How good are OERs and can they save you time?

By e-share. We were recently asked to take a look at the use of OERs as part of a course design and see whether the use of OER caused me to change what I wanted to teach, and what time saving (if any) would be gained; here is what happened.
First of all I scoped out a short 5 week scheme of work to deliver a range of information literacy skills that would be suitable for an undergraduate class (level 6). I used the Open University’s Information Literacy framework to determine what needed to be delivered, I thought this would give the scheme of work a clear focus and perhaps improve my chances of finding suitable learning materials. After reading about the purpose of OERs (or Learning Objects as they were first defined) I came to understand that according to Downes’s paper Learning Objects: Resources for distance education worldwide (2001)  the ideology was to reduce educators lesson planning time and the multiple creation of key undisputed facts. More...