We are pleased to announce the following courses that have recently been made available:

WHO/ICRC Basic Emergency Care: Conflict-Related Injuries: The modules in this course are designed to support first contact providers working in conflict settings, or those who may need to manage conflict injuries. It covers conflict trauma resulting from blast, penetrating, and burn injuries.

Response Preparedness for Zoonotic Disease Outbreaks Using a One-Health Approach: This online course introduces the concepts of the coordinated response to manage zoonotic disease outbreaks between sectors for animal health, public health, and the environment as well as other relevant stakeholders. In addition, it fosters understanding of the diverse perspectives of different stakeholders during an outbreak response.

Introduction to Dengue: This short course introduces dengue, providing an overview of the causative organism, vector, transmission, symptoms, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of the disease.

Next Generation Sequencing for Influenza and SARS-CoV-2: From Sample Collection to Analysis: This online training explains the end-to-end workflow of NGS (Next Generation Sequencing), from sample preparation to the upload of genomic sequencing data to public-domain or public-access databases.

WHO Global School on Refugee and Migrant Health: The course consists of video recordings from the 2022 School, which focus on promoting capacity-building for improving refugee and migrant health.

Whole-of-Society Approach to Creating Healthy, Resilient, and Sustainable Cities: Harnessing South-South Cooperation for a Post-COVID Era: The course emphasizes a whole-of-society approach to managing complex risk and creating healthy, sustainable, and resilient cities with practical examples and useful tools.

Water, Sanitation and Hygiene for the Prevention and Care of Neglected Tropical Diseases: This course is specifically designed for governments, development agencies, civil society partners, and others working with them. It aims to help establish or strengthen collaboration between WASH and NTD actors.

Water Safety Planning for Urban Water Supply Systems: An Introduction: This course outlines the principles and steps of the water safety planning approach and presents the success factors that underpin effective and sustainable implementation. It also highlights how water safety planning can strengthen resilience to climate threats.

Superficial Fungal Infections: Training of Health Workers at National and District Levels on Skin-NTDs: This course explores the epidemiology, clinical presentation, diagnosis, and management of the most common superficial fungal infections globally.

Global Nutrition Targets Tracking Tool: This course is relevant to stakeholders who are keen to track nutrition progress around the world or interested in leveraging data to accelerate progress to improve nutrition outcomes among populations.

Chromoblastomycosis: Training for National and District-Level Health Workers: The aim of this course is to provide basic information for front-line health workers to recognize and treat chromoblastomycosis.

Managing Conflict of Interest in National Pharmaceutical Systems: This online training aims at supporting countries with practical guidance on preventing and managing conflicts of interest in public pharmaceutical systems.

Medical Equipment Electrical Safety Testing: This course provides methods for evaluating the electrical safety of medical equipment at a medical facility and actions to take following the evaluation.

We are pleased to announce that OpenWHO now has a total of 254 courses with learning resources spread across 72 languages. All courses can be accessed here. You can use the toolbar to filter courses by language and topic.

New training offerings on the End TB channel

The End TB channel includes courses that provide critical training on essential skills to facilitate the implementation of WHO’s End TB Strategy based on sound ethics principles and due protection of human rights.

Two new courses were recently added to the channel:

Management of Tuberculosis in Children and Adolescents for Healthcare Workers

Tuberculosis and Mental Health

New course series on Noncommunicable Diseases for WHO Southeast Asia Regional Office

Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) impose a major and growing burden on health and development in the South-East Asia Region. In the region, 62% of all deaths are due to NCDs, accounting for 9 million persons every year.

A series of four courses recently became available and focus on several NCD related topics of relevance to the Region. For a better learning experience, we recommend accessing the courses in the order listed below:

Course 1: HEARTS of NCD: An Integrated Approach to Management of Noncommunicable Diseases (NCD) in Primary Health Care

Course 2: Interventions for Noncommunicable Diseases in Primary Health Care

Course 3: Prevention and Management of Diabetic Foot Problems

Course 4: Palliative Care: Models of Service Delivery and Symptom Management

Monthly newsletter

You can access the most recent newsletter here.

As we approach the end of another impactful year, we want to extend our heartfelt gratitude to all members of our community for their unwavering commitment to learning, collaboration, and global health improvement through OpenWHO. In 2023, we've witnessed remarkable strides in our collective mission to provide accessible, high-quality learning resources in response to health emergencies and beyond, and we will continue our work and efforts in 2024 to share the latest health knowledge to save lives, reduce disease transmission, and protect the vulnerable.

Best wishes,

OpenWHO team

Let’s celebrate World AIDS Day together on 1 December!

WHO published the Consolidated Guidelines on HIV Prevention, Testing, Treatment, Service Delivery and Monitoring which compile broader guidance including the Service Delivery and differentiated service delivery (DSD) for HIV treatment updates.

The OpenWHO course builds on the latest WHO 2021 service delivery and differentiated service delivery for HIV treatment recommendations, and promotes increased knowledge on the newest WHO HIV guidance to ensure all people living with HIV on antiretroviral treatment can access person-centered and high-quality HIV services. Organizations representing communities living with, at risk of, or affected by HIV are pivotal in driving progress in the HIV response, create demand for person-centered services, foster trust, encourage innovation, monitor the implementation of policies and quality services, and hold providers accountable.

Access the OpenWHO course on HIV service delivery and differentiated service delivery for HIV treatment here.

A systematic approach to emergency conditions saves lives, even when specialized care is not available. To this end, the WHO, in collaboration with the ICRC and IFEM, developed an online course on Basic Emergency Care: Conflict-Related Injuries. This course includes extended modules covering conflict trauma resulting from blast, penetrating and burn injuries. The modules are designed to support first contact providers working in conflict settings, or those who may need to manage conflict injuries.

This course is an extension of the Basic Emergency Care: approach to the acutely ill and injured course for first contact providers who manage acute life-threatening conditions with limited resources, which was launched earlier this year on the OpenWHO platform. Participants will receive a Certificate of Achievement upon successful completion of the assessments and earn a Digital Badge that can be shared through social media.

25 November is International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.

The world is experiencing some of the most prolonged and intense conflicts, increasing risk of violence for millions of women and girls. Healthcare for gender-based violence survivors is an essential part of humanitarian response.

