Introduction

Leading businesses and organisations realise that their greatest assets are the quality of their people and their intellectual capital. Ongoing training of their human resources is therefore essential to maintain their competitive edge, and is also strongly supported by the South African Skills Development Act, encouraging employers and organisations to invest in the development of their human capital, and claim back up to 70% of their training costs.

“Traditional” training, however, involves attending courses, workshops, seminars and conferences, taking time away from the office or workplace. This carries obvious financial and time-loss implications for the independent professional and/or employer. The AOSIS e-learning solution empowers employers and organisations to deliver stand-alone distance learning, or blended learning, through the application of the most modern online learning technology. Employees can now have 24/7 access to online training in a secure virtual environment, at a fraction of the cost of traditional modes of learning.

AOSIS has carefully developed specialist expertise in the field of e-learning and the application of the online open source learning content management system (LCMS) known as Moodle®. AOSIS was selected as the first South African, and indeed first African Moodle® Partner in September 2006. Responding to the ongoing needs of our customers, we provide value-added services to the standard Moodle® system – we call this service “ituta” (derived from “ithuta”, the Sepedi word for “to learn”). AOSIS adds value through: secure hosting, product training, system maintenance to run trouble free, further development and customisation, technical support, and e-learning course design.

The purpose of the AOSIS ituta e-learning service is to enable the client to deliver Internet mediated learning (initial training and ongoing learning) services to its learners on a dedicated website preferably hosted by AOSIS. This website can be linked to any specified website (e.g. the client company website) with a seamless interface. With the assistance of AOSIS the client will be able to develop and maintain its own courses and trainee database, and generate reports as needed.

Remember, Moodle®, being open source software, is provided “as is”, no warranties are expressed or implied and there are no guarantee, of any kind, regarding the use or usefulness of the software.