Friday, June 16, 2000

9 Universities Collaborate on Online Instruction in Asia By GEOFFREY MASLEN Melbourne, Australia Nine universities on four continents are collaborating with a company that produces technology for distance education on a venture called the Global University Alliance, which will offer graduate and professional courses online in Asia. Participating institutions are Athabasca University, in Canada; Auckland University of Technology, in New Zealand; Chung Yuan Christian University, in Taiwan; Hogeschool Brabant International Business School, in the Netherlands; R.M.I.T. University, formerly the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology; the Rochester Institute of Technology; the Universities of Derby and Glamorgan, in Britain; and the University of South Australia. The universities' partner in the Global Education Alliance, which is being set up as a company in Hong Kong, is NextEd, an online-education company. April Swando Hu, vice president of NextEd, will head the venture, which will use NextEd's technology for Internet-based instruction. An additional three to six universities, most likely in Asia, are expected to join the alliance after it is formally launched, in Hong Kong in October. Students will be able to enroll at that time. Students will pay $4,000 for the equivalent of a year of full-time graduate study. The Asian market for graduate and professional education -- including business courses -- could be worth as much as $10-billion annually, Ms. Hu said in a press release. David Beanland, vice chancellor of R.M.I.T. University, declined to say how much money each university was putting into the alliance. But he said the venture was not meant to make a profit. "While we don't want to run at a loss, the ethos is really about how we can educate more people using the new technology in new ways to improve the effectiveness of education," Mr. Beanland said. A student will apply for admission to one of the universities in the alliance but will be able to take courses from any participating institution and earn academic credit at the home university. Easy-to-print version E-mail this article

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