I’m pleased to announce that our collaborative research with the MERLOT network is being launched today.  Based at California State University, MERLOT is a free and open peer reviewed collection of online teaching and learning materials and faculty-developed services contributed and used by an international education community.  We’re very pleased to have them join our network and help to build a better picture of the impact of open education.

In the spirit of ‘agile‘ research we’re trying something a bit different with this one. Instead of trying to get people to fill in large and complicated surveys members of the MERLOT network are just being asked for a few small pieces of information.  We’re asking what kind of use they have made of MERLOT OER and we’re also asking about the impact that OER has had on their practices.  In addition to reducing the load on participants this gives people a chance to describe the impact in their own words.

The only other information we’re asking for is the location of the user, and the type of membership they hold in MERLOT.  This should let us do some cool data visualization as well as produce an impact map just for MERLOT.

If you’re a MERLOT user (anywhere in the world) you can access the survey at http://tinyurl.com/OERRHMERLOT.  It really won’t take you long to complete it!

Many thanks to Sorel Reisman and Gerry Hanley for their willingness to get involved with OERRH and promoting our research.