learning). The flexibility of little OER lends them to both planned and on-the-fly use and adaptation in classrooms and other learning environments. The drawbacks are minimized by this flexibility.

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Alan Clarke

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Hi Michael

Nice summary

Cheers

Alan