OpenWHO offers a series of 5 courses that provide detailed guidance on the Clinical Management of Survivors of Rape and Intimate Partner Violence.

This series is intended for qualified healthcare workers providing services to survivors of rape and intimate partner violence in humanitarian emergencies.

18 to 24 November is World AMR Awareness Week.

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is one of the top 10 global public health threats facing humanity. AMR threatens the effective prevention and treatment of an ever-increasing range of infections caused by bacteria, parasites, viruses and fungi. It occurs when microorganisms develop resistance to medicines that are relied upon for treatment, making some conditions difficult or impossible to cure. As a result, infections persist in the body, increasing the risk of disease spread, severe illness and death.

Learn more about how to prevent AMR in our Antimicrobial Resistance channel which offers learning resources to in multiple languages

75% of emerging infections in humans are zoonotic. A One Health approach is key to the management of shared threats for future outbreaks and pandemics at the human-animal-environment interface. A multidisciplinary and multisectoral collaboration, through a One Health approach is required to effectively prepare for, detect, assess, and respond to emerging and endemic zoonotic diseases. However, during outbreaks of zoonosis, countries usually have limited time to organize the response. If no operational framework is in place, each sector tends to work independently.

OpenWHO has launched a 2-hour course that introduces the concepts of the coordinated response to manage zoonotic disease outbreaks between sectors for animal health, public health and the environment as well as other relevant stakeholders. In addition, it fosters understanding of the diverse perspectives of different stakeholders during an outbreak response. A certificate of achievement is also available upon completion of the course.

Sign up here: https://openwho.org/courses/reprep-zoonotic-outbreaks

On 13 October, we celebrate the International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction. This day celebrates how communities are reducing their exposure to disasters and raising awareness about the importance of reducing disaster risk.

We invite you to access our course on “Health Emergency and Disaster Risk Management for Resilient Cities” to learn more about the existing risk in cities. This course also aims to introduce participants to knowledge and tools to manage all-hazard risks for effective health emergency and disaster risk management and building resilient cities from a health perspective.

Mental health and psychosocial support in emergencies is a priority and integral component of every humanitarian response.

Humanitarian emergencies exacerbate the risk of mental health conditions and increase the need to scale up mental health and psychosocial support services and care.

To celebrate on World Mental Health Day on 10 October, we invite you to explore our course offerings on this topic.

OpenWHO launched an orientation course to strengthen the competencies of health sector actors working in emergencies to establish, support and scale up Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS) in countries. The focus of this course is on how to apply existing practical, evidence-based, scalable tools and practice-led approaches for successful implementation of projects to strengthen MHPSS in emergencies operations, protection from mental health and psychosocial consequences of crises and towards the realization of universal mental health coverage.

The course is now available in English, Polish, Spanish and Ukrainian.

OpenWHO offers courses in 71 national and local languages to make learning accessible to communities across the globe. You can browse them here.

On 30 September we celebrate the translators across the world who made this possible. 17.5 million words have been translated!

We are proud to share that our OpenWHO online courses now have 8 million enrolments! Our free platform is open to all, anytime, from anywhere. Since 2017, OpenWHO is free of charge and offers multilingual self-paced online courses on various health topics. Our team is forever grateful for your engagement in our OpenWHO learning community. Thanks a lot from the OpenWHO team!

On the 7th of September we celebrate the UN International Day of Clean Air for blue skies. The United Nations have marked this date as an effort to strengthen cooperation in improving air quality and reducing air pollution.

Clean air is vital for health and day-to-day lives of people, yet air pollution still persists being the greatest environmental risk to human health and one of the main preventable causes of death and disease globally. Air pollution is responsible for 7 million premature deaths per year. These deaths are mostly caused from non-communicable diseases (NCDs) – such as ischemic heart disease, stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and lung cancer – but also from acute lower respiratory tract infections, such as pneumonia.

All health workers would benefit from gaining knowledge and skills to protect individuals and communities from air pollution exposure, as well as to advocate for clean air.

OpenWHO launched a new course on "Air pollution and Health" to help understand, communicate and address the main health impacts of air pollution and which roles health workers can play to protect and promote people’s health. The course is made up of 4 modules with videos and interactive exercises. Participants have the opportunity to earn course certificates and digital badges to share their achievements.

Access the new Air pollution and health course here.

New training offerings in the Infodemic Management channel

The Infodemic management channel includes training courses that provides an overview of the strategies, good practices, methods and tools that infodemic managers and all interested health workers can use in the field to prevent, prepare for and respond to infodemics.

Four new courses were recently added to the channel:

• Infodemic Management: Working Effectively as an Infodemic Manager in the Field
• Infodemic Management: Using Human-Centered Design Good Practices
• Infodemic Management: Defining a Taxonomy for Social Listening
• Infodemic Management: Social Marketing and Message Testing Methods

LearningSavesLives: OpenWHO stories from across the globe

The OpenWHO team organized an online exhibition and experience-sharing event on 12 & 13 July 2023, showcasing how learners have used WHO’s free OpenWHO.org learning platform to protect public health in their communities. These case studies describe OpenWHO use on the ground by health professionals and communities, providing examples beyond what can be captured on the platform and contributing to the body of knowledge on the multiplier effect of open online learning.

You can access the video recordings of the presentations in the dedicated portal created in the OpenWHO platform here.

New courses on OpenWHO this month

We are pleased to announce the following courses that were recently made available:

Mpox and the 2022-2023 Global Outbreak: This course provides a brief overview of mpox, including new insights on transmission, clinical presentation, preventive measures, and outbreak response.

Ebola and Marburg Diseases Screening and Treatment Center Design: This course, explores the fundamental principles and structural requirements underpinning the design and functioning of screening facilities and treatment centres in Ebola and Marburg diseases context.

WHO Global School on Refugee and Migrant Health: The course consists of video recordings from the 2021 School, which focus on sharing country experiences in addressing the health needs and rights of refugees and migrants, with an emphasis on specific thematic areas: health service accessibility, COVID-19, mental health, health promotion and health financing.

National Action Plans for Health Security (NAPHS): Leveraging WHO's New Integrated and Holistic Planning Approach This introductory level course provides a general overview of the NAPHS process and methodology.

Go.Data: Building Additional Dashboards in Power BI: The aim of this course is to provide learners with skills to create additional dashboards in Power BI using the data collected in Go.Data.

