Volunteer as a Peer Reviewer for MERLOT's International Business Online Teaching Module

While online teaching in higher education has grown in popularity over the last decade, access to high quality online teaching materials in international business for faculty is severely lacking. Online teaching modules in international business will be developed, peer-reviewed and made publicly available through the MERLOT website (www.merlot.org). This project involves an expansion of the digital collection of IBUS modules within MERLOT. Resources that will be added to the collection will include simulations, tutorials, animations, references, case studies, assignments, and other digital materials that can be integrated within the larger context of a course focusing on international dimensions of business, the global management of innovation and technology, export and international trade.

The project is being funded by the U.S. Department of Education’s Business International Education (BIE) program. San Francisco State University's College of Business was recently awarded a $191,544 Business and International Education (BIE) grant from the U.S. Department of Education to support academic and community outreach projects with the local wine industry to develop better global marketing strategies. The two-year grant is the largest federal grant the College has ever received. Seven faculty members from four departments -- Management, Information Systems, Marketing and Decision Sciences -- created and will participate in the grant project.

The grant will fund three academic and two community outreach projects through 2007. One project will develop a digital collection of online teaching modules in international business for MERLOT (Multimedia Educational Repository for Learning and Online Teaching), a free online catalog of education modules created by a consortium of higher education institution. A second project will create software called "Global Wine Match" that pairs small wineries with distributors according to product attributes and distribution goals. Another outcome will be creation of a family-owned winery conference on international trade, developed with the College of Business's Family Business Center.

CALL FOR IBUS REVIEWERS

A unique feature of this project is online teaching and learning modules in international business will undergo a rigorous peer review process, utilizing MERLOT’s Business Discipline Editorial Board. The MERLOT project has well established process for the peer review of instructional technology, and the BIE Project Director, Dr. Ronald E. Purser, already serves as a MERLOT Associate Editor. Currently, over 140 faculty members from institutions in the United States, Canada and Australia are collaborating on MERLOT’s peer review process.

This initiative seeks qualified faculty from other institutions in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia to serve as ad hoc reviewers who will work in collaboration with the MERLOT Business Editorial Board. Reviewers will receive training that will be conducted through online tutorials and conference calls. Steps in the training for peer review will include triaging existing modules in the MERLOT collection, understanding peer evaluation criteria, and posting of reviews to MERLOT. Peer reviews of online international business teaching modules will be posted publicly on the MERLOT website, allowing faculty to select and use the highest quality materials within their existing courses. Because MERLOT is a free gateway, faculty at any institution in the world could access the International Business modules within MERLOT.

In addition to enhancing the digital collection of peer-reviewed international business modules within MERLOT, this project will also develop a portal on the MERLOT site devoted to Teaching International Business online. This portal will direct faculty to specific modules in International Business, illustrating how they have actually been used by other faculty in the classroom. The portal will serve as a public forum for enhancing the scholarship of teaching and learning in International Business.

Faculty interested in serving as ad hoc reviewers for the MERLOT/BIE project should contact:  Professor Ronald Purser, Department of Management, San Francisco State University. Email: rpurser@sfsu.edu