The CANDI project will develop both the infrastructure for e-Learning / Retraining, and the skills necessary to transfer existing courses and curricula to an e-Learning environment. The project is set up in a way to address multiple problems simultaneously:

(a) CANDI will help to educate large numbers of students.

(b) CANDI will help to narrow the gap between the education level in central universities and the provinces.

(c) CANDI will train the local university staff in systematic and effective use of e-Learning, presentation technology, and related didactic skills.

(d) Importantly, CANDI will use e-Learning not only to teach students, but also to teach university staff, in particular at institutions in provincial cities.

(e) CANDI will support the retraining of industry staff. On the other hand, CANDI will also open opportunities for industry to deliver applied courses and lectures to a university audience.

(f) CANDI will employ cheap open source solutions for e-Learning.

(g) CANDI will have a pilot phase where existing courses from European partners will be transferred into the e-Learning framework. Since these courses will reflect the state of the art in their respective areas (mostly Computer Science, Chemistry, Computational Science, Chemistry, Chemical Technology, Soft Skills), they will by their nature improve the quality of the curricula inside and outside of e-Learning.

(h) CANDI will improve the English and soft skill knowledge of all participants, thereby improving the ability of Central Asian staff to achieve sustainability by international grants.

For practical reasons, electronic modules within CANDI will be based on courses delivered in a curriculum that has been developed by a predecessor TEMPUS project, namely CD-JEP 25221-2004 COCUZ (Oct. 2005 to Dec. 2008).