Panel: The Pros & Cons of OER

Speakers: PJ Glandon (Kenyon College, Economics), David Harris (Editor-in-Chief, OpenStax, Rice University), Colleen Knight (Coastal College of Georgia, Chemistry)

Filmed in Chicago at Engage 2017, this panel assembled a group of professors who discussed the pros and cons of adopting OER and the future of content.

“In Economics there are literally thousands of papers published each year on a variety of topics… A good textbook author does a good job of selecting what should be taught.” — PJ Glandon

Many institutions are looking to Open Educational Resources (OER) as a cost-saving solution to increasingly expensive textbooks and educational content. So far, professors have been slow to embrace OER, questioning its quality and provenance. In this session, educators who’ve both authored and adopted OER discuss the pros and cons, and why they’ve ultimately embraced OER as the future of teaching and academic community-building.