InWEnt/it@ab has released a series of advanced e-learning courses on Information Technology (IT)- "Open Source & More IT for African Business" focussing on the needs of business related IT consultancy in Africa.

"Open Source & More IT for African Business" has been developed by it@ab, the Southern African Network on "Information Technology in African Business", a project of InWEnt - Capacity Building International, Germany, funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). For more information on it@ab, please see:
http://www.it-ab.org.

Learning
"Open Source & More IT for African Business" is a compilation of advanced e-learning courses covering six topics related to business & IT consultancy in an African context. The courses introduce relevant and adapted key concepts and applications such as

1. E-Business Applications & Architecture
2. IT Security
3. Open Source IT (including lessons on Ubuntu Linux Installation, Multimedia, Web Server, Groupware, Network Printing)
4. Web Publishing
5. E-Learning as well as
6. Zope & the Collaborative Learning Environment CLE2.

The focus lies on "Free and Open Source Software" (FOSS) as a key technology to drive innovation, add local value and create sustainable and affordable ICT-solutions.
The courses are organized as online modules for self-study and include lessons, tests and selected references. They provide an overview of and introduction to important concepts from intermediate to advanced level. This way, they address a wide range of potential users. These include both IT specialists and executive staff from IT businesses in Africa and beyond, technology-savvy development practitioners as well as power users of IT.
The courses are available at:
- http://cle2.it-inwent.net/LearningSpace/osam/ (CLE) or at
- http://gc21.inwent.org/OpenSource (Global Campus 21, Login and password: "guest").

Share & Remix
In the spirit of sharing and mutual capacity-building, this series of e-learning courses is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike licence. We are therefore looking forward to seeing further distribution, remixing and updating of the courses that make up "Open Source & more IT for African Business". To better achieve this goal we kindly ask for support: Linking to or including the course in databases of training material would be highly appreciated. We can also provide a copy of the courses in the form of SCORM files, if needed. For licensing, please see the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike licence (http://cle2.it-inwent.net/LearningSpace/osam/legal). We also appreciate feedback regarding the courses via the following e-mail address: ict[a]inwent.org.

Thanks to the authors
We would like to thank the team of authors and trainers which has been active in shaping and updating the modules of the course. We particularly appreciate the contributors from Africa, which include a number of InWEnt alumni of the advanced programmes on business related IT consultancy. In the past years, more than 60 IT specialists participated in the extensive one-year training programmes of it@ab in Germany.

The editing team
Benjamin Coester, Petra Hagemann, Balthas Seibold, Christiane Weber, Kerstin Nolte