OER may be free to access, but that doesn’t mean that they were produced for free. Often, OER production is funded by institutional or national grants, such as those provided by the US Department of Education. Instructors, support staff, and publishers work together to make open educational resources as good as they can be. That being said, there is no single level of quality for all open educational resources. There are some materials available openly online that are low quality and require care and attention to meet standards and there are some resources that are equal to (and even rival) their commercial counterparts. The quality of resources tends to vary across disciplinary lines and content levels, and we recommend that faculty use their experience and content expertise when assessing these materials’ fit for a course. Common criteria to consider when assessing OER materials can be found in the Open Textbook Review Criteria webpage.
