What’s of interest? Why Can’t OER Just Be All in One Place? | by James Thibeault
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As an Open Educational Resources (OER) librarian, I often tell faculty that the best thing about OER is that there is a lot of it, but the worst thing about OER is that there is a lot of it. OER are freely accessible, openly licensed materials that are useful for teaching, learning, and research. There are millions of OER available, which is positive, but the vast amount can make it difficult to search through. According to Tang (2020), “teachers who are not proficient in sifting through appropriate OER might view the number of options for course resources to be overwhelming.” This abundance can lead to choice paralysis, causing some to abandon the search for OER altogether.
So why can’t we make it easier to search for OER in one centralized place? Imagine one website that contains OER for pictures, music, textbooks, e-books, research, courseware, and so much more. It’s certainly possible. One of the main tenets of OER is that it is sharable — capable of being hosted anywhere. In most cases, legally, you could have all the OER that contains a CC license on a single website. This theoretical “OER Mart” could be a one-stop shop for everything that one would need in just one website. Think of Amazon but for OER.
While it would be theoretically possible to create a website to find all the OER, it would be largely impractical. In short, one massive repository would require a significant number of resources, time, and effort to maintain. Instead, decentralizing OER into smaller, better-maintained collections is much more effective.
Where is it?: https://medium.com/creative-commons-we-like-to-share/why-cant-oer-just-be-all-in-one-place-250bc9c392cc
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