Promoting MERLOT Communities Based on OERs in Computer Science and Information Systems

In recent years, there has been considerable interest in setting up technology-focused communities of practice for teaching and learning purposes. Instructors and students can play a key role in these communities of learning by creating and/or using Open Educational Resources (OERs). In 2016 two new discipline-specific communities were created within the MERLOT OER user community: Information Systems and Information Technology (IT/IS), and Computer Science (CS). The OER taxonomies for these, predicated on the CSAB/ABET curricula were a key factor in the endorsement of these communities and their portals, by the IEEE Computer Society and the IEEE Education Society. This paper describes the process of creation of both communities with the aim of establishing Editorial Boards to peer review OERs in these disciplines. Moreover, some analytics of the recently-created IT Editorial Board in MERLOT are presented as well.