Acknowledgements

Design and development of this course has depended on the inputs of many people. First, acknowlegement is due to the Commonwealth of Learning (COL), which is entirely responsible for having initiated and funded the process. COL has, however, not simply been a funding agency. Many people at COL have participated actively in the reference group as we developed the course, supplementary resources have been provided in large quantities, and Vis Naidoo - the project manager at COL - has been an active participant in bringing this course together. A special note of thanks is also due to the Asian Development Bank, which funded development of many of the resources on this CD.

In Southern Africa, various people have contributed to the design of the course. At SAIDE, we established a small reference group which shaped the original design of the course. Tessa Welch, John Gultig, and Jennifer Glennie played a key role in this regard, particularly in preliminary curriculum design. Christine Randell has been very actively involved in all aspects of course design, helping to shape the pre- and post-workshop activities, as well as designing the five-day workshop in Mozambique. Cathy Ellis has provided extensive support in converting resources to HTML.

We have also been fortunate to have secured the involvement of Judith Kamau and Manhotho Lephoto. Judith and Manhotho played an important role in helping to design the original curriculum framework for the course, as well as providing feedback on all elements of the course as design proceeded. They have also each prepared case studies on distance education in their respective countries of work, Botswana and Swaziland.

Shelley Nicholas has acted as the course coordinator, and none of this would have been possible without her constant maintenance of contact with course participants and logistical support in implementing the course. She also contributed extensively to development of the CD, designing all graphics and layout, converting resources into HTML, and coordinating development of the final resource.

We hope that you find this course a rewarding educational experience.

Neil Butcher

Course leader