An integrated summary of European e-University models
(By EADTU: Piet Henderikx and George Ubachs)

Introduction

The growing demand and competition in higher education supported by the development of ICT is a challenge for many universities. Establishing consortia for using better and join intellectual and financial resources is one opportunity to be successful in this situation.

In order to provide components of an e-university model that would be relevant for different European countries, we integrate available e-learning know-how of previous successful international projects and analyse and integrate existing consortium-type e-university models from Finland (Finnish Virtual University), Sweden (Net University), Scotland (Interactive University), and Estonia (Estonian e-University).

All of these four countries are operating within a European context in which three major drivers are important for the development of higher education in the next ten years: the Bologna reform in lifelong learning context, the support of teaching and learning by ICT's, and the impact of the Knowledge Society in a competitive environment (Lisbon Strategy).

This explains for a certain degree the readiness to cooperate and to build national consortia in a European context. On the national level the readiness of cooperation is depending on:

• Funding structure of the universities (all State funded or not)

• Tradition of cooperation between universities (ability of students to take courses from other universities that are recognized in their own)

• Mutual accepted view that future society relies on highly educated people and that universities should join forces to meet the demand.

• The view that the development and exploitation/management of e-learning content and services can be better conceived and implemented in a (national) network of universities.

Clearly, we can conclude that there is not 1 consortium type e-University model. All e-University models combine elements of management and services specifically fit to their organisational and political context. To build or improve the consortium type e-University, we can learn from these four examples by looking into the details of these models and reflect on this in a wider context of institutional development of e-learning in Europe .