http://www.merlot.org:80/merlot/ A search of MERLOT materials Copyright 1997-2013 MERLOT. All rights reserved. Fri, 24 May 2013 08:03:04 PDT Fri, 24 May 2013 08:03:04 PDT http://www.merlot.org:80/merlot/images/merlot.gif http://www.merlot.org:80/merlot/ 44 34 http://www.merlot.org/merlot/viewMaterial.htm?id=515239 ״Comprehensive staff guide to OER's in booklet format (7 pages). Includes 'What are OER's?'; How can OER benefit academic staff?; A quick guide to IPR, copyright and Creative Commons; Guidance on developing OER material; Examples of OER repositories. Easy to use format with 10 key points for each section.״ Package can be downloaded from the site. http://www.merlot.org/merlot/viewMaterial.htm?id=513074 This is a free, online textbook offered by Bookboon.com. There are a variety of topics, all in alphabetical order. http://www.merlot.org/merlot/viewMaterial.htm?id=442475 This is a free, open textbook that is part of the Connexions collection at Rice University. According to the authors, "Interns work directly with on-site supervisors (mentors), home-school principals, or other principals, supervisors, or agency administrators on specified objectives for the number of clock hours designated in a signed agreement. The mentor or campus supervisor approves all experiences used for the completion of objectives. At least one reading is selected to facilitate the achievement of each objective in the internship. Reflections on the experiences, the readings, and the relationship between the two are recorded in a log, which is regularly reviewed by the on-site and campus supervisors.״ http://www.merlot.org/merlot/viewMaterial.htm?id=515245 ״Skills development is complementary to other learning – it cannot be done in isolation. The higher level skills in this material aim to raise your awareness of the processes of learning and development – other subject-based material must supply the context and motivation for this. Key skills underpin the ability to carry out successfully, and improve on, a wide range of tasks in higher education, employment and wherever there is a continuation of learning. We hope that you will study this unit over a period of time in conjunction with a course or work situation.״ http://www.merlot.org/merlot/viewMaterial.htm?id=700498 'The world of higher education is undergoing profound and rapid changes. These changes are forcing our educational systems to respond to ensure that the quality of life in these communities is maintained. This book explains why quality is an imperative in higher education, how the quality phenomena have evolved and expanded, and who the pioneers were and what they invented. It includes a framework for educators to consider in their own teaching and curricula planning. It documents tools and “How to …” for design and management of improved quality for higher education. It also shares knowledge of the roadblocks that can be expected and the needs that remain for the Quality Sciences.' http://www.merlot.org/merlot/viewMaterial.htm?id=515211 ״The open-source source book on the state-of-the-art in collaborative technologies and methods, its psychological foundations, and its economic, political, and social extrapolations. This book is a game changer; an essential tool for executives, programmers, entrepreneurs, legislators, visionaries and socially responsible citizens alike, and people who fit into all these categories at once.״ http://www.merlot.org/merlot/viewMaterial.htm?id=513885 This is a free, online textbook offered by Bookboon.com. "This book is the first in a series of free e-books about studying abroad. It provides the student with an overview of the universities in Denmark and Norway as well as a more detailed description of each of the universities, including testimonials from international students. Furthermore, the book has practical information about studying in Scandinavia.״ http://www.merlot.org/merlot/viewMaterial.htm?id=515230 This is a free, online textbook offered by O'Reilly. "Free and open source development models have made tremendous contributions to computing, sustaining both research and commercial projects and making it easier for large groups of people, who may not even be acquainted, to help each other. While this growing activity has a promising future, all of this work is built on top of licenses—legal documents—that often seem arcane or difficult to understand. Businesses and individuals aren’t always sure what is at stake in their decisions to participate, and deciding which license to use for a particular project can be a project of its own.This book is designed to simplify those decisions, explaining the different licenses and their effects on projects, including both commercial and non-commercial projects. It explores how licenses can be used as glue to bind groups of people together in common, and how the different styles of license interact with different kinds of projects.״ http://www.merlot.org/merlot/viewMaterial.htm?id=518965 ״Over the past decade, top universities have begun to experiment with online courseware, leveraging one of their core assets—the undergraduate course—to reach out to new constituencies of learners. Ithaka S+R embarked on a project intended to chronicle the development of several key initiatives in this space, in an effort to provide senior academic leadership with actionable, strategic intelligence around activity in this emerging field.Two years of research has resulted in a scholarly monograph, Unlocking the Gates: How and Why Leading Universities Are Opening Up Access to Their Courses, published by Princeton University Press and available through Amazon and other book sellers.Seizing the opportunities presented by digital technology and the networked environment, some of the world’s most prestigious institutions have begun to “unlock their gates,” converting course materials traditionally accessible only to admitted students—syllabi, handouts, and even recordings of lectures—into a digital form available to the broader public. These initiatives to create web-based course content—called “open courseware” when materials are offered to the public free of charge—constitute a much discussed but little studied trend in higher education.Given Ithaka S+R’s prior work on the impact of the web on higher-education institutions like the library and the university press, we saw the need to provide an analysis of this new means of distributing university teaching in the digital age. With financial support from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, we launched this research project—drawing heavily on archival materials and exclusive interviews with key players. In addition to this work, Ithaka S+R is committed to a growing program of projects around teaching and learning with technology in the 21st century university.The research and analysis compiled in Unlocking the Gates captures some of the lessons learned in this young and evolving field. Drawing on specific examples from case studies of leading courseware initiatives—now-defunct for-profit initiatives like AllLearn and Fathom.com; free and open projects like MIT’s pioneering OpenCourseWare, Carnegie Mellon’s Open Learning Initiative, Open Yale Courses, and webcast.berkeley; and the expansive NPTEL project by the Indian Institutes of Technology— this book provides insight into a number of relevant strategic questions, including In a digital age, how can universities distinguish themselves in competition for reputation, students, and faculty? How will these projects continue to sustain themselves as they mature beyond the experimental phase? Can higher education institutions maintain the campus-based business model that has sustained them for centuries, while also leveraging new technology to expand access to the knowledge they produce? And, faced with fiscal uncertainty and the need to increase access to higher education while maintaining quality, could these projects eventually have more transformative applications than we are seeing at present?״ http://www.merlot.org/merlot/viewMaterial.htm?id=515241 ״Diagrams, mind-maps, tables, graphs, time lines, flow charts, sequence diagrams, decision trees: all can be used to organise thought. This unit will introduce you to a variety of thinking skills. Asking and answering questions is at the heart of high-quality thinking. Questions naturally arise from the desire to know and learn about things and may be the starting point for a journey of understanding.״