Having read the OER Evidence Report and the JISC report I have outlined below what I feel are the three key issues in OER and how these issues can be addressed.
Sustainability
The sustainability of OER is a fundamental question which must be addressed in order to ensure that the creation of quality learning resources can be supported in a manner which is sustainable in the long term. The OER Evidence Report says that “using OER production as a recruitment tool can be a sustainable option for education institutions” and suggests that open resources be used as a means of engaging with potential students and offering them quality content in an informal manner, with the goal of having them engage with more formal offerings in the future. As the report states “Open education acts as a bridge to formal education, and is complementary, not competitive, with it” this model allows educators to use open resources as a marketing tool to the demographic who would be most likely to engage in more formal learning options.
Sustainability issues are also looked at in the JISC report which outlines that an open sharing approach “can be effective and sustainable, particularly where communities share clear common interests” especially within a discipline. The Leeds manifesto on OER aims to “Help future OER projects to achieve and demonstrate sustainable and beneficial activity” and points out that in order to be successful changes are required in culture, tools, expectations, training and policy.
Digital Literacy
The successful use of Open Education Resources in order to support learning presents a number of challenges to educators, one of the most important of these is the level of digital literacy required by those engaging with OER. Resources must first be located and evaluated with suitable learning material integrated into existing courses and platforms in a pedagogically sound manner. The OER evidence report found that “knowledge of well established OER repositories is low” and that “knowing where to find resources is one of the biggest challenges to using OER” while the JISC report on OER found that “ the evidence from poll responses indicates that insufficient digital literacy is a major barrier for individuals” to meet these challenges the report suggests that much more work needs to be done “on raising the digital literacy of individuals”
The UKOER project looks to meet these challenges with staff development activities being supported within each phase with “legal, technical and pedagogic support to help staff engage, openly release their own content and re-use and adapt others' content”. Another useful resource available for educators is the JISC developed OER infokit which brings together a variety of guides and tools “to support projects and to collate outcomes form the programme for the wider community”
Quality
With OER being free of any direct cost to educators it is crucial that free is not perceived as poor quality or substandard. For educators to engage fully with resources and to feel confident enough to rework them OER must maintain a high level of quality and maintain a strong reputation as a reputable resource. The OER report has a number of quotes from educators which outline that ultimately it is concerns for the the quality of the content which is most important and not just the openness of the content.
The JISC report found that “quality was a significant issue during the pilot phase of UKOER but this became less of a focus for later projects” which may indicate that “increased experience allays some of those concerns” The report also suggests a “formal reward and recognition systems for sharing quality content”
I believe that concerns over quality can be quiet easily solved by providing technical support to educators at the initial stage of engagement and pedagogical expertise when integrating OER with modules and courses. The reports outlined that concerns about quality reduced after engagement while I have found from personal experience that initial concerns in this area can be alleviated through early stage support