Faculty and administrative staff at five universities participating in the UWI-UNESCO Caribbean Universities Project for Integrated Distance Education (CUPIDE) will benefit from training in incorporating the free, open source learning management software, Moodle, in distance education. The five universities are: University Quisqueya (UniQ) located in Haiti, Anton de Kom University of Suriname (AdeKUS), University of Guyana (UG), University of Technology, Jamaica (UTech) and The University of the West Indies (UWI), which is responsible for the management of the project, under the guidance of a Project Advisory Committee, chaired by CARICOM.
Management consultant and instructor, Dr. John Gedeon, is responsible for training at UWI and UTech. Mr. Pieter van der Hijden of the Amsterdam-based company, Sofos Consultancy is responsible for training at UG and AdeKUS. Arrangements are still to be made for UniQ.
Funded by the Japanese funds-in-trust for capacity building, the CUPIDE aim is to build the human resource capacity in the participating institutions through provision of training for academic, administrative and technical personnel in the use of information and communication technologies for teaching, administration and distribution of course materials. There is also provision of hardware, software and technical assistance. The human resources of the participating countries will also be strengthened through the delivery of programmes developed under the project. The project is slated for completion in December 2006.
For further information contact: Christine Marrett, cupide@uwimona.edu.jm, or tel: 9272831.