Samaritans enlists online volunteer training tool

IT | Vibeka Mair | 1 Mar 2009

The Samaritans will start training its volunteers via the internet through open source learning management system Moodle from April.

Moodle, which allows users to build and administer courses, is already used by the Open University, NHS and Cisco for elearning.

The software tracks students and enables trainers to see who are visiting the courses and completing assessments.

Nigel Ross, training and development officer for the Samaritans, says he chose Moodle for its ease of use. "My technical skills are limited but HowToMoodle made the software very easy to use and I’m confident that I can design and administer the courses myself now, whilst tailoring them to Samaritans’ specific needs, which will be massively time saving."

Initially, the charity will be introducing Moodle elearning to around 2,000 trainees from its 201 branches, covering courses in trusteeship, fundraising and publicity.

It will eventually promote Moodle to all its 17,000 volunteers. "We plan to start slowly," said Ross. "And make sure our version of Moodle is as user-friendly as possible for volunteers of all IT abilities."

Who's Who: Vibeka Mair

Comments

[Cancel] | Reply to:

Name *

Email *

Organisation

Job Title

Comments *

Verification *

* Please read our Community Standards

Close »

Community Standards

The civilsociety.co.uk community and comments board is intended as a platform for informed and civilised debate.

We hope to encourage a broad range of views, however, there are standards that we expect commentators to uphold. We reserve the right to delete or amend any comments that do not adhere to these standards.

We welcome:

Robust but respectful debate
Strongly held opinions
Intelligent relevant discussion
The sharing of relevant experiences
New participants

We will not publish:

Rude, threatening, offensive, obscene or abusive language, or links to such material
Links to commercial organisations or spam postings. The comments board is not an advertising platform
The posting of contact details for yourself or others
Comments intended for malicious purpose or mindless abuse
Comments purporting to be from another person or organisation under false pretences
Gratuitous criticism, commentary or self-promotion
Any material which breaches copyright or privacy laws, or could be considered libellous
The use of the comments board for the pursuit or extension of personal disputes

Be aware:

Views expressed on the comments board are left at users’ discretion and are in no way views held or supported by Civil Society Media
Comments left by others may not be accurate, do not rely on them as fact
You may be misunderstood - sarcasm and humour can easily be taken out of context, try to be clear

Please:

Enjoy the opportunity to express your opinion and respect the right of others to express theirs
Confine your remarks to issues rather than personalities

Together we can keep our community a polite, respectful and intelligent platform for discussion.