WHO-ICRC Basic Emergency Care: Approach to the Acutely Ill and Injured: This course introduces a practical and systematic management approach to emergency conditions.

Air Pollution and Health: An Introduction for Health Workers: This course examines the main health impacts of air pollution and which roles health workers can play to protect and promote people’s health.

Public Health and Pesticides: This course guides participants through a process of decision making for implementation, by adopting best practices of public health pesticide management.

Oral Health Training Course for Community Health Workers in Africa: The aim of this course is to build the capacity of community health workers on oral health promotion, oral disease prevention, and control to meet some of the unmet demand for oral health services and strengthen the oral health system through a cross-cutting approach.

HHFA Data Collection Training of Trainers: This course equips qualified health professionals at country level with the core knowledge to facilitate training sessions for collection of HHFA data from health facilities.

We are pleased to announce that OpenWHO now has a total of 230 courses with learning resources spread across 71 languages. All courses can be accessed here. You can use the toolbar to filter courses by language and topic.

New training offerings in the Infodemic Management channel

The Infodemic management channel includes training courses that provides an overview of the strategies, good practices, methods and tools that infodemic managers and all interested health workers can use in the field to prevent, prepare for and respond to infodemics.

Four new courses were recently added to the channel:

• Infodemic Management: Working Effectively as an Infodemic Manager in the Field
• Infodemic Management: Using Human-Centered Design Good Practices
• Infodemic Management: Defining a Taxonomy for Social Listening
• Infodemic Management: Social Marketing and Message Testing Methods

New courses available in the Health Inequality Monitoring channel

The Health Inequality Monitoring channel includes training courses about the foundations of health inequality monitoring, its application to specific topics and skill building. Three new courses became recently available to provide learners with practical guidance to the preparation of disaggregated data sourced from household surveys using different tools and softwares:

• Inequality Analysis Using Stata: Disaggregated Data from Surveys
• Inequality Analysis Using Excel: Disaggregated Data
• Inequality Analysis Using R: Disaggregated Data from Surveys

New training offerings added to the End TB channel

The End TB channel provides critical training on essential skills to facilitate the implementation of WHO’s End TB Strategy based on sound ethics principles and due protection of human rights. Two new courses were added to the catalogue:

• National Strategic Planning for Tuberculosis
• Systematic Screening for Tuberculosis Disease

Monthly newsletter

You can access the most recent newsletter here.

Best wishes, OpenWHO team

Cambodia recently hosted its National Bridging Workshop (NBW) for One Health, making it the 50th country to participate in this global initiative!

Stakeholders from animal health, animal health and environment sectors in Cambodia have gathered in Siem Reap for a workshop as part of efforts aimed at strengthening preparedness at the human-animal-environment interface.

NBW are three-day national events facilitated by WHO, WOAH and FAO, bringing together 50-120 participants from public health, animal health and environment sectors to analyse and discuss their collaboration. The key output is a joint, operational roadmap that the three sectors pledge to implement together to improve their collaboration in the prevention, detection and response to zoonotic diseases and other health events at the animal-human-environment interface.

Over 2,800 participants from around the world had the opportunity to take part in such an event, which helps strengthen collaboration among the various ministries involved in the One Health approach.

OpenWHO topical channel on One Health hosts a course which provides insight into some of WHO’s work at the animal-human-environment interface, including National Bridging Workshops (NBW). You can access the course here.

On 19 August, OpenWHO joins the international community in marking World Humanitarian Day and honouring humanitarians who work to deliver life-saving assistance to people in need, #NoMatterWhat.

Our free platform offers online courses on more than 230 public health topics, including learning resources relevant to humanitarian workers and the communities they serve. One recently launched resource is the Basic Emergency Care (BEC): Approach to the acutely ill and injured course for first contact health workers who manage acute illness and injury with limited resources, which was developed by WHO and International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC), in collaboration with the International Federation for Emergency Medicine (IFEM).

Well-trained first contact health workers are cornerstones of strong integrated health services to provide timely, quality care. BEC teaches a systematic approach to the initial assessment and management of time-sensitive critical conditions where early intervention saves lives.

Since its launch in 2015, the BEC course has been taught worldwide using a 5-day structure delivery through lectures, workbook questions, small-group case scenarios, multiple choice questions and skills stations. These modules on OpenWHO provide the essential knowledge covered in the 5-day course. The content is meant to be used as refresher material or as a ‘just-in-time' educational resource.

The course will take approximately 7 hours to complete. Participants have the opportunity to earn course certificates and digital badges to share their achievements.

Access the course here.

To strengthen country capacity for Health Emergency Preparedness, Response and Resilience, Member States need to develop, implement and monitor National Action Plans for Health Security (NAPHS).

OpenWHO has launched a 2-hour introductory level course that provides a general overview of the NAPHS process and methodology. This includes the critical steps necessary to support the development, implementation and monitoring of 5-year strategic NAPHS, as well as 12/24 month operational NAPHS.

The target audience for this course is personnel responsible for the development, implementation and monitoring of NAPHS. Participants have the opportunity to earn course certificates and digital badges to share their achievements.

Sign up here: National Action Plans for Health Security (NAPHS): Leveraging WHO's new integrated and holistic planning approach

The OpenWHO team organized an online exhibition and experience-sharing event on 12 & 13 July 2023, showcasing how learners have used WHO’s free OpenWHO.org learning platform to protect public health in their communities.

A new portal is available with video recordings of the presentations given by OpenWHO learners and the posters highlighting their interventions so their stories can continue to be shared across the globe.

The portal includes open links to each case study for easy dissemination with your networks. Browse the mini-videos here.

#LearningSavesLives

Mpox is an infectious disease caused by the monkeypox virus. It can spread from person-to-person and through contact with infected animals in enzootic areas. The clinical presentation is similar to that seen in the past with smallpox but less severe.

In 2022 to 2023, there was a large global outbreak of mpox affecting more than 110 countries, primarily driven by human-to-human transmission through sexual contact. In just over a year, over 90 000 cases and 150 deaths were reported to the WHO.

A new OpenWHO course aims to provide a general overview of mpox, with a focus on new information on the disease and lessons learned from the global outbreak. It is intended for health workers and the public to help make informed decisions and take appropriate preventive measures to protect themselves against mpox.

