Introduction to Virtual Universities and e-Universities

The author's introduction (section 1 of the chapter) notes:

This short chapter introduces all the chapters in this volume of the e-University Com-pendium. Since the remaining two chapters of the first part of the compendium are themselves of an introductory/overview nature, we felt it best to put all the introductory material into the first part.

The chapter is structured as follows. This section is a brief introduction. The second section gives an overview of the theory of virtual universities and e-universities and attempts to clarify our usage of the terms. The third section gives an overview of the chapters, in an expanded table of contents. The fourth section gives a “helicopter view” of the world of e-universities. The fifth section considers a thematic approach to the material, and links forward to sections, subsections and “objects” within the chapters. The sixth section gives an overview of the currently popular topic of Critical Success Factors for e-universities. Finally there is a short section with some suggestions for further reading. There is no appendix to this chapter.

All sections will give numerous forward references to relevant chapters and sections. To avoid clutter in this introductory chapter, there will be no use of URLs in the text (except for section 7) and the only scholarly apparatus will be a few endnotes, mainly for references.

The chapter is based on work that the author has carried out over the 2000–01 period and so comes from the same time period as the remaining reports in the compendium. Where newer material is mentioned, this will be pointed out.

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