DEMRI stands for - Development Establishment Maintenance and Refinement Institute. The DEMRI is working to develop, collect, and publish the best information and resources on education, culture, community development, policy, practice and research. The DEMRI site is a user-driven, international community where Collaboration and Open Knowledge Sharing are core concepts…

Review our Open Call at the site!

What does the DEMRI offer?
The DEMRI is striving to offer thousands of online documents to its users:

* The DEMRI will maintain an ever-growing collection of summarized, and full-text, online documents selected from more than 2,700 different publishers, and independent content providers. All documents will be available free of charge!

* DEMRI Resource Guides: Our subject-focused guides will offer quick access to key documents, organizations, research themes, discussions and other key resources

* DEMRI e-mail Newsletters: DEMRI email news services will bring the latest findings, developments and research to your e-mail-inbox on over (20) topics

* DEMRI Newsfeeds: The DEMRI site collects news from newsfeeds around the world, including meaningful Blog and Forum output. Users will soon be able to access relative news on issues facing our communities, relative to our needs. If you use an RSS news reader, you can add the DEMRI site aggregated newsfeed to your website or desktop news reader for the latest site information on over (20) topics

Registered users have access to full-featured user profiles:

* DEMRI users can control Forum settings, submit news, event information, content articles, and create public and personal blogs.

* Start a forum discussion on any Blog article in the forums with one click!

* Make connections and network with other users with similar interests.

* Track all content, blog, and forum submissions right from your user profile.

* Display a photo in your profile

* Download important resource documents and files from the download area.

* Submit web site links so other users can find important resources.

Users will soon be able to create custom, high quality slideshows to present important messages and media content. Registered users submitting quality content, news and event information will get top search engine rankings, because the DEMRI gets Top rankings in its category!

Who we are
This main DEMRI: ( http://www.demri.org/ ) site is the parent site in a family of three (3) web-based resources developed to support growth and advancement of the African diaspora. The DEMRI family of sites collectively provides a comprehensive array of knowledge services.

The DEMRI manages the new DEMRI Learning Gateway: http://www.demri.org/moodle/ , based on the internationally adopted (Moodle) platform. Moodle is an open source PHP application for producing Internet-based educational courses and Web sites on any major platform (Linux, Unix, Windows and Mac OS X). Courses are easily built up using modules such as forums, chats, journals, quizzes, surveys, assignments, workshops, resources, choices and more. Moodle supports localization (translation), and has so far been translated into 34 languages. Moodle has been designed to support modern pedagogies based on social constructionism, and focuses on providing an environment to support collaboration, connected knowing and a meaningful exchange of ideas. The Learning Gateway will also Host educational projects relevant to our goals, objectives and mission statement.

The DEMRI Portal:
http://opencourse.org/Collaboratories/demriportal/ is a complete collaborative development environment designed to support the design, development, and publishing of Reusable Learning Assets (RLA’s). The DEMRI Portal features a complete array of tools and resources, including communications facilities for co-development (collaboration) and incorporates Wiki technology into the mix also. Learning Assets created through the portal are ready to export into other Learning Content Management Systems, such as Moodle, BlackBoard, WebCT and a host of other mainstream teaching and learning environments. The DEMRI Portal project is currently hosted by Open Course, which is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), and others… The portal is also home for the new Maximum Cultural Development (MCD) concept.

We also maintain a new, and separate discussion forum from the one here at our parent site - the DEMRI Forum: http://www.demri.org/smf/ . This is a newly established communications resource (forum) where interested parties can express themselves and voice their opinions. The DEMRI Forum is a full-featured communications resource, as with all DEMRI assets. We know that our people have much to express and articulate, so we're making sure all the tools are in place...

We are a new resource, and everyone is invited to visit, and join us as we evolve into one of the Hub institutions for web-based resources supporting black communities. We are dedicated to remaining true to our mission and purpose and will not become over-commercialized. Our maintenance and content management procedures totally eliminate the potential disease of Link-Rot, which has become an epidemic among some black resource sites, were links take you blank pages… That’s what happens when you depend on someone else to do something you should be doing for yourself....

Be sure to share this information with those you feel will be interested. E-mail forwarding is a very powerful tool! You can e-mail any page on our site with just (2) clicks! All of our content pages can also be transformed into PDF format, and are printer friendly.

Thank you for taking the time to read this announcement. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions feel free to contact us through the site contact area.

Respectfully,

DEMRI Communications Manager