This course is designed to complement the OpenWHO introductory training on mpox and the extended training on prevention and management of mpox. It can be viewed before or after the first two courses prepared prior to the global outbreak.

A Certificate of Achievement will be available to participants who score at least 80% of the total points available in the course assessment. Participants who receive a Certificate of Achievement can also download an Open Badge for this course.

Access the new mpox course here.

30 July is International Day of Friendship!

Help your friends stay safe from public health threats by sharing our free OpenWHO online courses. Learning is available in 71 different languages.

• Spread the word on LinkedIn here.

• Read more about the International Day of Friendship here.

Ensuring universal access to immunization promotes better population health and improved outcomes across diverse aspects of development. Unfortunately, however, the benefits of vaccines are spread unevenly. Monitoring inequality in vaccination coverage is a way to identify where inequalities exist and where disadvantaged subgroups stand in terms of access to and utilization of health services.

A free online course has been launched in Ukrainian that examines the five general steps of inequality monitoring in the context of immunization programmes. The target audience is primarily monitoring and evaluation officers for immunization and people who have basic knowledge and experience working with immunization data.

The course was first released in English in December 2021. It is the 31st course in Ukrainian to launch on the OpenWHO learning platform in collaboration with the WHO Country Office in Ukraine.

#LearningSavesLives: OpenWHO stories from across the globe

What: An online exhibition and experience-sharing event showcasing how learners have used WHO’s free OpenWHO.org learning platform to protect public health in their communities.

When: 12-13 July 2023, with daily sessions at 9:00-11:30 CEST and 15:00-17:30 CEST.

Where: Learning sessions will be held on Zoom. Register here.

In February 2023, OpenWHO issued a Call for Abstracts describing how the learning platform has been used in local, national or regional contexts, or how learning content has been adapted for use outside the platform.

OpenWHO reviewed 420 submissions from across the world and 40 finalists have been selected to present posters about their work at the virtual event.

Visit our event page to browse the planned presentation topics, access social media materials to help us spread the word and more!

A new Bangladesh learning channel is now available on the OpenWHO platform in collaboration with the WHO Country Office in Bangladesh.

The channel currently hosts 3 courses in Bengali, with additional topics planned for the coming months. It is the 16th channel to launch as part of the Serving Countries portal, which provides countries with easy access to courses in their official languages to support their response to COVID-19 and other health threats.

You can view the other country-specific learning channels here.

You’re invited to our global virtual event #LearningSavesLives: OpenWHO stories from across the globe

What: An online exhibition and experience-sharing event showcasing how learners have used WHO’s free OpenWHO.org learning platform to protect public health in their communities.

When: 12-13 July 2023, with daily sessions at 9:00-11:30 CEST and 15:00-17:30 CEST.

Where: Learning sessions will be held on Zoom and live streamed on YouTube. Register here .

In February 2023, OpenWHO issued a Call for Abstracts describing how the learning platform has been used in local, national or regional contexts, or how learning content has been adapted for use outside the platform.

OpenWHO reviewed 420 submissions from across the world and 40 finalists have been selected to present posters about their work at the virtual event.

Visit our event page to browse the planned presentation topics, access social media materials to help us spread the word and more!

New courses on OpenWHO this month

We are pleased to announce the following courses that were recently made available:

Mobile Very Small Aperture Terminal (VSAT) installation: This course introduces basic concepts of satellite communications, as well of satellite transmission, and a step-by-step guide on how to set up three different models of WHO VSAT Quick Deployment Kits.

Environment, climate change and health for practitioners and actors guiding policy change: The course provides an introduction to environmental health, covering key facts, figures and available interventions on the most important environmental risks including climate change, air pollution, water, sanitation and hygiene, chemicals and others. It is tailor-made for key decision-makers at national, regional and municipal levels, government officials, community health workers, and UN and nongovernmental organizations planning or performing country work, among others.

Guidance on Operational Microplanning for COVID-19 Vaccination: This course is designed to equip learners with the knowledge, skills, confidence and resources to develop a comprehensive microplan for implementing COVID-19 vaccination that targets priority-use groups in a catchment area. It also provides guidance on integrating COVID-19 vaccination into planning for routine immunization and health system strengthening.

Harmonized Health Facility Assessment (HHFA) data analysis platform: This course introduces the analysis platform, showing how to use the platform to calculate indicators, create tables, charts and maps, and customize these outputs to suit country needs.

We are pleased to announce that OpenWHO now has a total of 209 courses with learning resources spread across 71 languages. All courses can be accessed here. You can use the toolbar to filter courses by language and topic.

New channel for infodemic management course series

The Infodemic Management channel includes training courses that provide an overview of the strategies, good practices, methods and tools that infodemic managers and all interested health workers can use in the field to prevent, prepare for and respond to infodemics.

As of now, the channel offers 3 courses. New topics and languages will gradually be added. Stay tuned!

• Infodemic management 101
• Infodemic management: Developing an infodemic insights report NEW COURSE!
• Infodemic management: Addressing health misinformation NEW COURSE!

New Bangladesh channel added to the Serving Countries corner

This portal offers learning resources to support a country's response to COVID-19 and other health threats. Created in collaboration with WHO Country Offices and Ministries of Health, resources based on WHO scientific guidance are available in each country’s official language(s) to empower frontline health workers, policymakers and the public. Bangladesh is the most recent addition to our Serving Countries portal.

Monthly newsletter

You can access the most recent newsletter here.

Best wishes,

OpenWHO team

The WHO Regional Office for Africa in collaboration with the Harvard School of Dental Medicines has developed an online course on oral health for community health workers.

To celebrate, a webinar will be hosted on 7 July from 3-5 PM CET. This event will provide the opportunity to formally launch the course on OpenWHO by introducing the course content. It will describe how the course can contribute to strengthening the oral health workforce and discuss how to move to the implementation phase towards integration of the course as part of existing health system strengthening initiatives.

The event will be held in English with simultaneous interpretation in French and Portuguese.

Please register here.

On 20 June, let’s work together to give refugees hope away from home – the theme of this year's World Refugee Day.

Since the beginning of the Ukraine crisis, millions of people have fled Ukraine crossing international borders. OpenWHO offers a 30-minute course to support health workers in hosting and receiving countries to provide quality and safe care that is responsive to the health needs of people from Ukraine seeking health assistance.

