Strategic alliances in education: the knowledge engineering web

Abstract

The field of higher education shows a jumble of alliances between fellow institutes. The alliances are strategic in kind and serve an economy‐of‐scales concept. A large scale is a prerequisite for allocating the budgets for new educational methods and technologies in order to keep the educational services up‐to‐date. All too often, however, strategic alliances remain no more than dead letters, fêted by boards of management, but lacking innovative power. The current paper reviews the K‐Web case, one of few successful strategic alliances in education in the Netherlands. The K‐Web alliance started in 1997 and aimed at a joint development of digitized learning materials in the domain of knowledge engineering. At its start five universities in the Netherlands were involved; in 2002 more universities joined the alliance. Based on the K‐Web case, this paper identifies and explains the critical factors for successful co‐operation and proposes a number of guidelines for making strategic alliances work. The guidelines involve issues on governance, project management, the partners' autonomies, conflicting pedagogies and conflicting technologies. The K‐Web strategy seems to indicate a passable route, which may be helpful for other alliances.

Notes

* Corresponding author: Educational Technology Expertise Centre, Open University of the Netherlands, P.O. Box 2960, 6401 DL Heerlen, The Netherlands.Email: [email protected]

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Wim Westera 1*

* Corresponding author: Educational Technology Expertise Centre, Open University of the Netherlands, P.O. Box 2960, 6401 DL Heerlen, The Netherlands.Email: [email protected]