The Use of a Hybrid Model in Web-Based Education: "The Global Campus Project"

Abstract

Education is one of the key sectors that benefited from the continuous developments and innovations in information and communication technology. The changes have affected the concepts of teaching, the methodologies used in class and online and the delivery mechanisms providing multiple opportunities for educators and scholars to engage in an invaluable knowledge-based environment that represents a unique opportunity for educators and scholars around the world to benefit and excel in their disciplines. In that respect, one of the technologies stemming from the innovations in information and communication technology has been Web-based education as a medium for learning and a vehicle for information dissemination and knowledge delivery. However, Web-based education has been implemented using different methodologies to maximize the quality level, where a primary concern has always been whether Web-based education matches traditional teaching mechanisms. Covered in this chapter is the experience of the Global Campus (GC) project whose idea is the delivery of academic programs using a hybrid model of traditional and unconventional methods. The project is a collaboration between the Regional IT Institute (Egypt) and Middlesex University (United Kingdom), aiming at delivering postgraduate education to the community in Egypt, Hong Kong, and the United Kingdom, while capitalizing on cutting-edge information and communication technology. The focus in this chapter is on demonstrating the lessons learned from managing a model for a globally extended enterprise in the education sector through a partnership agreement between the different parties that capitalizes on the opportunities enabled by the Internet, which is probably the most transformative technology in history, reshaping business, media, entertainment, and society in astonishing ways but also perceived to dramatically transform the learning process.