This project is currently being retired.

The Open Learning Support (OLS) project was initially developed as stand-alone social software designed to integrate with collections of open access educational materials. Now updated and integrated in eduCommons, OLS seeks to enable users to self-organize into informal groups, allowing them to provide free and open educational support opportunities that scale to extremely large numbers of learners.

As institutions allow the public to freely access the same educational resources used in university courses, a great need arises for educational support services to be provided around these materials. To whom do learners direct the questions that inevitably arise as they work their way through open access materials? Facilitating the provision of such support is outside the scope of collections and repositories, whose mission is to increase access to educational materials. OLS wraps around these collections of materials, providing learners with a mechanism for finding other people in order to ask questions, give answers, and exchange ideas.

For more information on OLS please contact the Director, David Wiley, david [dot] wiley [at] usu [dot] edu.

OLS is generously funded by The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the National Science Foundation.