By following this free course, health workers will be able to identify and employ culturally responsive behaviours, practices, communication techniques and strategies that are respectful of a person’s cultural, religious and linguistic needs in the everyday provision of health services to refugees and migrants from Ukraine.

• Access the course here.
• Learn more about World Refugee Day here.

19 June is International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict.

OpenWHO offers a series of 5 courses that provide detailed guidance on the clinical management of survivors of rape and intimate partner violence:

• Introduction to the clinical management of rape and intimate partner violence in humanitarian settings
• Mental health and psychosocial support: Clinical management of rape and intimate partner violence in humanitarian settings
• Management of intimate partner violence in humanitarian settings
• First line support: Clinical management of rape and intimate partner violence in humanitarian settings
• Clinical management of rape

This series is intended for qualified healthcare workers providing services to survivors of rape and intimate partner violence in humanitarian emergencies. It considers available resources, materials, drugs, and national policies and procedures.

You can learn more about International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict here.

As we observe Russian Language Day on 6 June, OpenWHO invites you to join one of our 39 free online courses offered in Russian. This includes courses to support the response to disease outbreaks, such as influenza and mpox, as well as additional health topics like vaccine safety and tobacco regulation.

The purpose of the United Nations (UN) language days is to celebrate multilingualism and cultural diversity, and promote equal use of all 6 official languages throughout the UN. You can learn more about Russian Language Day here.

As we mark World No Tobacco Day on 31 May, we encourage you to join our free online courses on tobacco product regulation. Both courses are available in English, French and Russian and offer the opportunity to earn certificates and digital badges to share your achievements.

• Tobacco product regulation: Basic handbook (3 hours). Although tobacco use is a major public health problem, tobacco products are one of the few openly available consumer products that are virtually unregulated in many countries for contents, emissions and design features. In recent years, health authorities have become increasingly interested in the potential of tobacco product regulation to reduce the morbidity and mortality associated with tobacco use. However, barriers to implementing appropriate regulation include limited understanding of common approaches or best practices, and a lack of adequate resources and/or technical capacity. In this 3-part course, you will first review the basics of tobacco product regulation and international guidance (Sections 1-2), steps to assessing regulatory needs and capacity and regulatory considerations (Sections 3-4), and finally, implementation and potential challenges, novel, new and modified tobacco or related products, and testing and disclosure (Sections 5-7).

• Tobacco product regulation: Building laboratory testing capacity (2 hours). This course provides practical, stepwise approaches to implementing tobacco testing to improve tobacco product regulation. Such guidance is relevant to a wide range of countries in various settings, even those with inadequate resources to establish a testing facility. In this 6-section course, you will review testing in the context of a country's regulatory authority, 3 possible routes to a testing laboratory, contracting with an external laboratory, using an existing internal testing laboratory, developing a tobacco-exclusive testing laboratory, and WHO TobLabNet Membership (criteria, advantages and procedures).

You can learn more about World No Tobacco Day and this year's theme - grow food, not tobacco - on the WHO campaign site here.

We invite you to register for the joint certificate training programme on the “Whole-of-society approach to creating healthy, resilient and sustainable cities: Harnessing South-South Cooperation for a post-COVID era”. This is the 4th edition of a programme organized annually by the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction Global Education and Training Institute (UNDRR GETI), UN Office for South-South Cooperation (UNOSSC), World Health Organization (WHO) and Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).

Enrolling in the training is free; however, registration is limited to up to 1000 participants on a first-come first-served basis.

The training will take place on 7, 14, 21 and 27 June 2023 at 14:00 CET through the UNOSSC virtual training platform (access link will be provided to course registrants only).

The sessions will be held in English with simultaneous interpretation in Arabic, Chinese, French, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish.

Participants who meet the following requirements will be awarded a certificate of completion: 1) 75% attendance; 2) complete a course evaluation survey; and 3) pass an end-of-course exam with a score of 80% or above.

Please register here. Interested participants must complete the registration form by Wednesday, 31 May 2023.

The hands of health care workers play a critical role in keeping patients safe. As we mark World Hand Hygiene Day on 5 May, join our free online course to learn how – Available in 18 languages!

The 1-hour course provides a certificate and digital badge to participants who receive at least 70% on the post-test.

You can learn more about World Hand Hygiene Day here.

On 25 April, we invite you to observe World Malaria Day by joining the 11 000 learners enrolled in our free malaria elimination course. The course was just launched in French, adding to the English version released last year and expanding access to new learners.

All malaria programmes at national or subnational level need to be oriented to the activities and dynamic strategies required to achieve interruption of transmission, prevent re-establishment and achieve WHO certification. The course covers all relevant technical areas, including but not limited to malaria parasite biology, immunology and epidemiology; surveillance and response; case management; vector control and entomological surveillance; acceleration strategies; stratification to tailor interventions; and management and planning of an elimination programme.

The curriculum aims to equip participants with the knowledge and skills to plan, implement, monitor and evaluate a programme for malaria elimination and prevention of re-establishment of transmission. It is designed for health professionals responsible for planning, managing, implementing or evaluating malaria programmes or malaria elimination programmes.

A Confirmation of Participation is available to participants who complete 100% of the course material.

You can learn more about World Malaria Day and the 2023 theme “Time to deliver zero malaria: invest, innovate, implement” here.

World Immunization Week is celebrated the last week of April to highlight the collective action needed to protect people from vaccine-preventable diseases.

The theme of 2023 is 'The Big Catch-Up': We need to act now to catch-up the millions of children who missed out on vaccines during the pandemic, restore essential immunization coverage to at least 2019 levels and strengthen primary health care to deliver immunization.

As we observe World Immunization Week, we invite you to participate in one of our free online courses on immunization, including our inequality monitoring in immunization course.

Ensuring universal access to immunization promotes better population health and improved outcomes across diverse aspects of development. Unfortunately, however, the benefits of vaccines are spread unevenly. Monitoring inequality in vaccination coverage is a way to identify where inequalities exist and where disadvantaged subgroups stand in terms of access to and utilization of health services.

This 2-hour course introduces the general steps of inequality monitoring in immunization, which should be an integral part of a country’s immunization programme. A Record of Achievement and digital badge are available to participants who score at least 80% of the total points available in the final assessment.

