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OLI Readies For Spring The Open Learning Initiative (OLI) is currently preparing for spring 2012!  We will introduce a number of updates and new features to our courses.  One of our most requested features, search capability for students and instructors, will make its debut.  Many improvements are also in place for the look and feel of our courses and we have a lot of work underway to enhance our site in the early months of 2012. In addition to these platform changes, we’ll update many of our existing courses as part of our iterative improvement cycle. Courses including Biochemistry, Engineering Statics, Statistics, Logic and Proofs, Secure Coding, Speech and Causal and Statistical Reasoning will be updated based on quantitative data analysis and feedback from faculty and students. We’ll also start new pilots for Anatomy and Physiology, Biology, and Introduction to Psychology as part of the CC-OLI project. Use and Evaluation students for CC-OLI Statistics will also continue in the spring semester. We’re also preparing new mechanisms for supporting our faculty. In the spring semester we will offer a regular schedule of webinars that will help new OLI faculty learn about our system, support existing faculty as they continue to use our platform and allow all faculty to explore new pedagogical techniques that the OLI approach enables. About OLI OLI is an open educational resources project that began in 2002. We use knowledge from learning science and the affordances of the web to transform instruction, significantly improve learning outcomes and to achieve significant increases in productivity in post secondary education. Our Goals Produce exemplars of scientifically based online courses and course materials that enact instruction and support instructors. Our courses are designed based on learning science research and contribute to that research. Provide open access to our courses and materials. Like many open educational resources projects, ours makes its courses openly and freely available. However, our courses are not collections of material created by individual faculty to support traditional instruction. While our courses are often used by instructors to support classroom instruction, OLI online courses are designed to support an individual learner, who does not have the benefit of an instructor. Develop a community of use, research, and development that contributes to the evaluation, continuous improvement, and ongoing growth of the courses and materials.

OLI at Open Education 2011 The Open Learning Initiative (OLI) was proud to participate in this year's annual Open Education conference in Park City, UT. From the conference website: The Open Education Conference has been described as the annual reunion of the open education family. Each year the conference serves as the world's premiere venue for research and development related to open education, while simultaneously creating the most friendly and energetic atmosphere you'll find at any academic conference. Among the many great keynotes and talks, OLI presented on three different topics. Below, find the videos of those talks along with slides. Read more...   OLI Meets With Texas Regents From The Texas Tribune: [OLI] research has shown that students who do the course entirely online can achieve the same results as those who take a similar course in a traditional manner. However, those who combine his materials with classroom instruction — what’s known as “blended learning” — have higher rates of success. Read the full article: Traditional Universities Considering New Approaches   Introducing Media Programming OLI is proud to offer our newest open and free course, Media Programming. The Media Programming class teaches introductory programming concepts using the Java language. It contextualizes the task of programming by focusing on media, such as images, audio, and interactive systems. By doing so, we hope to put programming in a relevant context. For example, iteration is a programming concept that is essential to creating negative and greyscale images. You will learn algorithms for blending two images together and how hierarchical relationships are used to organize elements of a user interface. Learning more about programming will help you develop the skills of systematically thinking about a task and breaking it down into manageable pieces. Read more...   Job Openings at OLI The Open Learning Initiative currently has a number of full time job opportunities for individuals who are passionate about their work and want to share their talents as part of our team.  We are an innovative, multidisciplinary team pairing research and engineering to increase access to and improve outcomes in higher education. We are currently seeking a Flex/AIR Designer and Course Developers.  Visit our jobs page for more information!

More Articles... OER11 Further Reading: How and for whom does accelerated learning work? The case of the Open Learning Initiative course "Logic & Proofs" OER11 Further Reading: OLI and Knowledge Forum: Integrating pedagogies and technologies that support individual learning and group knowledge building OER11 Further Reading: More Students, New Instructors: Measuring the Effectiveness of the OLI Statistics Course in Accelerating Student Learning The Quiet Revolution in Open Learning