OERs in the Private Sector

Module Audiences

• Executives and decision-makers in private sector organizations who are responsible for developing and implementing education and training programs.

• Learning and development professionals who are responsible for designing and delivering educational content and training programs.

• Human resources professionals who are responsible for talent development and employee training.

• Educators and trainers who are interested in using OER to enhance their teaching and learning.

• Government agencies and policymakers who are interested in promoting the use of OER in the private sector.

• Researchers and academics who are studying the use and impact of OER in various settings.

• OER advocates and organizations who are promoting the use of open educational resources more broadly.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could use training content that already existed?  This is an instructional designer or trainer’s dream.  It’s also a business’s dream because this means you are getting more products for fewer expenses (content development time).  Using OERs in the private sector (business) brings an advantage to any company or designer using them.  Why you might ask? Besides the most obvious of saving expenses, there are several others including but not limited to: modifying current content to fit your needs, developing and modifying free content for those who may want to work in your organization, and providing a philanthropic benefit to the community.e

See an infographic version of the Pros and Cons of OER in the Private Sector.

Click here for a PDF version.

Intellectual property rights: Private companies may have proprietary content that they may not be willing to share openly. In such cases, it can be challenging to integrate OER into their educational offerings.

Funding: Private companies may not see the immediate financial benefits of creating or adopting OER. There may be a need to invest resources to develop OER, which can be challenging for businesses that are focused on profitability.

Quality control: Private companies may be concerned about the quality of OER and how it could impact their brand reputation. There may be a perception that OER is not as reliable or high-quality as proprietary content.

Customization: Private companies may require customized educational materials that are tailored to their specific needs. While OER can be modified, it may require additional resources to do so, which can be a challenge for companies with limited budgets.

Technical infrastructure: Adopting OER may require changes to the company's technical infrastructure, including learning management systems, software, and hardware. This can be a significant challenge, especially for small businesses.

Lack of support: While there are many OER available online, finding and using them effectively may require technical expertise and resources that not all private sector organizations have. Additionally, there may be a lack of support and guidance for using OER in the private sector.

1. Create a strategies plan or formal adoption plan.

• Think about the following questions: What type of content is needed? Can it be modified to fit your specific needs? Does the accessibility match the delivery demands?

2. Get buy-in from approvers.

• Designers should familiarize themselves with the intellectual property rules of their organizations.  Most of them would require prior approval for their work to be shared outside the organization. This may be as simple as approval from a higher-level manager or as extensive as a review by a legal consultant. This will also help with the parameters of licensing. In this process, designers should emphasize the benefits to the business in creating OER.

3. Document savings to your project/program/curriculum, etc.

• It is vital to the continued use of OERs within a designer’s business that a designer documents the savings to their project, as most businesses are mainly worried about the “bottom line” or in other terms, how much is this saving us? Documenting the OERs that are being used may not always be a savings benefit, but there is an opportunity to increase revenue by improving the company brand or community involvement.

4. Work with your legal department.

• Before publishing any material, it is always best to work with the legal department to make sure you are not accidentally improperly using any OERs. Some may say this is an expense, but it is no different than having them review content that an instructional designer would create. 

5. ​​Engage other instructional designers within your organization.

• This is important for the growth and alignment of the OERs being used in the organization. 

6. Create an online presence with a website or a library guide.

• This is very important to show the business’s philanthropic benefit to the community and allows the business to be a leader in base knowledge for their industry. 

• Consider that your company may also have parameters on how to share information outside the organization with approval. This can come from corporate communications, marketing, or even community involvement teams.

While this could be a challenge, it depends on the size of the project and how accessible the OER is. A good best practice here is to use OERs more often than not so you can become familiar with the types of resources that are in the repositories. This makes searching for content faster at a later date. 

This is probably one of the most common challenges that the private sector faces, but once again, has a relatively easy solution. In most businesses, there are aspects of training that are very similar to other businesses. This is called foundational knowledge. Customer service skills, basics of coding, basics of finance, etc. are all foundational knowledge concepts that businesses may build upon in their training. This is where time and money can be saved by using OERs. It is not necessary to waste an employee’s time in creating content that already exists, especially if it has an open license to use, modify, or create additional materials. A great question designers can ask is: what I am creating unique to my company?" Many times if the answer is 'yes,' this is proprietary and cannot be an OER. Consider the 'no's as opportunities for OER.

As you may have learned by reviewing other topics on this site, there are several new and very easy ways of knowing what license a particular piece of content may have. For more information on how easy this process is, review 2.2 Distinguish between Public Domain, Copyright, and CC Licenses.

How to Use the Geography Feature in Microsoft Excel

TechSoup provides video and live content to support workplace learning. The video linked above features a team instructor displaying how to use the geography feature in Excel, opening data sources via Bing.  The video on the YouTube channel TechSoup video has a Creative Commons license that allows sharing and commercial use.

A Study of the Perceptions of Diversity and Inclusion Initiatives in Producing Improved Productive Work Cultures

Another great source for OER is the repository of scholarly work.  This article from Gardner-Webb University has a CC license that allows commercial use with attribution.  The topic, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), is incredibly prescient as for-profit businesses strive to increase inclusion in their teams.  Academic articles by themselves do not represent full learning modules for workplace learners and require additional context and devices to create comprehension.  However, the researched and sober approach means designers can use it as good source material for their own OER.

Using OERs for your business is a benefit, but so is maintaining the open copyright. Remember, being a leader of knowledge and allowing it to transform and evolve makes your business adaptable to change and encourages growth. Not just growth in knowledge and OERs but growth in business performance because you are able to be more efficient with your training and knowledge than your competitors.