In 1997, the California State University Center for Distributed Learning (CSU-CDL at www.cdl.edu) 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 Spohre and hosted by Apple Computer, and other industry, university, and government collaborators, the EOE developed and distributed tools to enable the formation of 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, 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 of 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 on-line 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 institutions of higher education 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 of and responsibilities for the operation and improvement of processes and tools.
MERLOT continues to invite Institutional Partners and professional discipline organizations to join the cooperative endeavor. It is recognizes that the scope of coordination activities and the requirements for sustaining MERLOT is rapidly increasing. Maturing the organization is critical for its long-term success. To that end, MERLOT is advancing the current collaborative framework, exploring a variety of business models, and developing its sustainability plan so MERLOT can serve the current and future academic technology needs of faculty, students, staff, and institutions.
MERLOT is a free and open online community of resources designed primarily for faculty, staff and students of higher education from around the world to share their learning materials and pedagogy. MERLOT is a leading edge, user-centered, collection of peer reviewed higher education, online learning materials, catalogued by registered members and a set of faculty development support services.
MERLOT's strategic goal is to improve the effectiveness of teaching and learning by increasing the quantity and quality of peer reviewed online learning materials that can be easily incorporated into faculty designed courses.
MERLOT’s activities are based on the creative collaboration and support of its Individual Members,
Institutional Partners, Corporate Partners and Editorial Boards.
Institutional Partners, Corporate Partners and Editorial Boards.
Integral to MERLOT’s continuing development of faculty development support services are its:
• Online teaching and learning initiatives
• Building, organizing, reviewing, and developing applications of online teaching-learning materials
MERLOT maintains its currency through ongoing and continuing communication with its worldwide supporters in a variety of ways, including the annual MERLOT International Conference, the Journal of Online Learning and Teaching (JOLT), member publications, news, and our new Voices website to enable MERLOT users to communication with others.
Merlot is about Multimedia Resources for learning and online teaching. this refers to the sources of learning and teaching that would apply long distance learning. This teaching is not in a real corner of the school perimeter but about the online teaching and learning process in which, students with no time to go too school could visit and log-in to this cite for them to be taught of their desired things to be learned.
In this cite you can choose your field on what are you going to learn
prepared by: Steven Jay Silah
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