New context: E-learning
IRC's and partners' experiences with electronic distance learning were taken into account in the context of our new 2002 -2006 business plan and mission statement. IRC facilitates the sharing, promotion and use of knowledge so that governments, professionals and organisations can better support poor men, women and children in developing countries to obtain water and sanitation services they will use and maintain (new mission statement of 2002). IRC is meeting these challenges through re-focusing on two core areas of activity:
1. To provide improved access to and promote the use of knowledge among sector institutions and other stakeholders. This will be achieved through strengthening IRC's knowledge base, actions to make the base easily accessible to a wide range of stakeholders, the synthesis of knowledge on key issues, the dissemination of materials and the promotion of better knowledge use in developing countries.
2. To build the capacity of resource centres for the WSS sector in developing countries. A strategy to incrementally increase the number of resource centres will be implemented, along with the activities through which their capacities will be strengthened.
IRC is now broadening the concept of EDL to Electronic learning, which includes E-conferencing, (e-mail and web platform), EDL (CD Rom + e-mail rather than only web based) and E- collaboration (using Yahoogroups, Blackboard and other collaboration platforms).
Existing partnerships
IRC participates in relevant ICT and E-learning fora, such as Water, Education and Training (WET).
IRC is leading the WET cluster 6 "Information and Communication technologies/E-learning'. With IHE, ILRI/Alterra and our partners we are discussing E-learning in all formats integrated with traditional training and lifelong learning. Input is also provided to WET cluster 1: Exchange and Development of Educational and Training Materials. These are the result of the international symposium on Human Capacity Building in the Water Sector through Innovation and Collaboration from 28-30 November 2001 in Delft, The Netherlands.
With the WELL partners we are applying Distance learning on Knowledge Management, which starts with a knowledge management scan of the partners involved. WELL is a resource centre network providing services and resources in water, sanitation and environmental health for the Department for International Development (DFID) of the British government and partner agencies. WELL is managed by:
WEDC: Water, Engineering and Development Centre, Loughborough University, UK
LSHTM: London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, UK and
IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre, The Netherlands ... in collaboration with network partners located worldwide.
E- learning and access to information: will comprise enhancing IRC's web presence including appropriate E-learning tools and promoting use by developing short courses for self learning, online and/or CDRom based and offer support on how to make more efficient use of ICT and internet-based sector resources.
E- learning and development of communities: includes experiments and assessing various E-learning tools such as E-platforms (E-conferences, Yahoo Groups, BCWS, Interactive web site, CDRoms) to promote E-collaboration among communities of practice, thematic groups and for applied research with partners.
E- learning and resource centre development: includes:
- capacity building of partners in the developing world in ICT and train staff in forms of E-learning;
- experiment with and use of appropriate E-learning tools to provide management support and to facilitate joint learning among resource centres;
- applied research with resource centres and European partners such as IHE and TNU in the development and testing of E-learning based training and learning. Based on our EDL experience.
E-learning and training: includes mentoring training for partners who attend the planned IRC training of training course in management of training programmes, such as content updates, or marketing. Another component is E-support and E-mentoring pre- and post training of resource center participants in short courses, e.g. assignments, case studies, access and use of E-information.
