The rapid spread of information and communications technologies (ICT) is changing the way economic and social development occurs in most countries. New ICT-related tools can make institutions and markets more productive, enhance skills and learning, improve governance at all levels, and make it easier for the poor to access services and make their voices heard.

Innovative and Evolving

The uses of ICT to further development goals are evolving. Techniques to boost crop yield, improve well-drilling, or teach mothers how to better care for infants can be sent instantly around the world. Health specialists can more effectively coordinate to halt the spread of diseases. Citizens can learn about how to open a company online, instead of waiting in long lines at government offices, saving time and money for everyone involved.

Most encouraging is that the brightest ideas are nowadays coming not from a garage in Silicon Valley, but from a software shop in Bangalore, a government data administration office in Pretoria, or an Internet café in São Paulo. The globalization of ICT is freeing millions of bright minds to work together in ways never before possible.

Unlocking Potential

Helping unlock ICT’s development potential and spreading it around the globe is the motivating force behind the Development Gateway Foundaton. Our programs target both the global and local levels, and the reach of our work is extended through hundreds of partnerships for development.

Resources

Visit The Global Alliance for Information and Communication Technologies and Development (GAID) and the Development Gateway® portal for ICT and development, information and knowledge sharing worldwide. Read this blog for thoughts in understanding this relationship between growth and ICT in Indian context.

The first issue of ‘Open-Source Northeast’, our quarterly free magazine focusing on ‘Information Literacy’ and ‘Free and Open Source Software’ (FOSS), was published on 15th December 2007, India’s 60th Independence Day. The purpose of the publication is again to propagate the importance of Information Literacy and Information communication Technology (ICT). The focus on FOSS is to help readers to open up to the myriads of quality software that can help to build ICT) capacity thus facilitating information access at an affordable cost both at individual and institutional level.
Available Issues: Volume 1 (Issue 1| Issue 2 | Issue 3 & 4)
Current Issue: Volume 2 Issue 1

The ‘Open Learning Academy’ initiative is an effort to provide free learning with the ultimate goal of helping regional development of the northeast India in a way accessible to the people. The initiative will rely on the Open Training Platform, a UNESCO-driven hub offering free training resources on a wide range of development topics, fostering cooperation to provide free and open content for development.

UNESCO has launched this platform on the internet to make available training and capacity-building programmes and resources. These are developed by a variety of stakeholders worldwide in a wide range of subjects, including literacy, computers, business, environment, community development and much more.

Watch this space for progress report of this initiative.

UNDP is working in 166 countries to help develop the capacities required to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Capacity is the ability of individuals, institutions and societies to perform functions, solve problems, and set and achieve objectives in a sustainable manner. Capacity Development (CD) is thereby the process through which individuals, organisations and societies obtain, strengthen and maintain the capabilities to set and achieve their own development objectives over time.

Over the years, the following capacity development strategies have emerged as good practice for UNDP based on learning from applications. These strategies may be applied to address capacity development needs in a variety of sectors that speak to integrated approaches to development. Selection of capacity development strategies should be predicated upon findings from a capacity assessment exercise:

1. Capacity Assessments
- Capacity Assessment Supporting Tool
- Capacity Assessment Methodology User’s Guide
2. Education, Training and Learning
3. Leadership Capacities
4. Institutional Reform and Incentives
- Institutional Reform and Change Management
- Incentive Systems
5. Accountability and Voice Mechanisms
- Mutual Accountability Mechanisms
- Multi-Stakeholder Engagement Processes

Please visit http://www.capacity.undp.org for resources on Cpacity Development.

An OpenCourseWare is a free and open digital publication of high quality educational materials, organized as courses. The OpenCourseWare Consortium is a collaboration of more than 200 higher education institutions and associated organizations from around the world creating a broad and deep body of open educational content using a shared model. The mission of the OpenCourseWare Consortium is to advance education and empower people worldwide through opencourseware.

The term ‘open educational resources’ was first adopted at UNESCO’s 2002 Forum on the Impact of Open Courseware for Higher Education in Developing Countries funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Folowing this the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) announced MIT OpenCourseWare (MIT OCW) initiative to put all of the educational materials from its undergraduate- and graduate-level courses online, free and openly available to anyone, anywhere, by the end of the year 2007. The initiative has encouraged a number of other institutions to make their course materials available as open educational resources culminating in the formation of the OpenCourseWare Consortium.

You can find course materials by browsing individual OpenCourseWare sites or by searching across all courses (English-language versions) at The OpenCourseWare Consortium. OpenCourseWare Finder is another great place that help you in finding the course you are looking for.

A few handpicked OpenCourseWare sites:

1. MIT OpenCourseWare
2. Tufts OpenCourseWare
3. Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s OpenCourseWare
4. Novell OpenCourseWare
5. Notre Dame OpenCourseWare
6. The University of California, Irvine OpenCourseWare

‘It’s not that easy to find good academic content online, so it was great to find that OpenLearn was so in depth – very similar to studying at degree level. There was plenty of reading, background information and resources and exercises that helped to develop my thinking further.’ – Kim, Oswestr

What is OpenLearning?
OpenLearn is online learning that is open to anyone, anywhere in the world using materials taken from Open University courses. And it is completely free to use! Instead of attending classes, you study online in the LearningSpace, using materials that have been specially designed for distance learning.

OpenLearn does not require you to be or become an Open University student and does not grant degrees or award credit.

OpenLearn is an opportunity for informal study – in your own time access materials in areas familiar or new to you, without the pressure of keeping to a timetable or sitting exams. Instead, assess your own progress by keeping an online learning journal, discussing the topics with other online learners in forums and completing self assessment exercises where you control when the answer is revealed. While OpenLearn isn’t exactly the same as studying at University, it gives real learning experiences taken from degree courses – and for free!

We suggest you go to the LearningSpace, where you will find all the free course materials. If you are new to study you might want to start in the Study Skills section, or simply browse through the options available in an area of interest – there are 11 topic areas, from arts to science. Each topic has a range of study units from access to masters level, each lasting between 3 and 20 hours.

You can get straight into the materials without registering, but to get the most from the website we recommend you spend a few minutes setting up a free learning profile. This will give you added benefits such as being able to enrol on study units and find other learners with the same interests.

Giving online learning a social life

You can join and set up your own video conferences to meet online learners from anywhere in the world, or chat online using text chat. You’ll be able to see who else is studying the same material as you and find yourself a study buddy! You can also create knowledge maps to help you organise the information in a way that makes sense of it for you, and draws in your previous knowledge or research on the subject.

Whether you are new to study and want to try out Higher Education materials, or whether you are an old timer in academia wanting to keep up to date, we hope you find OpenLearn a rich resource for online learning. It will keep growing as we add more materials from our courses. So watch this space, or better still, sign up to our newsletter or a forum to keep up to date with developments.