There is always something good going on at MERLOT and SkillsCommons.
Explore our latest efforts to "OPEN LEARNING FOR ALL" with free and open educational resources and practices in academic disciplines and workforce development.
The MERLOT Engineering Board published a website that showcases the engineering contribution to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) worldwide by highlighting the role of engineer’s contribution to well-known social, scientific, and techno-logical developments, within the frame of free open access and multicultural approach. The faculty of the MERLOT Engineering Board then wrote an article that was published in the Spanish journal Faraday, a bulletin addressed to teachers of Physics and Chemistry concerning the MERLOT project, “Engineers & STEM”. Edited by the Real Sociedad Española de Física and the Real Sociedad Española de Química in Spain, the prestigious Faraday, Boletín de Física y Química has been published since 1928.
Drs. Medora Huseby and Michael Plotkin, leaders of MERLOT’s Biology Editorial Board have designed an innovative use of MERLOT which engages undergraduate students as peer reviewers of Open Educational Resources (OER). With training, rubrics, and instructor guidance, students gain authentic professional development, enhance academic portfolios, and contribute to the continuous improvement of high-quality, accessible learning materials through open pedagogy. They conducted this activity in a variety of contexts and found it to be reliably successful and high impact, promoting student engagement and learning. Drs. Huseby and Plotkin created an ePortfolio in MERLOT Content Builder that provides you the Open Educational Practices for how to implement their project. The ePortfolio includes links to a variety of resources that will enable you to reuse, revise, remix, retain, and redistribute the OER. Learning By Reviewing With MERLOT [need to provide the public URL still] You can contact the authors at: medora.huseby@colostate.edu & mplotkin@msjc.edu
SkillsCommons has teamed-up with an author, Jeff Kahn, to produce, test, and market a series of short essays about the wide range of challenges early career people face in their workplaces. Jeff has been a member of the SkillsCommons team (and the MERLOT team) for over a decade. We are happy to bring to you more Affordable Learning Solutions in our library of workforce development resources.
🎙️ 50 Free Podcasts: Each short (5 minutes or less) podcast covers a single key workplace topic to assist early-career professionals.
Available as a digital or print book format covering essential skills required by prospective employers:
SkillsCommons provides additional ways to get ready for the workplace through work-based learning activities such as internships, apprenticeships, and practicums. EXPLORE a wide range of strategies community colleges have implemented work-based learning across a wide range of disciplines.
SkillsCommons presented a workshop at the 20206 Association for Authentic, Experiential, & Evidence-Based Learning Symposium on different types of ePortfolios for capturing open educational practices and the workshop-presentation will review examples and strategies for creating them. The session presented video ePortfolios for community college leaders presenting their strategies for partnering with industries and strategies for adding career advising into the program content. The sessionalso demonstrated ePortfolio templates that have been created for the Ohio Association for Community Colleges with MERLOT’s Content Builder tool that have been used to create course and program ePortfolios that are openly shared to scale innovative workforce development courses and programs.
Fishbanks is a multiplayer web-based simulation in which participants play the role of fishers and seek to maximize their net worth as they compete against other players and deal with variations in fish stocks and their catch.
Go to MERLOTThe courses developed in this program use the PLC to train aspiring engineers and technicians. It gives motivation to those who show interest or potentially might show interest in a career in automation. The courses are outlined at the website: hybridplc.org. The courses' texts and videos are free.
Go to SkillsCommons
With nearly 25 years in service, MERLOT offers users a well-organized, extensive collection of complete academic courses, supplementals, content creation tools, as well as a full range of additional materials created by subject matter experts. Our curation processes and SmartSearch features help to ensure easy access to open and low-cost curricula and support.
Developed under a nearly $2 Billion investment, SkillsCommons is the world's largest repository of open and vetted workforce training and educational materials. Created by more than 700 colleges, universities, and industries, our materials span sectors such as advanced manufacturing, healthcare, IT, construction, hospitality. Offering full courses, certificate programming, simulations plus more, SkillsCommons assists organizations in affordably meeting workforce pipeline development needs.
Together, MERLOT and SkillsCommons provide users with a comprehensive approach to reducing educational and training costs and making, finding, organizing, and using open educational and workforce development training resources.