Matic Media Ltd

Virtual Universities and e-Universities

Analysis (including competitor research) of virtual universities is one of the core competences of Matic Media Ltd. This includes comparisons of virtual universities in more or less formal ways, up to full comparative benchmarking. The company track record – with presentations and publications – goes back to 1996 when Matic Media Ltd was founded.

Recent topical issues have been these of critical success factors and sustainability, subjects of concern to a variety of agencies as diverse as the Commonwealth of Learning (COL), the European Commission, and UNESCO. After a long period of gestation, a distillation of Paul’s views appeared in his 2005 paper for ODLAA, listed below. This work linked in 2006 with the parallel strand of work on benchmarking to lead into the work for Swiss Virtual Campus on “benchmarking national e-learning programmes”, also listed below.

Publications and reports

Lessons to be learned from the failure of the UK e-University [PDF], in: “Breaking Down Boundaries”, ODLAA conference, Brisbane, 9-11 November 2005 – a version also to be published in a book Breaking down Boundaries: Global perspectives in Open and Distance Learning associated with the conference
The UKeU Reports Round One [HTM intro to a series of DOC files] (Foreword, 12 Reports and 12 associated Annexes), edited by Paul Bacsich, September 2005
Editor’s Introduction to “Competitor Analysis: Interactive University” (commissioned by Paul Bacsich, completed by Sara Frank Bristow in January 2004), Report 06 [DOC] of The UKeU Reports Round One, September 2005
UKeU Overview [DOC], in: The UKeU Reports Round One, July 2005
Report on IPR in e-learning: A case study of the Middlesex Global Campus (authored jointly with Walaa Bakry and members of the IPR team) [DOC], January 2005
The e-University Compendium Volume One (Front Matter, 23 chapters including one specially-commissioned introductory chapter, Gazetteer, etc) [DOC and PDF formats], edited by Paul Bacich, assisted by Sara Frank Bristow, Higher Education Academy, September 2004
Introduction to Virtual Universities and e-Universities [DOC and PDF], in: The e-University Compendium Volume One, August 2004
Gazetteer – of e-Universities; e-Colleges (Non-Degree Programmes); Service Providers, Brokers, Portals, Meta-consortia, etc.; Associations with an Interest in e-Learning, but not Primarily Oriented to Delivery of e-Learning; Quality and Accrediting Agencies; Virtual Universities which are not yet e-Universities; Some Centres of e-University Research; No Longer Active; and Learning Platforms [DOC and PDF formats], in: The e-University Compendium Volume One
Virtual University and e-university developments in the U.K., presentation to the conference “The Wanderstudent 2000: (the Wanderstudent of 1425 revived in virtual reality in 2000? towards a European Virtual University)”, Leuven, October 2000 – see the KU Leuven catalogue entry for a summary of and bibliographic data on the Proceedings
Planning and Costing Virtual Universities. Paper given at Euro-Med '99, October 1999
Re-Engineering the Campus with Web and Related Technology for the Virtual University: Insights from my work in Europe analysed in the context of developments in the US - Part 1 (January 1998) and Part 2 (March 1998) – this is a two-part sequel to the pair of articles below
Virtual Universities: Part 1 (September 1996), and Part 2 (February 1997) [note the benchmarking aspects of the latter]
(with Robin Mason) Report of North American Study Visit: A personal account, November 1995 [variants of the ur-document behind this appeared in several forms in EADTU and Open University reports including a KMI Technical Report]

Presentations

How successful is Swiss Virtual Campus? Benchmarking with other national programs, presentation given to the Swiss Virtual Campus “SVC days” workshop, Basle, 13-14 March 2006
Quality-driven innovation: case study of the UK e-University, invited presentation to EFQUEL conference, Berlin, 29-30 November 2005
UKeU – lessons to be learned (for the UK), presentation to Digital South Yorkshire e-Learning SIG, 25 October 2005
State of the Art in large-scale e-learning in HE: Methodological, teaching and research challenges, presentation to “E-learning Theory and Practice” one-day conference, Middlesex University, 22 March 2005
Rescuing the “e-University” concept: earlier work on critical success factors revisited, with particular reference to Hong Kong, invited presentation at the Hong Kong Open University, 20 May 2004
Rescuing the “e-University” concept: Earlier work on Critical Success Factors revisited, invited presentation to “Campus Futurus” workshop, Oulu University, 22 March 2004
e-learning markets and prices, invited presentation to the CIPFA conference “Financial considerations for e-learning projects”, Birmingham, March 2004
e-Learning in Higher Education, invited presentation to Ramkhamhaeng University, Bangkok, 27 February 2002, sponsored by British Council
Selection of Web-based tools for global e-Universities, and implications for WWW research, invited presentation to the Hong Kong Web Symposium and joint track with WWW10, Hong Kong, 1-5 May 2001
Planning and Costing Virtual Universities. presentation given at Euro-Med '99, October 1999

Background

The topic of virtual universities started at about the same time as Matic Media Ltd. It was in June 1996 that Robin Mason (now Professor Robin Mason) and Paul Bacsich arranged, at very short notice, a session on the topic at the Ed-Media/Ed-Telecom confeference in Boston. This was followed by a workshop on Virtual Universities at Online Educa at Berlin in November 2006 and the topic featured largely in the Sheffield conference “Flexible Learning on the Information SuperHighway” (FLISH) in May 1997. Shortly after it became a business interest for Matic Media Ltd as well as a research interest. A series of reports for EU, UNESCO, HEFCE and others were done, some via Matic Media Ltd, some via university routes.

Lists of e-Universities

There is relatively up to date (as of Summer 2004) list of e-universities in the e-University Compendium Gazetteer [DOC and PDF]. This was done in bidirectional consultation with UNESCO IIEP, who have a similar list. However, note that the Gazetteer contains several other categories of material.