With the high cost of journals and electronic databases many people cannot afford to purchase. Open Educational Resources are now an alternative, do you trust these resources?
My dear @Mardene, please read this experience and initiative, it was held in Belgrade, Serbia! It is on promoting adoption of open educational practice.
http://cdn.efquel.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Building-trust-in-OER.pdf
www.oer-quality.org
I am very comfortable using the open education resources as long as you can compare that with your known source of information. You can also ask the same question - How reliable is the textbook? How do you make sure that information given in a new textbook is corroborated? The sources from which many of these are made available are world class and make sure that you are utilizing the right type. See this report for further information.
http://www.col.org/PublicationDocuments/pub_PS_OER-IRP_web.pdf
http://universityreadersblog.wordpress.com/2012/05/22/assessing-the-reliability-of-open-educational-resources/
I feel comfortable with the material from Opeware courses of MIT.
I am very comfortable with it because as a Librarian in a Developing country working in a small private university this is my saving grace for my students. I rely on OER a great deal to provide information for my customers.
I think that if there are clear rules of accepting and rejection of the materials proposed for OER, there shouldn't be doubts for using them. Of course irrespective of kind of material (print, digital, open or not) we always shoud be careful when reading and choosing material for research - take a look of Alan Sokal's case (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair). You must have always the eyes open! It doesn't matter where - open acces or renowned journal/ database, hoax can happen.
Our university has a clear policy on the use of references and textbooks by our students (and teachers)- they have to be evaluated by a university committee. While I found many open resources very useful, I am not comfortable using them and advising them for use by our students because of this policy. I hope and I am certain that eventually our university officials will make the appropriate guidelines for their use.
I think there still lack of awareness of the value of OER in higher education. Realising the benefits can be achieved after adapting open education practice, and monitoring its impact on students' learning performance and teaching staff development.
Thanks for all your contributions to this question. No doubt there is a lack of awareness because there are lots of excellent resources available via this medium.
RESULTS FROM THE 2ND WORLD OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES (OER) CONGRESS
The Congress closed as experts and national delegates from 111 countries adopted by acclamation the 2017 Ljubljana OER Action Plan.
This Plan presents 41 recommended actions to mainstream open-licensed resources to help all Member States to build Knowledge Societies and achieve the 2030 Sustainable Development Goal 4 on “quality and lifelong education.” The 2017 Ljubljana OER Action Plan provides recommendations to stakeholders in five strategic areas, namely: building the capacity of users to find, re-use, create and share OER; language and cultural issues; ensuring inclusive and equitable access to quality OER; developing sustainability models; and developing supportive policy environments...
https://wbc-rti.info/object/news/17862
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