COL, Gateway form
e-learning partnership
The Commonwealth of Learning (COL) is a major content supplier for the recently launched Development Gateway - a new interactive Internet portal for information and knowledge sharing on sustainable development and poverty reduction. COL is contributing information on educational developments in the field of e-learning.
The Development Gateway (www.developmentgateway.com) contains plenty of useful links and information designed to respond to the interests and needs of the development community. While global in concept and scope, it is also firmly committed to serving regional and individual needs. Under the Gateway model, teams of specialists in particular fields from around the world contribute to the portal's growth and development. With a US$7.2 million start-up budget, ongoing funding pledges of up to US$52 million, and a growing international roster of major public and private sector partners, the Gateway opens the door to the world's wealth of development resources for everyone.
The Gateway portal is one of several projects administered and funded by The Development Gateway Foundation (www.dgfoundation.org), an independent, non-profit international organisation of public and private partnerships embracing national governments, corporations and the World Bank Group. Start-up funding for mirror Country Gateway sites is provided by infoDev. Initiated in early 2001 and now well into a second and final phase of initial development that will continue through mid-2003, the Gateway is pro-actively user friendly and responsive to user feedback on its content and design. It uses open-source technology and an easily navigable interface, designed for quicker loading into web browsers. Its comprehensive listings of development resources, including information and links to education, health and business management topics and projects, are directly contributed and managed by the stakeholder governments, NGOs, corporations and individuals it serves.
So where can you go through the Gateway? You could make a stop at the Development Knowledge directory (http://topics.developmentgateway.org/), searchable by its constantly revised list of 28 topics and other areas of timely focus. Or perhaps swing by the dgMarket (www.dgmarket.com), a global online marketplace of 25,000 donor and government-sponsored tender notices,
before visiting AiDA's (Accessible Information on Development Activities)
exhaustive directory of about 400,000 development projects (http://aida.developmentgateway.org/). Other destinations are a section for data and statistics on more than 200 countries (www.developmentgateway.org/node/244175/), an online bookstore, a frequently updated news and events
announcement area and links to the affiliated Country Gateways (http://www.developmentgateway.org/CountryGateways?132), local-content portal sites with a similar structure and purpose to the Development Gateway. With 48 of these national portals already in development, the Gateway is on track to meet the original target of 50, fully operational Country Gateways by mid-2003.
The Gateway's commitment to development issues and accessibility, along with its information and communication technology-based (ICT) approach, makes the portal an ideal collaborative project for the Commonwealth of Learning. Its partnership with the Gateway coincides with COL's initiative to expand its knowledge management network, as outlined in its current Three-Year Plan. A content partner in the portal's E-learning topic area since March 2002, COL co-manages the section with World Links (www.world-links.org). Paul West, COL's education specialist in knowledge management, works closely with an international team of independent specialist Guides, Advisors and a content Editor, Judith Law, to manage and filter the steady stream of contributions. With more than 1027 resources in the E-learning folder already available in five languages, hits on the site are increasing: E-learning has more than 1200 registered members to date, about half of them from developing countries. Since joining the Gateway team COL has contributed 235 resource links and counting to the portal's Development Knowledge listings, chiefly in the areas of e-learning, ICT for development and the knowledge economy.
The invitation to contribute to the Gateway tacitly acknowledged COL's more than a decade of expertise in e-learning and educational applications for ICT as well as its capacity to bring to the site an extensive education-related network of international and regional governments, NGOs, academe and other specialists and organisations. COL finds its ability to act as a catalyst for educational development within the Commonwealth is enhanced through strategic co-operation with global organisations that share a commitment to the universal development goal of "Education for All".
COL will continue to focus its Gateway work in educational development, specifically the area of e-learning. And COL's content management role may widen in future to include resourcing individual Country Gateways as the portal's network grows.
Concurrent knowledge management efforts are:
COL is also the lead agency in the Global Distance Education Network (www.gdenet.org) knowledge resource documentation service, funded by the World Bank. It has more recently developed a "knowledge finder service" for open and distance-learning practitioners. This service not only searches the majority of trusted sources of information in open and distance learning from one central location but also provides tools to manage the information gleaned.
- Grace Chin
