Computer/Web-based Russian Course Development Project

[Sibelan Forrester]

To everyone interested in Ralph Todhunter's project on Russiain teaching,
here is an additional message from Mr Todhunter.  The original
announcements are reproduced below for anyone who missed them:

     This Wednesday, Sept 2nd, we have an important meeting with our
client to discuss the project.  It would be very helpful if I had to
hand for this meeting as many of the Resumes and/or CVs as possible of
any people who are or may be interested in participating as subject
matter experts on the project.  Some have already done so, but due to
the short time frame before the meeting I wanted to encourage interested
people to email and/or fax AS SOON AS POSSIBLE their Resume/CV to me at
rmtod at home.com/ as well as rmtod at onsitegroup.com/, or to fax at
(949)830-6384. Those who for any reason are unable to email or fax these
items, can mail or overnite them to Attention: Ralph Todhunter, OnSite
Technical Group Intl.,  22471 Aspan, Suite 205-F, Lake Forest, CA 92630.


I am looking for one to three individuals who are expert asteachers of the
Russian language to English speaking people.  This for a special project
(not volunteer and well paid) opportunity involving theauthoring of a brand
new course designed for incorporation into computer-based and on-line
web-based training media. The persons need not haveany expertise in
multimedia authoring.       If you could direct me to any such individuals
and/or certainlikely key resource pools for this kind of person, it would
be greatlyappreciated.     Please respond not to this originating email
address, but rather tomy email address at work as follows:
rmtod at onsitegroup.com/ .  You mayalso call if you wish by phone toll free
to (888)838-7483.       Again, thank you for any assistance you can provide
in this matter.            Best Regards,      Ralph Todhunter      Onsite
Technical Group, Intl.

Here is some more information about the project for those potentially
interested in participating:  We envision maybe one PhD and the rest to be
teachers, (graduate students or otherwise). The primary qualification is
simply the expertise. It could be a small team of, say, 3 people working
full time, or it could be a team twice or possibly even 3 times as large
working parttime. It could also be a combination of both, ie. some part
time andsome full time.  The main controlling factor on the above will be
availability of persons most qualified to do the job.  We are expecting
that it will be most feasible to have a larger team of say 5 to 8 who will
all be part time, as those most qualified will almost certainly already be
employed full time in their existing jobs.     We also believe there would
be a production advantage if the team of experts already live in
geographical proximity to one another so as to operate optimumly and easily
as a production team.  Selection of team members would best be accomplished
by one familiar with all the different candidates, with an eye towards
putting together the best combination of individuals to accomplish the
task.     We envision one of the team members to be designated as the team
leader for project management and coordination purposes, who would serve as
the primary liaison between his/her team and ourselves during the course of
the project.  As the entire group of personnel on the project will be at 3
or 4 different areas of the country, in-person meetings of the entire
project team, ie. your subject matter experts and ourselves, would occur
occasionally but the bulk of such interaction would be by video
conferencing from desktop computer to desktop computer, with cameras and
audio and email, which we would most likely provide if the team members do
not have all the parts of that equipment.     As I indicated in my memo
yesterday,  the project essentially involves the authoring and production
of a computer-based (CD Rom) and web-based on-line course to teach
beginning through intermediate level Russian language skills (including
30,000 words vocabulary) to English speaking people.  The team of subject
matter experts will produce the raw content (in word processing form) which
we will then work with to produce the standalone multimedia courseware
product.  This product will contain text, graphics, video and audio
combined as the medium of presentation and student interaction. When
complete, thousands of people will be making use of this product to learn
to speak the Russian language.     We estimate that the project should
commence in 2-3 months and take approximately a year and a half to
complete.  So we are working to get all teams in place as soon as possible.
The client will be paying us at certain pre-determined project milestones,
so we will likewise prefer to pay all team members pre-determined sums at
those same milestones.  Payment amounts have not yet been determined as we
are still doing all the costing for the overall project, but it will be
reasonable and satisfactory.     I hope that answers some of your initial
questions.  If you or anyone else reading this believe that you have a
potential team, would personally like to participate in the project, or can
further direct me in this matter,or if you have further questions, please
contact me atrmtod at onsitegroup.com  or call me toll-free at (888)838-7483.
If you call and I am out, please leave a message and I will get back to you
as soon as I can.  If you semd me email, please send it to both my
addresses, rmtod at home.com and rmtod at onsitegroup.com/.  We are looking
forward to hearing any and all interested parties!   Best Regards, Ralph
Todhunter