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The Open University of Catalonia as a Virtual University
Abstract
Electronic Web-based campus information systems and e-learning educational delivery became increasingly important for higher education practice in the late 20th and early 21st century (Bates, 2000; Cobarsí, 2005). These emergent information technologies brought about changes in the traditional face-to-face campus and paper-based communication and teaching (Brown & Duguid, 2000). There are several trends in the introduction of information technology in universities that can be summarised into three main types (Duderstadt, 2000; Folkers, 2005). Firstly, most universities gradually adopted electronic campus information systems and e-learning to reinforce functionalities offered by their physical campus, with no intention of substituting the traditional campus but simply to strengthen their capabilities. Secondly, other institutions, the so-called first generation distance universities, had no physical campus from the very beginning, such as the institutions founded in the 1970s: the British Open University http://www3.open.ac.uk or Spain’s Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia http://www.uned. es/portal/index.htm. Thus, they incorporated electronic media to complement their usual means of communication by post or periodical face-to-face tuition. Thirdly, the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (Open University of Catalonia, hereinafter the OUC) is a quite different case: it was created from the very beginning (the academic year 1995-1996) as a wholly e-learning and Internet-based higher education institution, where a virtual campus with wide-ranging functionalities supports most of the day-to-day activities. As a result of these original premises, this university has some important organizational and information system features, which are summarised and discussed in the sections below, from the chronological perspective offered by its having been in operation for 10 years.
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