MERLOT’s User-Curated Digital Content Available To Millions Online

The Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching, MERLOT, has been supporting educators and learners around the world with its online and open library of free educational resources since 1997.

This was stated by Executive Director MERLOT, Dr Gerry Hanley, who is one of the key speakers at the Gulf Conferences’ 3-day virtual education fair “Middle East Thought Leadership Forum” taking place on 25-27 October.

Created and administered by the California State University—the largest four-year higher education institution in the U.S.A.—MERLOT has scaled and continuously served the educational needs and goals of institutions, individuals, industries, governments, and organizations over the years and across many countries.

“We provide free and easy access to over 95,000 online instructional materials that have been user-curated and/or peer-reviewed,” Executive Director MERLOT, Dr Gerry Hanley, said. “Over 75 other free online libraries as well as millions of free and open educational resources through our SmartSearch are also accessible to users worldwide.”

Educational institutions to independent learners, Dr Hanley said, have been empowered to build their local education program by linking to MERLOT’s global resource.

“MERLOT not only provides the instructional content for learning but also provides instructional practices for teaching,” he said. “With the onset of the COVID pandemic, MERLOT has collaborated with educational institutions around the world to help them move their instructional programs online by helping faculty and students learn the new ways of online instruction.”

Pertinently, MERLOT expanded its open educational services to workforce training materials and exemplary innovations in workforce development practices in 2014. As part of the $1.9 billion United States Department of Labor program, MERLOT developed the free and open online library of workforce training and program support materials call SkillsCommons.  

Dr Hanley informed that every country around the world has explored the library and over 3.7 million downloads of material have already occurred. 

“SkillsCommons showcases innovative practices for work-based learning, apprenticeships, and internships and has customized its services for both industry and higher education institutions,” he said. “While the MERLOT and SkillsCommons technologies are empowering, it is the expertise of the MERLOT and SkillsCommons staff that powers the design, development, and deployment of innovative online instructional strategies.”

With partnerships around the world and with MERLOT members in 189 of 195 countries around the world, MERLOT brings a multinational and multidisciplinary voice to its services. 

Middle-East Education Thought Leadership Forum

Middle-East Education Thought Leadership Forum will be the first and largest virtual education event with an entirely Middle East region focus.

A global B2B and B2G business meeting and conference, the event is designed to bring education, government, corporate sector, technology providers and buyers together to exchange and explore digital technology solutions, products and services from across the Globe in one Forum over 3-days.

The event will be hosted on the Virtual Fair Platform under the patronage of the Secretary General of the Association of Arab Universities. Ministers of Education of the Arab League and with an expected number of delegates from 400 universities are expected to participate in the event.

The forum will be led by Ministers of Education and quality assurance leaders to help address policies related to online education. The event will help companies reach out to large markets in the Middle East and we will be proposing financial models which will include referral fees, alongside the sponsorship. Middle Eastern students will be invited freely to benefit from virtual learning.