Amazon OER? | Confessions of a Community College Dean

"So Amazon is working on a site that will curate Open Educational Resources. The initial market is K-12, though I have a hard time imagining higher ed will be far away. They’re calling it Amazon Inspire, and it’s supposed to launch in a few months. Hmm. This could be very good or very bad. But I’m leaning towards very good. On one level, of course, it’s fourteen kinds of awesome. I’m a big fan of OER, but I know that one of the major barriers to widespread adoption is the difficulty in finding material. Combining Amazon’s considerable skill at user-friendly search, and user reviews, with a repository of freebies would make exploration much easier ... In the case of OER, though, the upside is even higher. Textbook costs are a real issue for both school districts (in K-12) and students (in higher ed).  For a student taking five classes a semester -- remember, 15 to finish -- it’s easy for a single semester’s book tally to hit four figures. Taking that off the table would make a material difference for many students.  Even better, since OER are designed for accessibility from the outset, they’re likely to be friendly to screen readers and other devices that help students with disabilities participate fully from day one.  Free materials that are genuinely accessible to all students have been a dream up to this point. Soon they could be as common and as vital as podcasts are now.  Instead of serving as alternatives to the Morning Zoo, OER would free up Pell money for rent and food. That’s a real contribution.My hesitation is around trying to identify Amazon’s interest ..."