Open resource on essay writing from the University of the South Pacific

I dedicate this item to all those Canadians who are getting sick of snow and below zero temperatures in the middle of our winter.

Established in 1968, the University of the South Pacific is one of only two universities of its type in the world. It is jointly owned by the governments of 12 member countries: Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Niue, Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu and Samoa. The University has campuses in all member countries. The main campus, Laucala, is in Fiji. The Alafua Campus in Samoa is where the School of Agriculture and Food Technology is situated, and the Emalus Campus in Vanuatu is the location for the School of Law.

The University also offers programmes through distance and flexible learning in a variety of modes and technologies throughout USP’s 14 campuses. Advanced communication technologies through USPNet are used to reach distance and flexible learning students across the vast expanses of the Pacific Ocean.

After a year into the 32 month EDULINK-SideCAP Project, the University of the South Pacific team’s Open Educational Resource (OER) is now live and ready for use. It is a nice little course on essay writing and is available free. The USP representatives on the project, Louise Vakamocea and Alanieta Lesuma-Fatiaki of CFDL have been working on the OER since November 2008. The resource can be accessed from: http://www.usp.ac.fj/studyskills/CFDL/module1.html

I will in fact be doing a keynote by video-conference into the EDULink conference in Fiji on Sunday – yes, I turned down an all expenses paid week in Fiji! However if you live by distance education…..