You can learn more about World Immunization Week here.

WHO’s new policy on preventing and addressing sexual misconduct, which came into effect on 8 March 2023, enhances WHO’s legal and accountability frameworks for achieving zero tolerance for sexual misconduct and inaction against it. The umbrella term “sexual misconduct”, as introduced in WHO by the policy, encompasses all forms of prohibited sexual behaviour by the Organization’s staff and collaborators. The policy has been consulted extensively both at the 3 levels of the Organization and with external stakeholders.

To introduce the new policy, a 1-hour learning package is now available on WHO’s free learning platform OpenWHO.org. The policy is intended to ensure that all staff and collaborators are held to a common standard of conduct, and that measures are taken to both prevent and address all forms of sexual misconduct. The course also introduces WHO's 3-year strategy that defines our vision, expected results and the 10 priority actions over the next 3 years.

The course is available in English, with the opportunity to earn a certificate and digital badge if participants score at least 80% on the final assessment. The presentations are available in French for download, and subtitles will be available soon.

Please note this is an interim course. A comprehensive training will be published later this year.

This week, OpenWHO is celebrating 3 United Nations (UN) languages – Chinese, English and Spanish – as we observe their dedicated language days. The purpose of these language days is to celebrate multilingualism and cultural diversity and promote equal use of all 6 official languages throughout the UN.

• On 20 April, we celebrate Chinese Language Day. You can access OpenWHO's 18 courses in Chinese here.
• On 23 April, we celebrate both English Language Day and Spanish Language Day. OpenWHO offers more than 200 courses in English, available here, and 42 courses in Spanish, available here.

In total, OpenWHO provides free online courses in 68 national and local languages to make learning more accessible to communities across the globe.

New channel for Health Emergency Preparedness, Response and Resilience (HEPR) course series

This new learning channel brings together resources for WHO, national counterparts and partners to outline the process of developing national investment plans to apply for additional resources, including Pandemic Fund resources.

A new course, resulting from a webinar series held by WHO in late March, has been made available to further support eligible countries, regional entities and implementing entities to develop full proposals for potential projects to be supported in this Pandemic Fund funding opportunity window, which is open until 19 May 2023. The recordings are available with subtitles in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish.

You can access the course here.

New courses on OpenWHO this month

We are pleased to announce the following courses that were recently made available:

WHO's New Policy and Strategy on Preventing and Addressing Sexual Misconduct: This course is an introductory learning package introducing the new WHO policy on preventing and addressing sexual misconduct. This an interim course; a more comprehensive training will be published later this year. The course is available in English and the presentations are available in French for download, with subtitles available soon.

Foresight Approaches in Global Public Health: This course provides an overview of various methods and tools that can be used to understand emerging trends and changes with a futuristic lens and to explore their potential impacts on global public health.

Inequality monitoring in sexual, reproductive, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health (SRMNCAH): This course introduces the general steps of inequality monitoring in the context of SRMNCAH. The target audience is primarily people involved in national SRMNCAH monitoring and evaluation efforts, including officers, plus programme managers who have basic knowledge and experience working with SRMNCAH data.

Health Equity Assessment Toolkit (HEAT and HEAT Plus): This course provides a practical guide on how to use both HEAT and HEAT Plus to assess inequalities. The target audience is monitoring and evaluation officers, data analysts and other technical officers with an interest in data analysis and reporting.

We are pleased to announce that OpenWHO now has a total of 203 courses spread across 68 languages. Three new languages were launched in the last month: Bulgarian, Luo and Nigerian Pidgin. All courses can be accessed here. You can use the toolbar to filter courses by language and topic.

Marburg Virus Disease outbreak: Essential knowledge for outbreak response

Following the two simultaneous outbreaks of Marburg virus disease, one in Equatorial Guinea and in Tanzania, OpenWHO expedited the translation of its introductory Marburg course into the national and local languages of the affected regions.

The course is now available in English, French, Luo, Spanish and Swahili.

OpenWHO named 2023 Learning Platform of the Year

OpenWHO has been recognized as the Learning Platform of the Year at the 2023 Learning Awards. The awards are billed as “the highest accolade you can receive in workplace learning and development.”

The platform received recognition in view of its significant reach and impact during its first pandemic test: “We have empowered millions of people across the globe with knowledge to protect themselves and their communities, furthering WHO’s mission and establishing OpenWHO’s role as an effective knowledge-transfer platform for future pandemics,” the submission said.

As of April 2023, the OpenWHO learning platform provides more than 200 self-paced public health courses from WHO experts, including 46 for the COVID-19 pandemic, with a total of 7.6 million enrolments.

Celebrating the 75th anniversary of the World Health Organization

On 7 April 2023 - World Health Day - the World Health Organization celebrated its 75th anniversary. 75 years ago, countries of the world came together and founded WHO to promote health, keep the world safe and serve the vulnerable – so everyone, everywhere can attain the highest level of health and well-being. 

Visit the WHO 75 campaign page to learn more about this anniversary and WHO's work to achieve Health For All.

Monthly newsletter

You can access the most recent newsletter here.

Best wishes,

OpenWHO team

Please save the date for a webinar on 25 April 2023, 13:00-14:15 CET, to launch a Special Issue on Inequality in Immunization, which is newly published in the journal Vaccines.

Register for the webinar here!

Immunization has been an exemplar in global collaborative efforts to advance health and social development. It is also a cornerstone of the world’s commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals and the imperative of “leaving no one behind.” Notwithstanding critical gains made in improving immunization coverage in the past few decades, recent evidence suggests that inequities persist owing to a complex set of drivers, that are not yet fully understood. Context sensitive pathways and strategies are needed to truly universalize immunization; existing efforts do offer some insights in this regard.

Published in the international MDPI journal Vaccines, this special issue on inequalities and immunization places emphasis on dimensions of inequalities alongside drivers of inequity, while also starting to train the spotlight on pathways towards immunization equity drawing from individual country and globally networked initiatives.

The special issue has been a collaborative effort led by Ahmad Reza Hosseinpoor with Devaki Nambiar of the Department of Data and Analytics (World Health Organization), in collaboration with Carolina Danovaro-Holliday from the Department of Immunization, Vaccines, and Biologicals (World Health Organization), Hope Johnson (Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance), and Aaron Wallace (US Centres for Disease Control).

