Draft and Review Policies for Pacific Open Learning Health Net
BACKGROUND
Pacific Open Learning Health Net (POLHN) is a blend of digital networks and physical infrastructure developed in partnership with World Health Organization (WHO) and Pacific ministries of health to provide access to quality, equitable and effective e-learning platforms and material.
It aims to support health workers to maintain relevant skills, and in doing so, enable countries to have a more sustainable and responsive health workforce.
The partnership includes assisting regulatory and ministerial bodies to develop a culture of continuing professional development (CPD) to boost knowledge, skills, attitudes and performance of health workers across 15 Pacific island countries (American Samoa, Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Guam, Kiribati, Marshall, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu).
POLHN also develops, provides and sponsors appropriate non-credited and accredited curricula in the areas of medicine, nursing, health education and public health facilitated through various collaborative partners. These include universities, institutions, professional bodies, healthcare organisations, and research entities.
Overview
During the 3rd Pacific Health Ministers Meeting (PHMM) in 1999, the Palau Action Statement recognised the increasing importance of distance education. WHO was tasked to look into methods of implementation and specific course needs in the Pacific. At the PHMM in 2001, WHO was invited to present their findings on this topic. The meeting recommended the development of eLearning in any country be based foremost on an assessment of training needs and demand. Later that year a WHO-commissioned report by Hezel and Associates in 2001 made recommendations for a Pacific healthcare learning centre (PHCLC) .
In 2003, in response to the requests from the Pacific health ministers, and with funding support from the Government of Japan, WHO established the Pacific Open Learning Health Network (POLHN) to help meet the needs for continuing education through open learning and in In ten countries, learning centres were equipped with network, computers and various other e-learning provisions. Reference materials and course materials were developed and sent out to the learning centres. Country Task Forces were established and local staffs were trained in the countries. Subsequently, eight pilot courses were offered in the first half of 2004.
The review conducted in 2011 concluded that “POLHN was on track to complete most objectives and impacts on stakeholders have been positive. POLHN provides crucial services to professionals in the healthcare sector. As many academic institutions in the PICs are in the early stages of adopting online learning, it is crucial for WHO to continue to provide assistance for sustainability.” Deriving from the findings of this review, 11 recommendations were made to WHO and POLHN, one of which this ToR seeks to operationalize.
In addition to recognition of success, a 2017 review (POLHN’s third) by the Sydney University of Technology identified a number of challenges. For example, since POHLN commenced, there has been huge increase in e-learning opportunities globally and global concerns related to data security and privacy.
This ToR aims to address how POHLN can align its policies and processes to safeguard its content (course material provided by its partners), Secretariat (which administers, manages and promotes the platform), and users (whose personal information the platform collects).
POLHN therefore seeks a suitably qualified and experienced individual or team to draft contextualized policies for POLHN that take into account POLHN’s Governance arrangements, WHO’s policies, and the changing e-learning, online teaching and learning environment (considering Massive Open Online Learning (MOOC), and arrangements with PICs to accredit continuing professional development (CPD)).
The objectives of this assignment:
• Align POLHN to the current laws and regulations and remove inconsistent practices;
• Comply with global governance in the area of CPD and e-learning;
• Reduce risk, strengthen data, and information security;
• Communicate value and processes of POLHN;
• Create transparency fairness and consistency for all POLHN processes; and
• Protect students, stakeholders and the partner institutions from the dishonest practice.
PURPOSE/SPECIFIC OBJECTIVE OF THE ACTIVITY
The purpose of this work is to conduct a desk-review and subsequently develop policies, rules and regulations for the Pacific Open Learning Health Net and to streamline processes, and clearly communicate POLHN’s operations to those contributing content, as well as its users.
DESCRIPTION OF ACTIVITIES TO BE CARRIED OUT
In collaboration with the POLHN and DPS the vendor will:
- Submit work plan with timeline highlighting status of the contract;
- Prepare discussion documents for second draft consultation;
- Submit POLHN’s e-learning-specific revised version of existing and newly established policies
- Appeals policy and procedure – Specific to POLHN sponsorship process
- Quality assurance policy– Specific to e-learning course content quality assurance monitoring and evaluation process
- Centre management policy – Specific to e-learning centre operations and management
- Complaint policy
- Cookies policy – review existing
- Course content review policy
- Data Privacy Policy
- GDPR policy - In line with global standards and EU regulations
- Equality and Diversity policy
- Malpractice policy – specific to unethical behavior, fraud and unprofessionalism
- Privacy policy
- Reasonable adjustment and special consideration policy – Specific to low resource areas (provision of additional resources to facilitate equal learning opportunity)
- Safe guarding learner policy
- Content development policy
- Recording and reporting policy
- Partnership establishment policy
- External evaluation policy – online course
- Accessibility and inclusion policy
- Upload and download policy – Specific to POLHN e-learning offline course package
- Certificate award and credit policy
METHODS TO CARRY OUT THE ACTIVITY
- Research phase
- Review of the current policies, rules and regulations for the list of policies available under output;
- Extensive literature review of national and internationally published material;
- Focus group, consultation, interview, and observation to explore current WHO and POLHN practices;
- Analysis of the gap between current and revised policies; and
- Strategies to bridge the policy gap identified during the research.
- Consultation phase
- First draft - internal consultation with POLHN and other e-learning providers;
- Second draft - consultation with identified stakeholders and interested key partners.
- Validation phase
- Pilot implementation of the second draft; and
- Identify and rectify amendments.
- Evaluation: revised existing and newly developed policies
- Validation phase
QUALIFICATIONS & EXPERIENCE
EDUCATION
Essential: Post graduate studies in law, ethics, policy, governance, education, digital learning
EXPERIENCE
Essential:
- At least five years of work relevant work experience, and
- Previous web policy, regulations, and standards
COMPETENCIES
- Communicating in a credible and effective way;
- Producing results as measurable by specific outputs;
- Moving forward in a changing environment; and
- Fostering integration and teamwork.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:
Description Cost
Daily professional rate = 15 days X (submit your expected daily rate)
= ___________
Overhead cost (if any) = _____________
Miscellaneous (if any, specify) = ____________
Total = ____________
For preparation of the proposal, refer to the following aspects which shall be addressed in the proposal:
• Formal proposal submission letter;
• understanding and approach;
• methods of implementing the approach;
• dependencies / Challenges / Assumptions;
• risk management plan; and
• detailed work breakdown structure along with segregation of roles along with team members.
The financial proposal shall cover all costs including in-country tax. The financial estimates/proposal shall be itemized which shall at least include both HR and non-HR costs
All clarification relating to this should be addressed to Mohammed Aruf Yasin at yasinm@who.int
APPLICATIONS
Qualified and interested specialists should submit their CV {for individual contractors} or Company Profile {for institutional applications} and Expression of Interest {cover letter} to the Supply Officer through WP RO UNGM at < wproungm@who.int > by 20 July 2019
The cover letter should outline how their experience and qualifications make them a suitable candidate for this position and should include their proposed daily consultancy fee and availability.
Please use Tender Notice No. WPRO/2019-07/DPS_POLHN/TN93233/vrs as subject to all submission. Only successful candidates will be contacted.