MERLOT 101: Features, OER access and community

MERLOT 101: Features, community and OER Access

MERLOT (www.merlot.org) is a free and open online community of over 62,000 learning resources designed primarily for faculty, staff and students of higher education from around the world to share their learning materials and pedagogy. It has been in existence for over 18 years, and in the past few years has gone through a complete design overhaul. MERLOT is a system that enables a unique teaching and learning community to develop and/or share their Open Education Resources (OERs). The primary goal of improving the effectiveness of teaching and learning by sharing online learning materials that can be easily incorporated into faculty designed courses.

MERLOT is used by a community of over 135,000 faculty, students, staff, librarians, and administrators around the world – all for the betterment of student learning. It is also integrated into Learning Management Systems (LMS’s) such as Blackboard, Desire2Learn, Moodle and others.

The nucleus of the MERLOT community is the leading edge, collection of peer reviewed higher education, online learning materials, catalogued and curated by registered members. Any visitor to MERLOT can access the website and search and browse the collection. If you join MERLOT (membership is free), you can leave comments, rate materials, create bookmark collection or contribute materials.

So the question is, are you an expert user of MERLOT? Used it a few times? Perhaps you haven’t ever visited the website? Well no matter how you answered, this webinar is for you. It will begin with a brief overview of MERLOT and its current functionality that you can jump right in and start using. This includes Bookmark Collections and Course ePortfolio’s using MERLOT learning objects and a brief discussion of the MERLOT Content Builder – a web development tool. At the core of MERLOT are communities and this webinar will explore the relationship with academic disciplines, partner communities and academic support communities.

So not is the time to get a taste of MERLOT with our 101 webinar!