Giving Compass' Take:

• Sydney Johnson reports that at the OpenEd conference in October, Phillip Grimaldi argued that the impacts of open educational resources are not well understood because they have not been appropriately studied. 

• How can funders help to improve understanding of the impacts of open educational resources? Where will open educational resources do the most good? 

• Learn about the benefits of open education resources.  

Regardless of where you stand on the debate over open educational resources, you’re probably wondering: Does OER actually improve learning outcomes?

This question came up in a handful of discussions this week at the OpenEd conference in Niagara Falls, NY. And the short answer is, most experts still aren’t sure. But it’s probably not making things more difficult for students. At least, that was one of the main takeaways from a short session led by Phillip Grimaldi, director of research at OpenStax, a nonprofit OER initiative out of Rice University.

Grimaldi started things off by asking the audience—many of whom are advocates for open educational resources and use them in their practice—to interrogate their assumptions about why open resources could improve learning outcomes.

“The problem is, the research today treats OER like any other intervention and we expect it to impact all students,” he said. “But it won’t affect a student who could have easily put out $300 for a text before.”

Read the full article about open educational resources by Sydney Johnson at EdSurge.