McGraw-Hill Higher Education and MERLOT Form Alliance To Enhance Online Content For Colleges Nationwide

McGraw-Hill Higher Education, a leading provider of electronic and print learning materials, and Multimedia Educational Resource for Online Learning and Teaching (MERLOT), an international higher education consortium, have announced a strategic alliance intended to support MERLOT's Accelerating Development of Quality Hybrid and Online Courses initiative. The goals: to explore and evaluate strategies for blending publisher and open education resources, improve learning outcomes, and reduce the costs of course materials for students.

Through this relationship, instructional designers from McGraw-Hill Higher Education's Learning Solutions team and MERLOT will work closely together to:

   * Provide tools and processes that can be easily adopted and/or adapted
     for local use by individual colleges and universities
   * Increase instructors' access to digital course content
   * Allow faculty to more easily integrate content into their online
     curriculum

Additionally, McGraw-Hill Higher Education's online course library will be accessible through a sponsored portal on the MERLOT website. And McGraw-Hill Higher Education's Learning Solutions team will integrate MERLOT peer-reviewed learning materials throughout their online course offerings, providing higher education institutions with a "MERLOT Enhanced" online course library.

"We are excited to collaborate with MERLOT and contribute to efforts that enhance instruction and help drive student achievement nationwide," said Jeff Schultz, vice president of McGraw-Hill Higher Education's Learning Solutions. "This alliance demonstrates the commitment shared by MERLOT and McGraw-Hill to improve the quality of teaching and learning online. Our mutual effort also underscores the fact that the convergence of technology and learning continues to hold great promise for higher education institutions."

"McGraw-Hill and MERLOT will be providing faculty with opportunities to easily customize their online course curriculum so they can better serve the learning needs of their students and more successfully achieve the learning outcomes of their courses," said Gerry Hanley, executive director of MERLOT and senior director of Academic Technology Services for the California State University, Office of the Chancellor.

About McGraw-Hill Higher Education Learning Solutions

McGraw-Hill Higher Education's Learning Solutions team combines digital and printed content, technology, and curriculum-development services to deliver holistic "learning by design" solutions. Additional information is available at http://www.onlinelearning.com/ McGraw-Hill Higher Education is a unit of McGraw-Hill Education, a leading global provider of instructional, assessment and reference solutions that empower professionals and students of all ages. McGraw-Hill Education, a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies (NYSE: MHP), is located in 33 countries and publishes in more than 40 languages.

About MERLOT

MERLOT is a leading edge, user-centered, searchable collection of over 17,000 online learning materials created and used by over 48,000 registered members, and a set of faculty development support services. MERLOT's vision is to be a premier online community where faculty, staff, and students from around the world share their learning materials and pedagogy. MERLOT's strategic goal is to improve the effectiveness of teaching and learning by increasing the quantity and quality of peer reviewed online learning materials that can be easily incorporated into faculty designed courses. Additional information is available at http://www.merlot.org/.

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SOURCE: McGraw-Hill Higher Education

CONTACT: Tom Stanton
McGraw-Hill Education
+1-212-904-3214
tom_stanton@mcgraw-hill.com
Regan Caruthers (MERLOT)
California State University
Office of the Chancellor
+1-831-469-4319
rcaruthers@calstate.edu

Web site: http://www.mheducation.com/
http://www.merlot.org/
http://www.onlinelearning.com/