Sept. 27, 2022 — A note from Gerry Hanley, executive director of Merlot.org:
If you haven’t used our service yet, I am thrilled to introduce you to the MERLOT project, which began in 1997 when the California State University Center for Distributed Learning developed and provided free access to MERLOT: www.merlot.org.
Under the leadership of Chuck Schneebeck, CSU-CDL’s Director, MERLOT was modeled after the NSF-funded project, “Authoring Tools and An Educational Object Economy (EOE).”
Led by Dr. James Spohrer and hosted by Apple Computer and other industry, university, and government collaborators, the EOE developed and distributed tools to form communities engaged in building shared knowledge bases of learning materials.
In 1998, a State Higher Education Executives Organization/American Productivity and Quality Center (SHEEO/APQC) benchmarking study on faculty development and instructional technology selected the CSU-CDL as one of six best practices centers in North America. Visitations to the CSU-CDL by higher education institutions participating in the benchmarking students resulted in interest in collaborating with the CSU on the MERLOT project. The University of Georgia System, Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education, the University of North Carolina System, and the California State University System created an informal consortium representing almost one hundred campuses serving over 900,000 students and over 47,000 faculty. SHEEO was the coordinator for the cooperative of the four state systems.
In 1999, the four systems recognized the significant benefits of a cooperative initiative to expand the MERLOT collections, conduct peer reviews of the digital learning materials, and add student learning assignments. Each system contributed $20,000 in cash to develop the MERLOT software and over $30,000 in in-kind support to advance the collaborative project. The CSU maintained its leadership and responsibilities for the operation and improvement of processes and tools.
In January 2000, the four systems sponsored 48 faculty from the disciplines of Biology, Physics, Business, and Teacher Education (12 faculty from each of the four systems) to develop evaluation standards and peer review processes for online teaching-learning material. In April 2000, other systems and institutions of higher education were invited to join the MERLOT cooperative. In July 2000, twenty-three (23) systems and higher education institutions had become Institutional Partners of MERLOT. Each Institutional Partner contributed $25,000 and in-kind support for eight faculty and a project director (part-time) to coordinate MERLOT activities. The CSU continued its leadership and responsibilities for the operation and improvement of processes and tools.
Click here to learn more: www.merlot.org.
And please scroll down for details about our upcoming USDLA webinar this Friday, Sept. 30, from 1-2 pm Eastern. We’ll see you soon! — Gerry
Free Friday Webinar — Sept. 30, 1-2 PM Eastern
Topic: Open Educational Resources in Action — Have a Sip of MERLOT!
About this session: Hi I’m Loretta, a senior instructional designer at Clarkson University. We are partners with Merlot, intending to help faculty members everywhere create engaging, diverse teaching and learning experiences for students and faculty. My mission is to help faculty to balance student success with efficient class management.
I will say right up front that we will not be drinking wine for this session. However, I think you will find your time here worthwhile. We’ll be exploring MERLOT, an acronym for Multimedia Educational Resources for Learning and Online Teaching; this is a website you can visit to look for open educational resources (commonly known as OER) for your teaching, training, and learning.
Click here to register for this session.
About MERLOT
Merlot.org has been around for a long time (since 1997), well before OER (Open Educational Resources) became a buzzword. Now, 25 years later, you will find that many institutions are part of a network for sharing. Many can be found by using the SmartSearch tool to search at least 12 library learning materials beyond the nearly 100,000 added to MERLOT. What is unique about using the MERLOT materials is that not only do they have years of experience curating resources but the materials have been peer-reviewed by members of the discipline, which assures high quality. Please join us for a tour of the MERLOT website, browse the collection and think about how MERLOT will benefit your teaching and learning practices. Here’s to the power of merlot.org!