MERLOT - Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching

MERLOT = Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching

MERLOT is the probably the largest social network for sharing educational resources in higher education. At the time that I am writing this, the site claimed to have 16,566 Materials (learning materials and assignments), and 45,057 members (faculty, students, librarians, and others).

The website is divided into the following sections:

		Learning Materials Browse peer reviewed online learning materials in your discipline.
		Colleagues Find expert colleagues in your discipline.
		Personal Collections View personal collections from people in your discipline.
		Assignments Get assignments you can use with your students.
		Guest Experts Find guest experts in the Virtual Speakers Bureau.

The Learning Materials is probably the most useful. The list is created by users who basically link to material that they have placed on their own websites. I looked at some of the Editor's Choice material, which I found to be quite good. Despite the large number of members and materials, not a whole lot came up when I typed in my discipline of geography, and nothing came up when I typed in my specialization of Tourism.

MERLOT is ike many other things on the web with the categories of Information Technology and Business being most prominent, while the Arts and Social Sciences are least represented. In addition, because the material is linked to off-site webpages, I would be concerned that some material will disappear over time -- a problem that I have regularly had to deal with in my online classes over the years.

That being said, I am a new member of MERLOT and hopefully I will be able to both use and contriute material to it in the future.

Wired Campus Blog: Virtual Island Fosters Educational Innovation

The Chronicle: Wired Campus Blog: Virtual Island Fosters Educational Innovation:

"On May 16, the new island will make its debut in Second Life, the interactive virtual world. Built to foster collaboration in the higher-education community, the site -- a joint effort of the software developer Angel Learning and the Second Life Educators community (SLED) -- is a place for educators new to virtuality to figure out how things are done. Teaming up to tear down a campus and redesign it is one possible use."

How Many Students Are Just Right in a Web Course?

How Many Students Are Just Right in a Web Course?

"In one university engineering program, an additional $150 per student was added to a faculty salary for every distance learning student — plus an additional $50 per student goes to the department’s budget. At a state university, faculty teaching distance learning courses received a $100 bonus for each student once the enrollment exceeded 25. In another example, in a library information program on the east coast, faculty received an additional $50 per out—of—state student enrolled in the course." ( Copyright Judith V. Boettcher, 1997-2007)

This article is actually a decade old, though it has apparently been updated over time... -- Alan

Japan's First Internet University Goes Online

The Chronicle: Wired Campus Blog: Japan's First Internet University Goes Online

Japan’s first entirely Internet-based university opened last weekend with a real-time entrance ceremony Webcast to the PC’s of its 1,200 freshmen students and a promise to shake up the country’s moribund higher-education sector.