Aligned with the commemoration of World Immunization Week, the launch of this special issue includes reflection on ‘the Big Catch Up’ (this year’s theme), while also signalling the centrality of equity in meeting our global commitments to universalizing immunization.

The webinar will feature video contributions from authors of the Special issue, insights and reflections from editors, with an open session for questions and answers.

• Learn more about WHO's work on health inequality monitoring
• Access OpenWHO's learning channel for health inequality monitoring

If you would like to receive periodic emails from the WHO Health Inequality Monitoring team about events, resources and training opportunities, please sign up here.

On 7 April 2023 we are observing a milestone World Health Day: 75 years ago, countries of the world came together and founded WHO to promote health, keep the world safe and serve the vulnerable – so everyone, everywhere can attain the highest level of health and well-being. 

Visit the WHO 75 campaign page to learn more about this anniversary and WHO's work to achieve Health For All.

Learning is critical to Health For All so we also encourage you to spread the word about OpenWHO's 200+ free online courses with your networks. Wishing all our learners a happy World Health Day!

#HealthForAll #WHO75

WHO held a series of webinars in late March to outline the tools countries can use and the approaches they can take to develop Pandemic Fund proposals as part of broader national plans for health emergency preparedness, prevention and response. The full 5-day series is available on OpenWHO with computer-generated subtitles in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish, thanks to an expedited production process.

There is an urgent need for coordinated action to build stronger health systems and mobilize additional resources for health emergency preparedness, response and resilience (HEPR). This course will help countries to develop national health emergency investment plans, based on analyses of capacities, risks and vulnerabilities, to mobilize and access new sources of funding and technical support for strengthening HEPR, including from the new Pandemic Fund.

The Pandemic Fund will provide a dedicated stream of additional, long-term financing to strengthen critical HEPR capabilities in low-income and middle-income countries through investments and technical support at the national, regional and global levels.

Fully translated versions of the webinar materials will also be published on the HEPR learning channel in the coming weeks.

We know that learning is easier in your own language – That's why we are proud to have launched our 66th language on the OpenWHO platform.

Our introductory mpox course is now available in Nigerian Pidgin to support the ongoing emergency. With that, OpenWHO courses cover the 20 most-spoken languages across the globe.

Start learning in your language today!

WHO, in collaboration with UNICEF, FAO, World Bank, the Global Fund and GAVI, is holding a series of webinars 27-31 March 2023 between 12:00-14:00 CET each day to outline tools and approaches countries can take to develop Pandemic Fund proposals as part of broader national plans and priorities for health emergency preparedness, readiness and resilience (HEPR).

In order to participate, please register in advance through the following link and you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar: https://who.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_i1lVXQYMQsyfEZikXQ9sbg

You can now access our dedicated OpenWHO space that hosts recordings of the webinars, with new content released daily over 5 days. This online space was created to further support eligible countries, regional entities and implementing entities to develop full proposals for potential projects to be supported in this Pandemic Fund funding opportunity window, which is open until 19 May 2023.

This site is a space for webinar recordings and no certificates are available. This space is listed under the new HEPR learning channel: https://openwho.org/channels/hepr

The theme of World Tuberculosis (TB) Day 2023 is 'Yes! We can end TB!', which aims to inspire hope and encourage high-level leadership, increased investments, faster uptake of new WHO recommendations, adoption of innovations, accelerated action, and multisectoral collaboration to combat the TB epidemic.

As we mark World TB Day on 24 March, we invite you to join OpenWHO's free-of-charge e-courses on the End TB learning channel, featuring multiple topics linked to the implementation of the End TB Strategy. The courses are designed for specific target audiences and can be taken by the learner at their own pace.

The current courses focus on TB preventive treatment, rapid diagnostics for TB detection and drug-resistant TB treatment, amongst other topics. The following 5 additional e-courses are expected to launch in 2023: TB and mental health, screening for TB, national strategic planning for TB, and 2 courses on TB in children and adolescents.

You can learn more about World TB Day 2023 here.

Did you know that about 321 million people around the world speak French? OpenWHO wishes the entire French-speaking community an excellent French Language Day.

Learning in your own language is much easier, that's why OpenWHO, the WHO learning platform, has 79 courses on different public health topics translated into French.

Learn now on OpenWHO!

The World Health Organization’s open-access learning platform OpenWHO.org has issued a call for abstracts to identify how our learning content is used in local, national and regional contexts, and adapted for use outside the platform.

All submissions are due by 15 March 2023. Click here to learn more and submit your 150-250 word abstract.

We are particularly interested in capturing how materials have been used in workforce training and emergencies, as well as in capacity-building contexts, to prepare for or respond to disease outbreaks or health events. Abstracts that are accepted will be invited to be made into posters to be delivered at an online exhibition in July 2023.

The case studies will serve as evidence of OpenWHO use on the ground by health professionals and communities, providing examples beyond what can be captured on the platform and contributing to the body of knowledge on the multiplier effect of open online learning.

On International Women's Day, we celebrate the women learning on our free online learning platform to strengthen public health.

52% of our OpenWHO learners are women, including 60% in key courses like our COVID-19 vaccination training for health workers. You can access all courses here.

This year's International Women's Day theme is DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality. On 8 March, join the push to make the digital world safer, more inclusive and more equitable.

Inequities in sexual, reproductive, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health (SRMNCAH) throughout the world mean that certain population subgroups have systematically worse health outcomes and poorer access to services and interventions than others. Addressing inequities in SRMNCAH is central to achieving universal health coverage, protecting human rights, advancing gender equality, combating discrimination and improving the social determinants of health. Making progress in each of these areas is also vital to achieve WHO's Triple Billion targets and accelerate towards the health-related SDGs.

Regular monitoring and review of inequalities in SRMNCAH by stakeholders at regional, national and subnational levels is critical for evidence based decision making. The results of this inequality monitoring can also be used as an input (alongside other forms of knowledge and evidence) to determine where efforts and resources are needed to improve health and well-being for disadvantaged subgroups.

This informational webinar marks the release of a new WHO eLearning course: Inequality Monitoring in Sexual, Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health. The course introduces learners to a five-step approach to inequality monitoring in the context of SRMNCAH, preparing them to apply these steps across diverse contexts and settings. The two-hour, interactive eLearning course is delivered through OpenWHO.org, which hosts free, self-paced online courses on a variety of health topics.

