Revolutionizing Corporate Learning with Open Educational Resources (OER)

Key takeaways

By using an OER for corporate training, you can increase access to learning materials and tailor content to organizational goals.

• The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) defines OERs based on defining traits such as free access in the public domain and open licensing [1].

• When selecting the right OER, focus on high-quality material that's also relevant to what you want your employees to learn.

• You can use OERs as a way to provide your workforce with opportunities to earn microcredentials and fill skill gaps. 

Discover how OERs can improve your workforce development. If you’re ready to start providing high-quality learning material for your team, Coursera for Business offers expert-led courses with tailored learning paths so your employees can focus on gaining the skills that will help them succeed in their roles and advance in their careers.

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OER definition: What does OER stand for?

UNESCO defines open educational resources (OER) as, “learning, teaching and research materials in any format and medium that reside in the public domain or are under copyright that have been released under an open license, that permit no-cost access, re-use, re-purpose, adaptation and redistribution by others” [1].

Instructors and learners can access OERs for free or at a minimal cost. These resources come in various forms, including textbooks and written content, recorded lectures, assessments, games, outlines, and any other type of educational material. Typically, the license for these resources indicates how you can legally distribute the material. For example, you might only have the right to distribute the material as originally created, while in other cases, you can modify it to fit your needs.

What makes a resource “open”?

Materials to be “open content” will be in the public domain or have a Creative Commons license. When resources have this type of license, it allows users to perform the 5Rs:

• Retain: Users can own and control copies of the content.

• Reuse: Users can access the work repeatedly in various ways, such as in a class or on a website.

• Revise: Users can alter the content as needed.

• Remix: Users can integrate the content with other material.

• Redistribute: Users can share copies of the content.

Why choose OER for corporate training?

Choosing OERs in corporate training allows instructors to easily align different types of content with learning objectives and tailor material to different learning styles. While benefits can vary depending on your workforce and style of corporate training, you can find several benefits your organization might experience below.

Lower course cost

One of the primary benefits of using OERs is affordability. Because resources are not put toward financing proprietary educational material and course development time, learners and organizations aren’t limited by cost barriers. This opens course access to a broader group of learners and makes the training program more accessible to all employees. 

For example, if your organization has a set training budget and is developing all course materials from scratch, the budget might cover one or two development programs. However, if you primarily use OERs, you might then be able to develop several courses, creating a more diverse and accessible ecosystem of learning for your workforce. If your employees were paying for training themselves, using OERs could significantly lower the cost of course participation, encouraging more employees to participate in the training programs.

Customizable material

Companies might choose OERs for a corporate training program because of the potential for customization. You can find many open-access materials online, meaning instructors can strategically choose educational material that enhances the course topics and learning goals. This allows the instructors to more easily cater to various learning styles, helping their employees engage more deeply with the concepts. Instructors can mix different OERs to create a custom learning plan, tailoring material to meet the needs of the employees and organization. In some cases, learners can directly modify course resources, further helping to tailor course learning structures and increase learner engagement.

Increased accessibility for employees

You and your corporate learners can access OERs from anywhere worldwide,  enhancing the ability to engage with material at home or away from the office. Employees may have time constraints outside of working hours that make it difficult to take traditional courses. With OERs, not only can they access material at a time and place convenient for them, but they can also repeatedly use it. If your employees want to reference a concept they learned while completing a workplace responsibility, they can quickly and easily find the material.

Easily updated content 

As technology evolves quickly, professional development courses need to grow with it. With OERs, you can easily update educational materials to include relevant information, visualizations, and assessments. As you can imagine, traditional print textbooks are difficult to update, taking time to change information, reprint copies, and distribute to relevant parties. In contrast, you can update OER almost instantaneously, replace older case studies with new ones, change visualizations, and expand on digital text.

Tailored microcredential material 

Depending on the field, employees may need a specific skill to enhance their workflow and meet changing industry demands. In these cases, employees may want to avoid paying for traditional higher education courses or need more time to re-enter an education program. 

Microcredentialing, which has an increasing value in the modern workplace, allows employees to focus on learning material that is relevant to them. Organizations can use OER from top universities and industry leaders to provide employees with high-quality, vetted courses focused on filling specific skill gaps. 

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Challenges of using OER

While the many benefits of OER make them a popular choice for organizations, it’s important to consider the limitations when implementing this type of resource into your training plan.  Common barriers you might encounter include the following:

• You may face administrative resistance due to a perceived lack of material quality. 

• Employees may not interact directly with instructors or other learners. 

• The material often requires certain technologies to access it.

• Implementing this material into training programs takes extra effort.

• In some cases, you may have quality issues with the material.

• Certain materials can have copyright restrictions.

How to choose the right OER

When choosing your corporate training programs, focus on quality and relevance. The material you provide your employees should be reliable, easy to find online, and copyright-free. You want clearly described content that helps employees learn the concepts as you intended.

While you can sort through individual material to validate it, you may streamline this process by choosing OER from reputable sources. When you source from reputable sites, the vetting process is already done. You can find high-quality sources in several ways. If you want to source from universities directly, many higher education institutions have designated open resource sites, such as MIT OpenCourseWare or Open Yale Courses. 

One way to source quality material is to use a learning platform such as Coursera. On Coursera, each course is created by a leading university or industry organization, and you can search through a large number of available courses to find ones that suit your training needs.

Read more: What Is Organizational Development?

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