The SideCAP Project is a European Union (EU) funded project as part of its ACP-EU Cooperation Programme in Higher Education (EDULINK). SideCAP stands for Staff Improvement in distance education for Carribean, African and Pacific universities. There are 5 institutions involved in this project namely the Open University, UK (OU), University of the Highlands and Islands Millennium Institute (UHI), Scotland, University of Mauritius (UM), University of the West Indies (UWI) and The University of the South Pacific (USP).

The project was initially led by the late Professor Robin Mason of the Open University of the UK and is now being led by Professor Frank Rennie of UHI.

The overall objective of the project is to:

• provide 'learn by doing' opportunities for academic and other staffing in order to improve the quality of teaching, support and technology implementation for distance education at established universities in all three ACP areas.

Its specific objective is to:

• repurpose existing Open Content teaching material and adapt it to local contexts using appropriate technologies.

The project activities include workshops, reports, course materials, quality assurance documents and an interactive network. Project meetings are being held in all partner countries beginning with a kick-off meeting in Milton Keynes, UK, on 12 May 2008. The project will be for a duration of 32 months.

For more information visit the Project website, www.sidecap.wetpaint.com.