PEOI needs courses in all professional fields. The work of a course author is entirely web based with the help of procedures in the "Authors" section. The Authors section also has a description of the structure of a course with its different types of files. All courses have the same file structure so that procedures such as testing can function effectively for every course.

Before starting writing a course with PEOI procedures, the structure of files must exist. This file structure is created once the author submits the list of chapters. The file structure of a fundamental course is different from the structure of a professional course (as explained in Authors section) in that each chapter of fundamental courses has just one file while a chapter of a professional course is divided into sections and subsections. In addition, a fundamental course has just one assignment file for each chapter, whereas a professional course has cases and exercises in addition to assignments. In all cases the starting point of all courses is the submission of a list of chapters.

To use PEOI procedures, an author must registered as such with the registration procedure in "Authors" section. Then, the Edit text or Edit question procedures give access to all course material in all languages. Note that an author must sign in each time before using the Edit procedures.

Once in the Edit procedure, the content of a chapter appears in TEXTAREA where the text is to be entered avoiding as much as possible disturbing the HTML tags present in the TEXTAREA. Below the TEXTAREA, the same text is shown as it will appear to students. After completing writing and making any/all corrections in the TEXTAREA, the button "Save" is clicked to save the text in a temporary directory. After an entire chapter is finished, the author is expected to notify PEOI by email that the chapter is finished and can be moved to its regular directory. The "Notify that work is completed" button can be used for that purpose.

When a chapter must contain pictures or other graphics, they must be emailed to PEOI as an attachment preferably in the .gif format. Once uploaded to the server, the author will be notified of the syntax to use in the text for the picture to appear. Authors are free to configure the text they wish, keeping in mind the need to preserve the PEOI logo and link, the copyright claim and the links on the bottom of each page. Placing text prepared in an HTML editor clearly saves on subsequent reconfiguration of the text and assures that the text has the appearance the author wishes it to have. It is recommended that the HTML code be as streamlined as possible because of slow web connection in developing countries where the majority of PEOI students are located. The recommended HTML editor is PageMill. HTML editors that imbed stylesheets are especially discouraged.

Please bring your skills to help millions of disadvantaged students all over the world, who do not have access to traditional education because of where they live, time constraints or insufficient income. Thank you for your interest.

All tasks can be carried out from home on your own computer and at your own time. Volunteers can join in forum discussions of issues of common interest. Registration is necessary to participate in a forum. New volunteers are invited to register as volunteer staff members. For more details, pease write a short message indicating the volunteer opportunity you are interested in, attach a recent resume, and email to appropriate person in contact information.

To ask questions, and to offer your comments, criticism or suggestion, please mailto:peoi@peoi.org .