MERLOT is a free and open resource designed primarily for faculty and students in higher education. With a continually growing collection of online learning materials, assignments and reviews, MERLOT helps faculty enhance instruction. MERLOT is also a community of people who strive to enrich teaching and learning experiences.

The first MERLOT International Conference was held at the Embassy Suites, Tampa, Florida, August 12-15, 2001. The site host was the University of South Florida. MERLOT is endorsed by NLII/EDUCAUSE and sponsored by the NSF Digital Library Project. For further information about MERLOT go to http://www.merlot.org.

Audience

The MERLOT International Conference was open to the international higher education community. Individuals were not required to be affiliated with a participating MERLOT institution to attend or present at the conference. The conference themes were geared toward the following audience types:

• Faculty
• Instructional Designers
• Academic Administrators
• Technical Support Specialists
• Faculty Development Professionals
• Members of Professional Organizations
• Authors of Instructional Materials
• MERLOT Users and Potential Partners

Overall Conference Goals

The MERLOT International Conference was the venue for learning about shared content, peer reviews, learning objects, standards, and online communities by:

• showcasing how authors and faculty use MERLOT learning materials in their classrooms
• enabling discipline communities to share information on teaching and learning with web-based materials
• providing practical, hands-on workshop experiences
• promoting discussions among shared content providers
• sharing information on various technology tools for teaching and learning
• providing a forum for presentations by organizational affiliates and institutional partners of MERLOT
• disseminating information about MERLOT

The larger conference theme of "Faculty Approaches to Instructional Technology: Content, Collaboration, and Community" was carried out through the interrelated tracks described in the program. MERLOT invited proposals for sessions that took the form of individual presentations, panels, practical demonstrations, and hands-on workshops.