Hafidha Okbi

This course gave me the tools needed to improve the cold chain management, it was interesting, excellent, and a very good opportunity to share experience and to learn from mentors and colleagues around the world. I really enjoyed and found it very useful, with a great use of practical case studies, videos, examples and discussions. The knowledge and skills of the mentors and standards of facilitation for the e-learning course were amazing. In summary, it was perfect, and exceeded my expectations and I hope to keep in touch with all mentors and participants in the future.

Andrey Kukharenko

I was lucky to become part of the e-learning course on Cold Chain Management in October-December 2013. It was my first experience of online training, but I was amazed how smooth and exciting the course was and how professionally it was arranged and executed. I am convinced that the course gave all of us a new insight in the most relevant issues of cold chain management and helped us to take a closer look at how the cold chain is structured and how it is to be managed. The course is designed as a friendly-user platform with a number of very well formulated authentic tasks, an extensive e-library and a package of extremely helpful video case studies and video presentations devoted to specific subjects. The course introduces the participants to a variety of practical tools, which help to approach the cold chain tasks and to tackle them in a more efficient and adequate way. I also appreciated the devotion of mentors to the course, who provided their feed-back, support and professional comment at all stages. I would recommend all professionals who seek to gain a more profound knowledge and expertise in cold chain management that they take this course and feel the incredible positive impact, which among other things reveals itself in tuning your mind at different angles of vision and seasoning your work with a set of very useful techniques and instruments of managing the cold chain. I cordially thank all mentors, designers and arrangers of the course for their outstanding job.

Andrea Berlinger Schwyter

I would like to make a big compliment to the whole EPELA Team and Creators! The way it is set up is very easy, instructions are clear and I appreciated the direct links to the movies and documents which were relevant to fulfill a particular task. The library is amazing… really - you do not need anything more if you want to learn more about cold chain.

The videos are excellent and one of the biggest advantages of the course for me was, that – if I did not understand a sentence or an explanation, I was able to "rewind" and listen to it again. Just perfect and ideal for learning complex topics - in particular if English is not your mother tongue… pity that we cannot do that at other occasions in real life – perhaps less misunderstandings would occur J. I can only highly recommend the participation to this course for anyone who needs to get more knowledge and gain critical skills about cold chain issues in general – if you deal with vaccines - it is almost a must.

Anil Kumar Chawla

Facebook created a near perfect virtual environment for social interactions.

While attending WHO training programmes as a facilitator or participant, I always dreamt of such an environment for training activities so that I could avoid travelling when it is not possible. Alas! I missed so many opportunities because of the need of physical presence and compelling schedules.

With this "e-Pharmaceutical Cold Chain Management Course" and my "Test Participation" in it, I am happy that my dream is shaping up and coming true. E-course did not only fit the "Training Bus" into the computer but also our minds and body too.

Congratulation to Training Team for putting together such a wonderful e-course in the first attempt itself

Thomas C. Reeves

The authenticity of the learning experience was foremost in our thoughts when we began to design this course and it has remained so until this day. After all, we are trying to replicate online the experiential learning that has occurred for several years in the innovative "Pharmaceutical Cold Change Management On Wheels" course.¹ Previous participants in what came to be known as "the bus course" experienced firsthand the challenges of managing a pharmaceutical cold chain as they traveled around Turkey together with a team of expert mentors.The formal visits to different types of pharmaceutical facilities and the informal gatherings on the bus, during meals, and in the evenings fostered a unique learning community. We knew it would be difficult, but we have never wavered in our collective belief that we could approximate this same learning community through e-learning.² We know we won't realize this vision the first time the course is launched, but by testing, refining, and retesting the course, we'll eventually achieve our goals. In the process, we'll also identify a set of design characteristics that will guide future efforts to provide authentic experiential learning online at the World Health Organization and elsewhere.

¹Vesper, J., Kartoğlu, Ü., Bishara, R., & Reeves, T. C. (2010). A case study in experiential learning: "Pharmaceutical Cold Chain Management on Wheels." Journal of Continuing Education in the Health Professions, 30(4), 229-236.

²Herrington, J., Reeves, T. C., & Oliver, R. (2010). A guide to authentic e-learning. New York: Routledge.