Four courses
The first course in January 2001 attracted 15 participants, personnel from water companies, the World Bank, consultant firms, several NGOs, academics and Ph.D. students. Participants gave high marks to the process of directed, distance learning via the Internet. The content, structure and the quality and quantity of related web links of the three- week course, as well as the coaching received positive feedback.
Quotes from first course
" The information contained in the course and linked websites was excellent and timely. The content and structure were well organized, pace of information developed just right". (Simon Thuo, civil engineer, Kenya).
"As a process of directed learning, via Internet sources, both content and structure were excellent". (Martin E. Parkes, agricultural engineer).
Overall, the course was acknowledged as an interesting learning experience. However, the need was expressed to initiate more interaction in the course. The assignments and forum discussion needed better guidance and sum ups to structure the threads and allow people to enter a discussion after a time of non-participation.
These suggested improvements were introduced in the second course that ran from 7 -25 May 2001 and attracted 11 active participants from 10 different countries. External experts were involved as well. They contributed substantially in terms of high quality remarks and evaluations of participants submissions. The feedback on the second course was even more positive than on the first one.
The third course ran from 24 September - 12 October 2001, when 16 participants joined. The first two participants from the former East block countries, Latvia, joined as a result of finding sponsors for individual participants. Finding suitable candidates there who have online access and sufficient language knowledge turned out to be a bottleneck.
For the first time in the evaluation participants reported to be so happy with the course that they have
recommended it to others. This advertising by word of mouth can be considered to be a quality stamp in itself. Another much appreciated feature is that participants as alumni continue to have access to the basic information on the course web site, which is regularly updated with new links.
The fourth course ran early in 2002 with six participants only. Staff from IRC's partner in Latin America CINARA (Colombia) participated for the first time to get hands on experience. One staff at head quarters and a junior professional officer in en exchange programme at IRC tried to follow the three-week course. They reported problems with combining it with their planned work, internet accessibility, and e-mail overload.
The fifth course scheduled from 24 June - 12 July 2002 had to be postponed because of lack of sufficient participants. IRC could no longer incur losses from the course. Unfortunately, this course did not follow the earlier TNU experience with their other online courses, which took four to five courses before the costs can be recovered from the fees paid, as the reputation has to spread first before the marketing efforts will pay off. They also had course fees on US$ 1250, but they were on more general topics such as Transforming Civil Conflict, Socially Responsive Investment.
