HOW DOES THE NOTION OF PARTNERING WITH THE FOR-PROFIT SECTOR AND/OR NON-PROFIT INSTITUTIONS FIT IN WITH YOUR DISTANCE-EDUCATION EFFORTS?

HOW DOES THE NOTION OF PARTNERING WITH THE FOR-PROFIT SECTOR AND/OR NON-PROFIT INSTITUTIONS FIT IN WITH YOUR DISTANCE-EDUCATION EFFORTS?

Although every institution we talked with had some sort of partnership plans in development or current partnerships in effect, the strongest advocate for partnering on numerous levels was Michigan State University (see Magid’s response ). Many of the others also had deals in the making in which the parties involved could not be revealed because the proverbial dotted line had not been signed. Heeger explained that the reason for such nondisclosure and sluggishness in putting together a possible partnership deal is that building agreements with the for-profit sector, in particular, poses significant challenges. "You’re dealing with very different cultures and very different legal environments," he said. "Making sure that you can make these two different environments and cultures match is a difficult task." Heeger added that the typical rules and regulations of a state institution can easily clash with the rules and regulations of a public company, resulting in an overall complex working environment.

Magid: We start from a perspective that we are only going to develop programs in subject matter areas where MSU has real expertise. By limiting ourselves to a finite number of programs, we know we will come into situations where a client, whether it’s a public client or a private client or an overseas university, may need a more robust line of program offerings. And that is where partnering with other universities becomes so critical - where we can offer the full suite of activities to a client. We think that by taking that approach, it makes us a very appealing partner with other universities. We also believe in alliances with the private sector that allow us to develop more of a robust distribution network. We (MSU Global Online Connection) are not building a direct sales force, so we want to rely upon business channel distribution partners. Whether it is the World Bank, whether it’s the U.S. government, or whether it’s a private company, we are very keen to partner in terms of both distribution and potentially outsourcing some of the operational aspects of our activity. We view partnerships as absolutely essential to develop the kind of global reach we want to have and, frankly, to generate the kind of economic margins that we need to have. . . We are engaged in discussions with a number of universities (private and public) and some private vendors. We have signed memorandums of agreements with a number of foreign universities where we have committed jointly to develop and distribute online education programs. We are also starting to actively seek partnerships with professional organizations that want to provide online professional development opportunities to their members.

Kasta: We’ve created something called COHERE (Canada’s Collaboration for Online Higher Education and Research, www.cohere.ca). I originally envisioned it as a collaboration of universities to share resources related to the development of online courses. So we began with that and we began reaching out with other partners across the country. And then we said if this is going to be distinctive, it should be a collaboration of leading Canadian research universities, so we put the research function in there. This group has been clicking along rather nicely. But when you are trying to do things with eight institutions nationally, you can imagine that there are lots of things that you have to talk about. So we have a research agenda; we have an evaluation agenda; and the programs and courses share common education values - inquiry-based learning, critical reflection, exploring new knowledge, developing research skills - things that are common to research universities but may not be up front at other institutions. We are looking to do some exciting things with this.