Sociology Assignment: Comparing OER and Online Educational Content

This sociology assignment delves into the distinctions between online educational content and Open Educational Resources (OER), emphasizing the free and reusable nature of OER. The student analyzes OER Africa, evaluating its relevance, accuracy, production quality, accessibility, interactivity, and licensing. The evaluation highlights OER Africa's effectiveness in bridging educational gaps and promoting active learning. The assignment emphasizes the benefits of using OER for authentic information, supporting research, and professional work, ensuring the student utilizes reliable and openly available resources. The student also discusses how they plan to integrate OER into their future academic and professional endeavors, underscoring the value of readily available and reusable educational materials. References from bccampus.ca, oerafrica.org, and research by Gough, Giffen & Woodward (2018) support the analysis.

Running head: SOCIOLOGY
Distributed and Open Learning
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author’s Note:

2SOCIOLOGY
The difference between the online educational content and openly licensed educational content
are-
OER or the open educational resources are the ones where the information is free and the users
do not really need any kinds of permission to view the information. On the other hand the online
educational content is the one that is often available in a certain amount (Tian, 2016). In other
words the information is always not available in a proper amount and the users may not have the
permission to view the entire information (oerafrica.org. 2020). There is also a chance that the
information that is available in the OER is authentic than in comparison to the ones that are
found in the other online educational content

3SOCIOLOGY
OER Africa is one of the useful tutorials that have actually helped in understanding about the
step by step process that will be helping in understanding about the right ways of using the
information that is available. The evaluation process is as follows-
Relevance
There is enough relevance because they try to fulfill the objective like to bridge the gap between
different countries and colleges.
Accuracy
The information available is accurate and also there is no spelling errors or any errors in
grammar. The information taught is about many authentic aspects like educational technology,
Indigenization and also many other such useful aspects
Production quality
The design of the site is done in proper manner and also it enhances the overall look of the site
and students will be getting attracted towards studying the content from this site (bccampus.ca.
2020).
The audio have been developed in a proper way and the students will be getting attracted to the
same.
Accessibility
This is accessible as the students can easily read the content from the website and the content is
written in the form of document (.doc).

4SOCIOLOGY
Interactivity
The content encourages active learning and also students will be encouraged as they will be able
to appear for the assignments and the questions.
Licensing
The information available is totally reusable as the students can use the same for writing their
assignments several times. Active learning is encouraged because students can also carry on a
proper group study (Gough, Giffen & Woodward, 2018).
I will be using this in a step by step process in my future life. I feel that this will surely be of a
great help in my professional work. This is because I will be able to use a step by step method in
order to understand the ways in which I will be able to use the information from the OER and
then be able to make sure that this is being incorporated in my own researches and also in all the
professional works that I am undertaking. I will also be able to make sure that I am not making
use of any unauthentic or wrong information in my work. It is for this reason that I will always
make use of the open and freely available information that I will be getting from using the open
educational resources.

5SOCIOLOGY
References
bccampus.ca. (2020). Bccampus.ca. Available from-https://bccampus.ca/2019/02/19/canada-oer-
group-2019-update/
Gough, C. M., Giffen, C., & Woodward, T. (2018, December). NEON Data in the Classroom:
An Open Education Resource for Enhancing Understanding of Terrestrial Carbon
Cycling Processes Across Scales. In AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts.
oerafrica.org. (2020). Oerafrica.org. Available from-https://www.oerafrica.org/book/welcome
Tian, H. (2016). Research on the Influence Factors of Building China's Adult Education System
under the Open Education Resource Perspective. DEStech Transactions on Social
Science, Education and Human Science, (isetem).