E-learning and E-conferences

The communication potential of the worldwide web has created huge opportunities in education and training. Fewer students or trainees have to face big travel and subsistence bills or prolonged periods away from the home or workplace to further their knowledge (which is also good news for their sponsors and employers!). On-line tuition, backed up with courses and notes on CD-ROM or in hardcopy, makes it possible for individuals or groups to study and interact with others from computers in their homes, offices or regional centres.

Distance learning

Distance learning is progressing fast in the water sector and growing numbers of courses, tools and resource centres are becoming available. Although it will not be able to fully replace face to face training and knowledge sharing it has a great future. The Network University envisages more and more “consortia” forming a common knowledge bank, together with closer integration of E-learning with knowledge management and social networking. WIS6 participants also heard a presentation about the UN Water Virtual Learning Centre, which has developed a distance-learning course leading to a UN University Diploma in Integrated Water Resources Management. It is going to be available through the Internet, on CD-ROM and in paper format, and students will be assisted through regional resource centres as well as communicating with one another through e-mail list servers and bulletin boards.

There was a live demonstration too of the World Bank Institute’s Global Development Learning Network (GDLN), with Distance Learning Centres (DLCs) in Senegal and Sri Lanka linking in video conference with the Institute’s Paris Office and the WIS6 venue in Delft. The DLCs are available for hire for approved workshops/courses in which participants are linked by satellite. A practical example of combining distance learning with knowledge networking came from the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry describing how a Distance Learning Information Sharing Tool (DLIST) has engaged Environmental Management students at Peninsula Technikon in Cape Town, South Africa, to spread awareness of water conservation and demand management among professionals and community members. A useful website for information about software (much of it freely available) for distance learning course management is EduTools.

Electronic conferences

As well as structured courses, the water and sanitation sector has increasingly used electronic conferences to address specific issues over a three or four week period, using e-mail list servers to share experiences and opinions among interested parties. WEDC has organised and moderated many E-conferences and its moderator produced an interesting gender analysis of participation. Her counter-intuitive conclusions were that women participate significantly less than men and many find the e-mail exchanges inhibiting. They also face considerable difficulties to get adequate e-mail access in their place of work. Extra efforts are needed to develop ways of encouraging greater participation by women.

Interactive tools

The WIS6 discussion group on E-learning sees an expanding role for ICT-based knowledge transfer using existing and new interactive tools (Blackboard, Moodle, Bellanet). It urges anyone wanting to initiate an E-learning activity to investigate what is already happening and seek collaboration, to start small with audio-visual materials and CD-ROM, to bring local people into the production and dissemination chain, and to keep building coalitions so as to expand the common knowledge base and bring costs down.

Costs

Recently, IRC has been experimenting quite successfully with Yahoo! Groups as a medium for discussion of specific themes (see also News Services). IRC together with The Network University learned valuable lessons from four online courses in 2001 and 2002 on challenges to urban water and sanitation programmes. The costs of the development of the few existing internet-based training courses on water are very high. This kind of quality course can only be maintained at a price, unless a donor would pick up the development, running and course fee. Or if it can be linked with a university programme where students get credit points for participating and the university gets subsidies for students. The World Bank Institute and the GEF- funded International Waters: LEARN programme for instance charges participants only US$ 100 for their combined Internet and video conferencing course programmes in selected developing countries.