Today, Pearson announced the launch of the OpenClass Exchange, an expansion to its open and free learning environment, OpenClass. With a focus on Open Educational Resources (OER) and institutional content, the OpenClass Exchange allows educators to search and access born-digital course collections developed from eTextbooks, course resources, modules and other educational content such as assessments, videos and more. Additionally, OpenClass now features built-in social tools that help educators and students stay connected.
At launch, the OpenClass Exchange will include a catalogue of over 680,000 items, including videos curated from YouTube EDU, Khan Academy and TED Ed. The OpenClass Exchange will also include a collection of complete OER college courses from the Open Course Library, built by educators for educators. Additional content will be added to the OpenClass Exchange in the coming months, with updates occurring on an ongoing basis.
Both students and teachers can now create a network of peers using the “follow” function, similar to Twitter and Facebook’s respective “follow” or “friend” features.
Users will automatically receive updates about OpenClass activity that may impact them. For example, users will be notified when a new response is posted to a thread, an assignment is submitted or returned, and when they gain a new follower.
Pearson has also upgraded the OpenClass search feature set. Directly from the OpenClass toolbar, users can:
- Browse preset searches;
- Select from the featured items carousel banner or popular content;
- Perform keyword searches; and
- Easily refine search results, using accordion navigation.
The OpenClass Exchange is available immediately to users of OpenClass.
