The eLearning process was held under the leadership of tutors, experienced teachers from Dnipropetrovsk Regional Institute of Public Administration, who had designed the curriculum.

The program of the e-course, which lasted 6 weeks (October 28 - December 6), covered the following topics: innovation in local self-government, basics of project analysis, project planning, project budgeting, monitoring and evaluation of projects’ implementation.

The participants have learned about such issues as the provisions of the Concept of Local Self-Government Reform in Ukraine; the role of project approach in achieving strategic goals of territory development; typical errors in determining the innovativeness of a project; the nature of project analysis as a methodology, method and technique; the role of the manager and the project team; the main stages of project planning; principles and stages of project budgeting; specifics of financial justification of project costs; peculiarities of taking tax legislation into consideration while budgeting; approaches to assessing the success of management in the new public management and approaches to evaluating the success of a project; specifics of M&E of the project implementation process.

Since its first piloting in 2012, the e-course program has been modified every time according to the target groups’ needs assessment. This approach encouraged many participants to take part in the eLearning course once again, and there is already a group of persons who have taken part in this e-course twice or even three times. Besides, the organizers involve the most active eLearning participants from previous years as facilitators – people who support the atmosphere of a community during the learning process, professional communication, and interaction of e-course participants among themselves and with experts.

In addition to the traditional for e-courses testing knowledge on a specific topic, practical tasks and educational forums for discussing topics under consideration according to the program, the participants had an opportunity to communicate with experts in the special category “Expert Room”. Experts conducted discussions and provided consultations on the following topics: decentralization of public administration, projects as a systematic means of implementing strategic priorities, modern aspects of personnel (HR) management in public authorities and in projects, how to succeed in project management in modern conditions.

The introduction of forums “Legal Advice Bureau” was the innovation of the e-course “Management of Local and Regional Development Projects – 3” back in 2013, and these have been expanded during the course of this year. The possibility of obtaining legal advice on the application of anti-corruption legislation in the public service, issues of land law, legal aspects of the disposal of communal property of local communities were of particular interest.

L. Pasiechnikova, a participant of the e-course “Management of Local and Regional Development Projects – 4”, has mentioned: “It is a pity that such a course as “Project Management” is not mandatory in all universities, because our life is increasingly involving various people, regardless of their profession, into projects”.

The peculiarity of eLearning on the web-platform of the Community of Practices “Innovations and Best Practices of Local Self-Government”, which is located in the Internet at: mx.despro.org.ua:8081 and where the e-course took place, is that the Community of Practices does not stop communication following the completion of the e-course. In the section IdeaLab: Laboratory of Best Practices of Local Self-Government the participants continue to communicate and everyone interested can register in the Community at any time (there is all necessary information regarding registration at the specified address) and participate in thematic discussions in the IdeaLab in the following forums: reform of housing and public utilities system, modernization of engineering infrastructure; development and implementation of projects and programs on energy efficiency, ecology; educational, scientific and informational support of local self-government development, and others. Access to the forums “Expert Room” and “Legal Advice Bureau” also remains in the section IdeaLab (the forums are active only during the e-course, but there is an opportunity to learn from the discussions that took place, and perhaps to find answers to your questions).

IdeaLab currently has over 2 thousand participants – You are welcome to join it!