Documentation:Open Education/Uses and Benefits
Uses and Benefits
The motivations and benefits of joining the worldwide movement of open educators involve both high-minded and more practical concerns.
Why reuse open educational resources?
- There is a rapidly growing pool of freely available, openly licensed online materials being shared by major institutions and by passionate individuals.
- Open educational resources may lessen the costs to institutions, instructors, and students associated with licensed materials.
- Utilizing existing resources can free up instructors from some largely redundant tasks, allowing them to focus on other elements of the teaching process.
- Most open educational resources can be revised or remixed to be specifically tailored to individual learning challenges.
Why share educational resources?
- Sharing materials online can connect coursework with a dynamic global community of educators, often resulting in collaborations and informal peer review.
- Sharing materials enhances the profile of the individuals and institutions that make them available.
- Producing materials in open platforms such as blogs and wikis can result in a more efficient development process.
- Shared materials may benefit others, offering help to those who may need it and resulting in a richer and more enlightened public discourse.