Competing Priorities and OER
- Theresa Thomason Huff
- Apr 27, 2021
- 2 min read
This week I studied several areas that are similar to but actually compete with OER. One was ZTC or Zero Textbook Cost initiative. While it may seem like ZTC should align nicely with OER, institutions that demand a zero cost for student textbooks also demand a zero cost for all the infrastructure supporting the learning besides the textbook—things like technology support, assessments, learning management systems, etc. So, while it ensures a student saves money on a textbook, it may end up actually creating a poorer overall learning experience for that student. In that sense, ZTC competes with OER as the promise to save students money may override the pledge to improve student learning.
Even within the OER community, competition can exist. People passionately use OER to solve very different problems, and when my reasoning for using OER differs from yours, we may end up getting in each other’s way.
1. Lowering costs for students
2. Improving student success caused by traditional publishing models
3. Improving pedagogy caused by copyright limitations
4. Improving impact on students due to publishers’ business model behaviors
Though all of these are worthy problems to passionately pursue answers to, Wiley pointed out in one of the readings for this week:
My takeaway from this week’s readings was that, in order for OER to succeed, we must not focus simply on our pet peeve about traditional educational publishers and costs or just building a textbook we love. We must focus on what is best for the student’s success. In doing so, the competitions between your OER and my OER will fade into the background and collaborating and sharing for the good of the learners will return to its rightful place.
What problem are you trying to solve by using OER? How might your reasoning for OER compete with someone else's OER? Is there a way to compromise?
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