Experience with a "social model" of capacity building: the Peoples-uni

Richard F Heller

doi:10.1186/1478-4491-7-43

Abstract

BackgroundTaking advantage of societal trends involving the "third sector", a social model of philanthropy and the open-source software and educational resource movements, provides the opportunity for online education for capacity building at low cost. The Peoples Open Access Education Initiative, Peoples-uni, aims to help build public health capacity in this way, and this paper describes its evolution.MethodsThe development of the Peoples-uni has involved the creation of an administrative infrastructure, calls for and identification of volunteers, development of both the information and communications technology infrastructure and course content, and identification of students and course delivery to them. A pilot course module was offered for delivery.Results and DiscussionVolunteers have been prepared to become involved in the administrative structures, as trustees, members of advisory and quality assurance and educational oversight groups. More than 100 people have offered to be involved as course developers or as facilitators for course delivery, and to date 46 of these, from 13 countries, have been actively involved. Volunteer experts in information and communications technology have extended open-source course-delivery mechanisms. Following an encouraging pilot course module, 117 students from 23 countries have enrolled in the first set of six course modules. Although the business model is not fully developed, this approach allows current module delivery at USD 50 each, to be more affordable to the target audience than traditional university-based education.ConclusionA social model of capacity building in public health has been started and has been able to attract volunteers and students from a wide range of countries. The costs are likely to be low enough to allow this method to make a substantial contribution to capacity building in low-income settings.

Highlights

Taking advantage of societal trends involving the "third sector", a social model of philanthropy and the open-source software and educational resource movements, provides the opportunity for online education for capacity building at low cost
The costs are likely to be low enough to allow this method to make a substantial contribution to capacity building in low-income settings
Capacity building can be performed either at a government level to improve the competence of the population as a whole, by the individual who wishes to benefit and work out ways to self-learn, or by institutions that want to improve the capacity of their own employees or of those who will pay them to provide an educational programme of some sort

Summary

Introduction

Taking advantage of societal trends involving the "third sector", a social model of philanthropy and the open-source software and educational resource movements, provides the opportunity for online education for capacity building at low cost. There are a number of societal trends transforming the way people help others, including the development of a "third sector" of the economy in which people are prepared to donate their time and money for the benefit of others [1], and a "social" model of philanthropy in which businesses invest in the hope of a social return on their investment [2]. This latter model had its origins in resource-poor settings, where micro loans through the Grameen Bank have transformed the lives of the poorest of people [3] – and this has been replicated elsewhere. Universities are becoming reliant on fees from overseas students: in Australia, fees from overseas students represent the third largest "export" earner for the country as a whole [4]

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