University Teaching as E-Business?
Research and Policy Agendas

October 2001 Meeting

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Introduction and Overview

Our original intent with the University Teaching as e-Business research project was to begin to bring some order to the myriad on-line ventures in which both new and old higher education providers were engaging. Our focus has been on the placement of research universities, as initiators and respondents, in this universe. We were especially interested to see whether, with discussion and analysis, we could define a common language and reveal underlying patterns that would be useful for higher education decision-makers and scholars alike. At the peak of the confusing dot.com frenzy, in 1999, these concerns seemed especially timely. Needless to say, the landscape shifted as much between 2000 and our October 2001 meeting as it had in the few years prior to 1999. It is just this rapid pace of change -- in business models, technologies, stakeholder demands and attitudes--that drove our original interest in issues of typology, categorization, and conceptual models. Cataloguing these shifts and rapidly disseminating our work has been an important goal of this project. The progress we have made to date is reflected in the materials and papers on this website.

Background

With generous support from the A.W. Mellon and Hewlett Foundations, we held a number of planning meetings in early 2001 (March 2001 Meeting Summary) . It was clear from these meetings that there were five broad areas that were in need of further exploration and discussion:

• The tensions between economics, education, and culture.
• The costs, benefits, and risks of e-learning ventures to the institution.
• The factors that influence decision making, including how to define niche and determine viable structures for e-learning ventures.
• The placement of e-learning initiatives within or outside of the institution, as reflected by the array of business models that are currently available.
• The establishment of a common conceptual framework and the fleshing out of a possible future research agenda.

As preparation for the October meeting, we assembled:

1. Background readings;
2. Twelve detailed case studies ; and
3. A Typology Overview for Organizational and Funding Models in E-Learning (PDF document)

Participants

(Complete list of meeting participants)

The October meeting assembled a stellar group for discussions of specific areas in more depth. The diversity of views represented at this meeting raised fresh questions and possible new solutions to understanding the significant external and internal pressures facing universities in the marketplace for higher education. We were not interested in facilitating conversations among like-minded individuals, as the complexity of the questions being asked demands multidimensional and interdisciplinary approaches. Instead, we insisted on involving a mix of experts with backgrounds in ICT research and implementation, higher education administration, social science scholarship, foundation program development, and entrepreneurship. In that we succeeded admirably.

Saul Fisher’s background paper, Teaching and Technology: Promising Directions for Research on OnlineLearning and Distance Education in the Selective Institutions provided an essential scaffolding for many of our discussions. Not only did we focus on what we knew, but we spent a significant amount of time exploring what we needed to know, and how we might develop methodologies for knowing it. As you read the proceedings, you will see that the theme of potential future research agendas appears again and again.

Proceedings

After reviewing the transcripts of the meeting, we decided that their high quality warranted asking individual authors and respondents to review and revise their contributions in light of the discussions. The results of their efforts form the basis of this collection. Although both they and we have done significant editing of the original transcripts, we did not attempt to force the papers into one editorial style; rather, each represents the style and perspective of its author. Some authors chose to rework their talks into formal papers, and some authors chose the extemporaneous tone that emerged on the transcripts. In some cases, authors also integrated the Q&A sessions into their talks.

We thank all of the authors for their contributions and for generously agreeing to include them on this site. Additional editing of the proceedings has been provided by Shannon Lawrence, the assistant director of the HEDA project, and by Jenny L. White.

View Meeting Proceedings