| du Plessis, I (March 2000) 'SAIDE's Information Sharing Activities' in SAIDE Open Learning Through
Distance Education, Vol. 6, No.1, SAIDE: Johannesburg |
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| Southern African Global Distance Education Network - South Africa Page | SAIDE Homepage | Contents |
SAIDE’s Information Sharing ActivitiesSAIDE has, for the
past six years, played a major role in information sharing and networking activities in
South Africa and, to a lesser extent, in the Southern African region. Activities include:
The aim of this article is to keep our readers up to date with further developments in each of these information-sharing activities and to encourage broader participation in these forums. The Southern African Global Distance Education Network SAIDE has been requested by the World Bank to develop and sustain a Southern African site for its Global Distance Education Network. The Global Distance Education Network is a product of the Education and Technology Team of the World Bank’s Human Development Network. It is a set of information management tools comprising part of the World Bank’s Human Development Network’s knowledge management system known as EducationNet. Work on the Southern African site started in March 1999 and continues to evolve slowly. Currently, there are just over one hundred resources from the region available on the site. Many of these resources were collected during visits to eight countries in the region in 1999. The following are examples of the resources that can be accessed on the web site: Botswana
Malawi
Zimbabwe
South Africa The first National Conference of the National Association of Distance Education Organizations of South Africa (NADEOSA) was held from 11 to 13 August 1999. The conference theme was ‘The Quest for Implementing Quality in Distance Education’ with sub-themes: Higher and Further Education; Courseware Design, Development & Technology; Learner Support & Financial Implications; Quality Assurance; Collaboration & Competition; Policy & Practice; and Education & Training. We have created an archive of papers presented at the conference at: http://www.saide.org.za/nadeosa/conference.htm, and have started to integrate these as external hyperlinks in the Southern African Global Distance Education Network site. In addition to the GDENet web site, a regular email and facsimile update on progress on the Global Distance Education Network for Southern Africa is distributed in which we reflect on the progress we are making with this project. Your comments and suggestions on the project, the web site, and the updates are welcome. If you would like to be added to this list for future updates, please e-mail Irma du Plessis at irmad@saide.org.za indicating that you would like to receive the Global DistEdNET updates. For those who do not have e-mail access, we can also fax you a copy of this.Visit the Southern African web site at: http://www.saide.org.za/worldbank/Default.htm. The parent site hosted by the World Bank is at http://www.worldbank.org./disted. Telematics for African Development Consortium The Telematics for African Development Consortium was established in August 1995 with a vision of using information and communications technologies to improve Africa’s access to and use of information for community development and education. Its original purpose was to raise seed funding from the World Bank for a range of pilot projects, but this purpose has shifted over time to the point that the Consortium is exclusively an information-sharing network. In 1997, SAIDE was requested to function as the secretariat of the Consortium, and it finally began this work – funded by a small grant from the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) – in October, 1997. When SAIDE took over the secretarial functions of the Consortium, there were 90 participants listed in the Consortium’s records. As of the end of March 2000, there are just over 950 participants, as calculated by names on the electronic distribution list established by SAIDE. Anecdotal evidence suggests that many people circulate information on receiving it, suggesting that the information network, in fact, reaches a much bigger group of individuals. We have recently integrated the TAD Consortium into the World Bank’s Global Distance Education Network. This has enabled us to extend the reach of the information network into Southern Africa, with the result that many Southern African organizations now also receive information from TAD. The electronic information network will continue into 2000. We have, however, initiated discussion within SAIDE about the viability of continuing with Consortium meetings, particularly now that the seed funding provided by the CSIR is no longer covering the costs of running such meetings. While the cost of running the meetings is limited, particularly due to in-kind contributions by various other organizations, it is nevertheless quite a drain on SAIDE’s limited and overstretched human resources to continue running such meetings. We are currently exploring the possibility of merging these meetings with those of the National Information Technology Forum (NITF), but will otherwise be forced to discontinue two-monthly meetings. If you would like to receive free information services from the Telematics for African Development Consortium, e-mail Neil Butcher at: neilshel@icon.co.za New on SAIDE’s Website
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| Southern African Global Distance Education Network - South Africa Page | SAIDE Homepage | Contents |
South
African Institute for Distance Education |
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