Why provide OER?

- Depending on the actual format OER can usually be accessed anywhere at anytime, increasing flexibility in learning.

- Open and free courses and materials not only saves students money but also allows students access to education.

- Access to university materials such as open preparatory courses enables students to get an impression of a subject before making their choice.

- Teachers and researchers can increase their impact by extending their audience and by spreading their information much quicker.

- Innovative approaches to teaching and learning can be introduced to a wide audience much easier.

- Sharing and collaborating can improve the quality of education and research and influence the direction of a discipline

- Course materials can be modified more easily to fit the topic and target group better and to be reused in different contexts.

- New developments can be introduced and integrated.

- Collaboration and participation of many different teachers/researchers optimize the material and increase quality.

OER are in line with the general open science spirit of fostering constructive cooperation to improve science.

- There is not necessarily a review process that would ensure the reliability of the information published by the OER provider.

- Since open online material can usually be edited by anyone at anytime, quality and reliabilty of the material might be threatened.

BUT:

- Increasing collaboration and participation of responsible teachers and researchers can warrant quality.

- Missing software or poor internet connection might limit accessability and openness of OER.

- Reliance on technology might represent a barrier to some teachers who would like to create OER.

BUT:

- Spreading access to the internet has to be done anyway, and OER in this form are better than none at all in any case.

- Making licensed material or intellectual property (like images or text parts) of others publicly available as part of OER raises law issues.

- Such issues and missing knowledge of convenient remedies represent another potential barrier for OER creators.

BUT:

- Sources under Public Domain or under Creative Commons licenses offer usable and convenient ways of designing and enriching educational material (see sections "How to (re)use OER?" and "How to find OER?").