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Big and Little OER, Benefits and Drawbacks

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Edited by Tabitha Naisiko, Wednesday, 30 Oct 2019, 14:42

In the slidecast, Weller (2011), indicates the future of education as an open public good and services that require minimal tech skills, familiarity, and confidence, networks as well as a store of images. The store of images brings us the OERs both big and little and the need to evaluate the benefits and drawbacks of each.  For big OER the advantage is that they are hard to begin for instance in the MIT (Wiley 2007) but the advantage is that they are easy to scale up and disseminate for wider usage and reuse. The technological transformation too  favours them and thus the platform can be upgraded with each time technology advances. This is made easy with high compromise as Weller (2011) observes. In this during usages, the costs can be minimized through maximum use. On the other hand, however, with big OER resources, they have a selective audience which may impede freelance users and posters as the case is with informal learners. This makes OERs exclusive and limited from the informal practitioners.

On the other hand, little OERs approaches like the case was with the RICE model (Wiley 2007), it may appear cheap, user-friendly more open in participation for it has limited restrictions. However, they are already challenged with issues of quality assurance for they are free from restraining checks on attendance, postage, and usage. In other words, freedom with small OERs is not being free. Besides, due to lack of compromise, collaborations in upgrading the platforms, technology and reproducing to scale up is hard. In a recap, little OER may appear friendly but they have diminishing audience and lifespan, as the trend in open education and technological sustainability lay in minimizing costs and maximizing output.


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