Pearson launches searchable catalog of open educational resources

The number of open educational resources (OERs) that educators can choose from is constantly growing. Every week, new—and free—textbooks, quizzes, videos, and even full courses are appearing online.

Now, publishing giant Pearson has wrangled up nearly 700,000 of these resources into an easily searchable catalog through its OpenClass Exchange platform.

An expansion of Pearson’s online learning environment OpenClass, Exchange will allow educators to search for and access thousands of resources, including videos from TED-Ed, Kahn Academy, and YouTube EDU, as well as courses from the Open Course Library. The resource is available to all users free of charge, but users will have to register first on the Pearson OpenClass website.

Scot Chadwick, vice president and general manager of OpenClass, said the expansion seeks to address two concerns the company has heard repeatedly from instructors: It’s hard to locate the best open educational resources, and, when found, the resources are not always easy to integrate into existing learning management systems.

“Educators are saying, ‘We can’t dedicate our lives to content searches,’” Chadwick said. “We wanted to address that, so we brought together as many really great learning resources as we could. A lot of them are video-based, which is intentional, but there’s also great simulations, courses, and eBook content.”

To access the material, educators type what they are looking for into a search bar. They are then given the option to preview material that matches their search terms. If they like what they see, they simply click on a button that says “add to course.”

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eSchool News Staff

eSchool Media staff cover education technology in all its aspects–from legislation and litigation, to best practices, to lessons learned and new products. First published in March of 1998 as a monthly print and digital newspaper, eSchool Media provides the news and information necessary to help K-20 decision-makers successfully use technology and innovation to transform schools and colleges and achieve their educational goals.

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