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Launch event details

Date and time: Thursday 9 March 2023, 13:00-14:00 CET

Register here.

Agenda

Welcome: Stephen Mac Feely, Director, Department of Data and Analytics, WHO

About the eLearning course: Ahmad Reza Hosseinpoor, Lead, Health Inequality Monitoring, Department of Data and Analytics, WHO

Learner endorsements

Open session for questions: Moderated by Devaki Nambiar, Health Inequality Monitoring, Department of Data and Analytics, WHO

Closing remarks: Anshu Banerjee, Director, Department of Maternal, Newborn, Child, and Adolescent Health and Ageing, WHO and Pascale Allotey, Director, Department of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Research, WHO

Links

• Learn more about WHO's work on Health Inequality Monitoring
• Access Health Inequality Monitoring courses on OpenWHO

This course provides an overview of various methods and tools that can be used to understand emerging trends and changes with a futuristic lens and to explore their potential impacts on global public health.

Foresight creates space for thinking about new opportunities and possibilities, taking a longer-term perspective, and articulating current needs and priority actions that can be taken to shape the preferred future scenario.

Click here to join the course.

The target audiences for this course are:

• technical teams and mid- to senior-level professionals responsible for planning, prioritisation and strategy setting;
• WHO staff who plan and manage technical and operational functions; and
• all external stakeholders in global health and life science research who may benefit from the Foresight approaches.

Did you know that OpenWHO was recognized as the Learning Platform of the Year at the 2023 Learning Awards? OpenWHO was named the Gold Winner at a ceremony in London, England, on 16 February 2023. Click here for details.

The theme of this year's International Mother Language Day is “Multilingual education – a necessity to transform education”.

We are proud to offer free online courses in 65 languages to make public health knowledge accessible to as many people as possible.

Celebrate with us on 21 February! Click on the Courses button in the navigation bar and use the language filter to start learning in your language.

OpenWHO was deeply honoured to be recognized as the Learning Platform of the Year at the 2023 Learning Awards. The awards are billed as “the highest accolade you can receive in workplace learning and development.”

WHO's OpenWHO.org learning platform was named the Gold Winner at a ceremony in London, England, on 16 February 2023, after being selected as a Finalist with 7 other learning platforms. Gold is the highest level awarded and has the unanimous vote of all judges.

The award was based on a written submission, presentation and question and answer session before a judging panel, who were looking for “evidence of a platform’s alignment to a clear organisational need, stakeholder buy-in, learner engagement and adoption, and most importantly, impact on performance and what the platform has helped the organisation to achieve.”

The OpenWHO team suggested that the free online learning platform deserved recognition in view of its significant reach and impact during its first pandemic test: “We have empowered millions of people across the globe with knowledge to protect themselves and their communities, furthering WHO’s mission and establishing OpenWHO’s role as an effective knowledge-transfer platform for future pandemics,” the submission said.

As of February 2023, the OpenWHO learning platform provides nearly 200 self-paced public health courses from WHO experts, including 46 for the COVID-19 pandemic. Courses are available across 65 languages, with a total of 7.5 million enrolments.

Call for abstracts: Submit your entries for OpenWHO’s online exhibition

The World Health Organization’s open-access learning platform OpenWHO.org is issuing a call for abstracts to identify how our learning content is used in local, national and regional contexts, and adapted for use outside the platform.

We are particularly interested in capturing how materials have been used in workforce training and emergencies, as well as in capacity-building contexts, to prepare for or respond to disease outbreaks or health events. Abstracts that are accepted will be invited to be made into posters to be delivered at an online exhibition in July 2023.

All submissions are due by 15 March 2023. Click here to learn more and submit your 150-250 word abstract.

New courses on OpenWHO this month

We are pleased to announce the following courses that were recently made available:

Cholera Outbreaks: Emergency Preparedness and Response: This course outlines the objectives of a cholera outbreak response, how to detect and confirm cholera outbreaks and how to effectively organize the response including describing control measures. It also describes steps to take to be better prepared to respond to cholera outbreaks.

EWARS in a box: electronic early warning, alert and response system implementation in emergencies: This course covers all key aspects of establishing EWARS in a box, electronic early warning, alert and system in an emergency setting, providing step-by-step instructions, real-life scenarios and examples facilitating adult learning.

Neglected Tropical Diseases Monitoring and Evaluation Framework: In this course, you will be introduced to the framework for monitoring and evaluating progress against the road map for NTDs 2021-2030 targets, also called the M&E framework.

Latest WHO HIV service delivery and differentiated service delivery for HIV treatment: This webinar-based series aims to disseminate the latest WHO 2021 service delivery and differentiated service delivery recommendations and promote increased knowledge of the newest WHO HIV guidance to ensure all people living with HIV on antiretroviral treatment can access person-centred and high-quality HIV services.

We are pleased to announce that OpenWHO now has a total of 201 courses spread across 65 languages. All courses can be accessed here. You can use the toolbar to filter courses by language and topic.

New channel on Harmonized Health Facility Assessment

The Harmonized Health Facility Assessment (HHFA) channel includes training courses that prepare country stakeholders for planning and implementing a HHFA, for analysing and interpreting HHFA data, and communicating the findings. Courses are available for various target groups with different functions within the HHFA process.

The following two courses are now available on the channel:

• HHFA: Introduction

• HHFA: Data review, interpretation, and communication

Monthly newsletter

You can access the most recent newsletter here. The newsletter highlights are also available in Chinese, French, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish.

Best wishes,

OpenWHO team

The World Health Organization’s open-access learning platform OpenWHO.org is issuing a call for abstracts to identify how our learning content is used in local, national and regional contexts, and adapted for use outside the platform.

We are particularly interested in capturing how materials have been used in workforce training and emergencies, as well as in capacity-building contexts, to prepare for or respond to disease outbreaks or health events. Abstracts that are accepted will be invited to be made into posters to be delivered at an online exhibition in July 2023.

The case studies will serve as evidence of OpenWHO use on the ground by health professionals and communities, providing examples beyond what can be captured on the platform and contributing to the body of knowledge on the multiplier effect of open online learning.

All submissions are due by 15 March 2023. Click here to learn more and submit your 150-250 word abstract.