This section shows how to access the System and how to propose your activity: fill in and delivery the Activity Proposal, and the Regional Team will contact you to review your proposal and for the:

To enter the System, first you have to register as a Programming Partner. After registering , you will receive a password by email that you must use regularly to enter the System.

Registering

1. Visit the main GDLN page.
2. Select “Activity Management System”.
3. Registration:

To propose a new event, after entering the system, at the top of the main page, select the language according to the region for which the contents are to be designed (English, Spanish, French). To open a new Activity Proposal, select “Create an AP”

In this section, write the Title, the Activity Description and the Topic, selecting from a list.

• Title: name of the activity. We recommend, if it is a Global Dialogue, to use a descriptive phrase before the title. For example: “Global Dialogue”: Reform Experiences in the _____ Sector”.
• Description of the Activity: A detailed description of the activity format, and the modes to apply. The “androgogical” method (learning for adults / learner-focused teaching) of the Global Network uses a mixture of media and face-to-face sessions, on-line learning, video-conferencing exchange, printed materials - to achieve complete, interactive learning among the participants, this section indicates how these modes are selected. Its main issues, approaches and background on the course or the relevant organization and Web pages. The materials for the activity may be attached with the “Documents” button, located at the foot of the page. Finally, the information is given as to whether there is any fee for the right to use the contents.
• Topic (Sector): In this space, note the activity’s main sector, selecting from the list

Logistical Details

In this section, data are elicited regarding the objectives, the target audience and logistics.

• Kind of activity: Are you proposing a Seminar, Dialogue or Course? Please select from the list. For descriptions, see “kinds of events”. The items on “Meeting” and “From the GDLN” refer to internal coordination sessions.
• Regions selected: For events designed for Latin America and the Caribbean, please select this region.
• Language of course instructors or speakers: This information is requested to determine whether there is any need to include simultaneous interpretation. Interpretation should be offered from the content provider’s site. For programs offered from Washington, the Global Network study is responsible for the simultaneous interpretation during the video conference (for more information on costs, please ask the Regional Team).
• Language for the course offering: In what language do you wish to offer the activity to participating Centers? Events offered in the language of the participating countries are much better received than those in some other language (for instance, in English for Spanish-speaking countries).
• Financing available from the Program Provider: In this space, the organization offering the contents indicates whether support is available for the Centers that use the activity (this could be expressed a number of ways, from study grants for participants to a compensation for the Center’s operation, materials, breaks, etc.)
• Assistance from an Instruction Designer: If you would like help in designing the format of your session, or to convert an on-site program into the distance mode, please select “YES”.
• Learning Objectives: Upon the conclusion of the learning activity, what will participants have learned? What are the program’s goals and the specific outcomes expected?
• Target Audience: The target group description for the event is key to the activity. Please describe, in this space, the kind of organization, the position level in each agency for the persons who will benefit from the activity, in as much details as possible (for example, public officials from health agencies; managers of non-governmental organizations whose work poses bilingual education challenges). Further, if you have recommendations regarding organizations or individuals who should receive promotional materials on the activity locally, please attach this information to the Proposal, as an input for the processes of marketing in Centers.
• Offering mode: This space elicits the emphasis on the mode: if the course will mainly use the on-line platform (“MM” for “multimedia”) or if it will be done primarily by video-conferencing (“VC”). To supplement this information, describe the activity’s overall format in the “Description” section, including the amount of sessions and their modality.
• No. of Sessions: In this space, indicate the number of sessions that were mentioned in the preceding space (“Offering Mode”).
• No. of Hours: For the indicated mode (VC or MM), the total cumulative number of hours in the program. Instructional designers recommend keeping video conferences no longer than 2 to 2.5 hours, for pedagogical reasons.
• Period preferred for the session: In this space, indicate the date or time when you would prefer to offer the program.

Are the proposed dates kept as offering days?

Global Dialogues: Centers will confirm their participation on the basis of the preferred dates indicated by the Offering Partner in the Activity Proposal, and unless the date is not to be changed by the Offering Partner and the group of countries that have confirmed, it is assumed that the proposal date is the offering date. If a Center is interested but the Center is not available on the proposed date, the Center could decline the activity, indicating that the date would have to be changed if it were to take part, and at the end of the confirmation period it can be ascertained whether everyone will agree to changing the date. Once confirmation has been received for the venues of the activity on the proposed date, the connections will be scheduled and the terms will be established through the Activity Agreement, by the Offering Center and GDLN Services.

Courses: For courses, the content partner is invited to propose the dates they would prefer. An attempt will be made to keep to them, according to Centers’ schedules and the availability of room on the Network. Network Centers are asked, when they receive the announcement of a course offering, to respond on the basis of the local need and interest and their general availability in terms of months, without setting the exact dates or times until we have a group of countries that have confirmed their interest. Then the sessions can be scheduled, by negotiating between the course Offering Partner and the Centers, with the GDLN System facilitating this negotiation, in order to establish a schedule that will fit everyone. As a last step, when the activity is offered and in order to get the organization going in each country, the Activity Agreement form is completed on line, also facilitated by GDLN Services.

• Moderator name - In this space, write the name of the Offering Partner’s main facilitator. Each participating Center will incorporate a facilitator or tutor to handle the local participation for the course or dialogue. The facilitators’ responsibilities may vary from just locally handling video-conferencing sessions, all the way to serving as a tutor and directing the “on-site” (face-to-face) sessions.

To help Centers engage their facilitators locally, the Offering Partner is asked to attach the Terms of Reference (TORs). The TORs outline the facilitator’s role and responsibilities, plus a description of the desired characteristics and the person can be a generalist or must have sectoral expertise. If a special facilitator is not required, the Center’s coordinators themselves can serve as the facilitator. See examples of the Course Facilitator Terms of Reference. If you already know who will serve as facilitators/ tutors in any given country, please attach this information to the Activity Proposal.

• Supporting documents: With this button, you can attach supporting documents to the Proposal, such as the instructors’ curriculum vitas, background information, the course syllabus, an agenda or other materials on the activity.
  

• In the first space, select “Latin America and the Caribbean”.
• For the second space, if your program could be applicable to the Region in general, select again “Latin America and the Caribbean” and the offering will be announced for all Centers in the Region, so that they can confirm, according to their analysis of need for the program in their country. If your program is applied to a particular group of countries, please select this group from the list and the announcement will be limited to the group selected. For example for a dialogue on the Free Trade Agreement between Central America and the USA, only the countries from these regions would be selected.
  

Send
Once you have finished filling out the activity proposal, you can send it for review and forwarding by the Global Network, by selecting the link in white letters “SUBMIT”. When you send the proposal, the Centers will receive notice of the offer for their review. If you prefer to polish the draft first, select the link for “SAVE”. The proposal will remain on the list of activities on your main page when you enter the System with your passkey.

In this section, you can find out about the response of Centers to the learning activity offered. When the deadline proposed by the Global Network in its announcement for the sites, the GDLN will contact you to discuss the results and the coming steps. To learn more about these steps, we invite you to look at the following sections in the Listing of Participants.