About INCTR

NCTR is a non-profit international organization whose founder members are the International Union against Cancer and the Institut Pasteur, Brussels. The mission of the organization is to assist in controlling cancer in developing countries through the development of infrastructure for cancer treatment and research. A key to improving capacity is education, which, in addition to specific educational programs, is an integral element of long-term collaborative projects relating to prevention, early detection, treatment and palliation. The close integration of operational research with patient care results in immediate benefits to patients or individuals at high risk for developing cancer while at the same time providing opportunities for "hands-on" training of health professionals and creating a data base relevant to countries with limited resources which provides a foundation essential to further progress. INCTR emphasizes international collaboration and works to improve communication among the wide range of professionals and volunteers working to control cancer throughout the world. It also collaborates with UN organizations, including WHO and IAEA (PACT) as well as cancer and educational organizations such as the International Union against Cancer and European School of Cancer. Because of its emphasis on communication and collaboration, INCTR recognizes the critical role for a range of e-learning tools and plans to constantly increase its use of web-based educational materials and the provision, electronically and in hard copy, of information relevant to cancer control.

About OHSL

Open Health Systems Laboratory (OHSL) was conceived to focus on building global team science consortia by leveraging the best biomedical informatics, information and communication technology to address the key questions of medical science and to provide a quicker and better global public health response. We accomplish this by engaging participants to shape the agenda and goals and to encourage collaboration in building capacity for collective action to resolve problems.

About MERLOT

MERLOT is an international cooperative for putting educational innovations into practice to improve learning and teaching in higher education. The cooperative connects higher education systems, consortia, individual institutions of higher education, professional organizations of academic disciplines, and individuals to form a community of people who strive to enrich the teaching and learning experience. MERLOT is a cooperatively developed, free, web-based resource where faculty and students can easily find digital learning materials with evaluations and guidance for their use. MERLOT enables faculty to effectively and easily choose and use the best online learning materials for their students’ that are compatible with their own teaching methods and the learning goals of their academic program. Faculty, students, staff, administrators, healthcare providers, librarians, content developers, and other educational professionals are invited to join this cooperative endeavor and shape the educational resources to serve their needs.

MERLOT's premier service is a free and open online catalog of over 40,000 web-based learning materials for a wide range of disciplines that are designed to be integrated into larger courses (www.merlot.org). MERLOT does not store the actual learning materials on its servers but simply provides the links and descriptions of the materials. The learning materials are organized by subject for easy browsing of the collection. Searching is available over a variety of dimensions, such as the type of material it is (simulation, tutorial, reference, etc.). Most of the materials run inside a web browser. Each catalog record of learning material can also have links to sample student assignments for using the materials, peer reviews of the materials, and comments by members of the MERLOT community. These annotations provide users with the pedagogical context for choosing, evaluating, and integrating the online materials into teaching and learning. MERLOT also contains profiles of over 115,000 people from around the world who are registered users of and contributors to the MERLOT collection. The Member Directory contains contact information, academic areas of expertise, and an ePortfolio of contributions to MERLOT as well as members' personal selections of MERLOT materials.