The activities of this initiative drew initially on a face-to-face gathering among educators from 14 countries, who met in Mauritius in August 2006. Dubbed a "boot camp" by the participants, the gathering was designed to equip participants from small and island nations located in the Caribbean, Pacific, Mediterranean, and Indian Oceans and small countries in Africa with skills related to working online that they could take back with them to their home countries. They are expected to continue working online with the rest of the team and to train others in working and collaborating online.

Following the boot camp, ICTs were designed to be the main conduit for communication; the idea is that, following the initial gathering, the educators could continue to work together, possibly for years to come, without the need to meet again in person. The boot camp created a Diaspora of people who had not previously met.

Specifically, the educators will work from their own contexts/countries to collaborate on and post learning content on a COL-hosted website called a "Wiki", which is meant to be a simple medium for online collaboration that requires minimal technical knowledge. (Click here to access the dedicated VUSSC node on COL's open network, free content site, WikiEducator, and to learn about its purpose, the community's values, and the various resources being developed). In brief, the idea is that educators will use open source technology to collaborate in finding and adapting course materials and resources, creating new content and sharing ideas between classrooms and among countries. Content development will focus on entrepreneurship and tourism skills, both of which are thought to be areas of important economic growth for small developing nations. The participating countries have selected the subject areas on which the teams are working. The courses produced will be offered for credit by institutions in the participating states and will be available for adaptation more widely. All materials are being licensed under the Creative Commons by attribution, share-and-share alike license (CC-BY-SA 2.6).

The development of regional partnerships is a key strategic theme; COL anticipates facilitating cooperative working relationships among participating ministries and institutions and seeks to ensure that they are full partners by providing them with opportunities for capacity building in ODL as well as in the areas of eLearning and virtual education. The ministries of education will encourage a wide range of organisations - including public and private educational institutions, other ministries, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), and technology providers - to participate in this consortium. It is expected that, enabled by appropriate ICT applications, these partners will work together in practical ways to plan programmes, develop the required content, and ensure the wide delivery of programmes and support services to learners.

Education, Technology, Economic Development.

Participating countries include Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Botswana, Cyprus, Dominica, Grenada, Jamaica, Lesotho, Maldives, Malta, Mauritius, Namibia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Seychelles, South Africa, St. Kitts & Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Swaziland, The Gambia, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu.

COL is an intergovernmental organisation created by Commonwealth Heads of Government to encourage the development and sharing of open learning and distance education knowledge, resources and technologies. The Commonwealth comprises 53 countries, most of which are
developing nations.