Delivering on the Promise of Open Educational Resources: Pitfalls and Strategies

This chapter summarizes the growth and promise of the open educational resources (OER) movement. At the same time, it emphasizes that in order for OER to achieve its potential in widening equitable access to education, practitioners must be mindful of several pitfalls. These problems and pitfalls include the assumption that all students have access to digital technologies. Another issue relates to the overreliance on under-compensated or voluntary academic labour to create OER. A third pitfall is the ignorance of critical accessibility requirements while developing OER. The fourth issue relates to the disregard for data privacy when utilizing educational technologies. Finally, there is the mounting problem of the undermining of the spirit and practice of “open” education with the entry of commercial publishers into the OER space. Each of these challenges and issues is addressed in this chapter.