[email protected]">

Dear friends and colleagues,

I am pleased to announce the pilot session of a new online course on
Knowledge Networking for Development . The course will run for seven weeks,
starting July 14th and ending August 31st. This pilot session of the
course is meant to provide a forum for discussions rather than a formal
training event. There is no tuition fee for this pilot session and it is
open to everyone.

I have attached a more detailed description of the course which covers both
the content and the mode of delivery. I would ask that you distribute this
message and the syllabus to any individual who you think might be
interested, and I would especially welcome participation from developing
countries. Please do forward the syllabus to your counterparts in
developing countries. The technical requirements for participating in
the course are minimal. We will be using an email discussion group for
communications and I will be sending a set of notes on a weekly basis as an
attachment to an email message.

Based on my experience with a similar online course on Information and
Communication Technologies for Development, the greatest value of online
training is the ability to bring together people from a broad range of
backgrounds, perspectives and countries to share their experiences and
ideas. I am quite aware of the limitations of online learning and I
strongly believe in the continued value of face-to-face training, but there
are times when it is simply not possible to bring people together in one
location for an extended period of time.

The main difference between such an online course and a discussion list is
that there is a weekly structure to the discussions, some common readings
and additional resources provided on a weekly basis, as well as continuous
moderation and facilitation of the discussions, including weekly summaries.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me. In many
cases, you are on this distribution list because you have written something
related to this course s topic and I am using your work as a reference or
suggested reading. In other cases, you have already indicated an interest
in the course.

If you are interested in participating, please let me know so that I can
follow up with additional instructions to subscribe to the discussion
group. There is also some additional information on my web site
http://www.knowledgefordevelopment.com/ both about Knowledge for
Development, LLC, the company, and the course itself, and you can provide
some feedback about the course s modules directly on the web site even if
you cannot participate in the pilot session itself.

Best regards,

Barbara Fillip
Knowledge for Development, LLC
http://www.knowledgefordevelopment.com
[email protected]
(703) 521-6462