Open Education Search engines

In addition to search engine which is provided in collaboration with MERLOT, we would also like to highlight the following search engine specifically designed for locating OpenCourseWare and OER.

French OER Search Engine

A search engine has been developed for a global search into the French educational resources. It allows the navigation, access to a set of OER produced, financed and/or indexed by the 8 French Digital Thematic Universities (UNT), Higher Education Institutions and Canal-U. However, if other OER were found on the internet and scientifically labellised by those institution, they have been documented and added to the repository.

Search engine for the French-speaking countries

Intended for various audiences, mainly French-speaking teaching and educational engineering teams, the IDNeuf meta-portal is a reference for multiple digital resources in French, made public by their authors.
These resources come from individual libraries or information systems of higher education and research institutions, mainly members and partners of AUF (Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie); it can include content editing systems (CMS), digital libraries, open archives, data repositories, various repositories. There are also other pedagogical objects, resources from digital pedagogical portals, social networks, etc., including research, including those produced by students. All digital resources in French can be referenced.

The standardized data and resource metadata format follows LOM, LOMFR, and SUPLOMFR schemas and application profiles. Developments in this area argue for the adaptation of an innovative format or application profile based on the MLR (Metadata for Learning References) adapted to the French-speaking public, an essential element to increase interoperability between the various French-language educational resources.

Semantic Course Search (Serendipity)

Serendipity, unlike other traditional OER search engines, allows users explore in an integrated and incremental manner. It offers guided navigation, starting with a basic keyword and going through several filters to refine the desired search and access the full description of the courses as published by the home institution. The project is sponsored by the research group GICAC from the Universidad Politecnica de Madrid (UPM) and the Universitad Particular Tecnica de Loja (UTPL) in collaboration with the Open Education Consortium (OEC).