More From Sir John

The following comes from Nick Gao, Coordinator of the Information Resource Centre at the Commonwealth of Learning (COL), an intergovernmental organization created by Commonwealth Heads of Government to encourage the development of open learning and distance education, through the fostering and sharing of knowledge, resources and technologies. Gao alerted us to a recent interview published in the May/June issue of Educational Technology magazine (ISSN: 0013-1962) in which Badrul Kahn interviewed Sir John Daniel, COL’s chief executive officer. Said Sir John: "We are now at the stage where leadership in open and distance learning is passing from the developed to the developing countries. India and China are at the front of the pack because of their large populations, rapid economic growth, and numerous sophisticated technical people."

Providing Practitioners with Access to Knowledge

Nick Gao also referred us to COL’s Practioner Research and Evaluation Skills Training (PREST) series, published online by COL in collaboration with the International Research Foundation for Open Learning. The PREST training resources provide practitioners working in open and distance learning with convenient access to basic knowledge on how to conduct research and evaluation in their everyday work. Written for open and distance learning practitioners by open and distance learning practitioners, the interactive materials aim to develop practical skills through engagement in research tasks that draw on research and evaluation methods from education and social science, but use illustrative examples from international open and distance learning contexts.

http://www.col.org/colweb/site/pid/3147