Keywords

Introduction

University and college systems, as well as governmental, parastatal, and inter-governmental organizations, are undertaking large and small-scale projects to implement online learning through partnerships, alliances, or collaborative ventures with increasing frequency. The objective is often focused on a common educational activity, leveraging each partner’s comparative advantage, and pooling resources to achieve a common goal in the form of curriculum reform, technological application, and programmatic diversity. In many cases, stakeholders work together to support corresponding policy goals usually informed by economic priorities.

In this chapter, we focus on partnerships that are centered on widening access to quality learning and realized through the application of information and communications technologies (ICT). In these contexts, academic, social, or workplace development needs frequently motivated partners to engage in such collaborative initiatives, with the impetus arising from systemic pressures to:

  • More fully utilize public education opportunities

  • Provide increased access to higher education, adult education, and lifelong learning opportunities for underserved populations

  • Increase learner mobility, upskilling, or reskilling for dynamic employment environments

While the long-term success of such ventures is largely unproven, and their downstream sustainability remains terrain to be explored, there is continuing evidence of governmental support for collaborative initiatives that broaden access to education. The examples provided in this chapter will describe and discuss research and practice specific to collaborations and partnerships in education and delivered through ICT applications. We use the following topics to provide background for discussion.

  • The nature of collaborations and partnerships: propositional (Cardell, 2003), cooperative (Todeva & Knoke, 2005), mutual service alliances (Eckel & Hartley, 2008), and others that may be extant in the academic or business realms.

  • Discussion of partnerships, collaborations, and alliances in the Global South and Global North and their relationship to strategic success factors with short case studies drawn from the following entities:

    • Commonwealth of Learning: Regional Centres (Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, Mediterranean, and South Pacific) (Perris & McGreal, 2021)

    • Partnership for Enhanced and Blended Learning (PEBL) in East African universities (UK Aid, 2021)

    • BCcampus (2012, 2014)

    • eCampusOntario (Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario, 2020)

  • Discussion and focus on factors that promote sustainability or facilitate strategic “pivots” to account for emergent issues or new priorities of institutions and governments that can be served effectively by collaborations or partnerships

To delineate on the case study examples presented in this chapter, we offer a brief overview of several types of partnerships in the literature and then apply them to the aforementioned entities to deepen understanding on how partnerships may form, demonstrate value, and can be sustained.

Types of Partnerships and Collaborations

Propositional Collaborations

When a collaboration or partnership is developed to capitalize on perceived opportunities that are not yet proven, the term used by Cardell (2003) is “propositional.” That is, there is a set of factors in the context of proposed partner operations that is seen to align to offer new possibilities of interest to each stakeholder. An example in higher education is the branch campus, defined as an institution, usually from a country in the Global North, setting up a campus in a country in the Global South. For the institution, it enhances its international footprint, enables faculty exchanges and networking, and provides an additional revenue stream. For the hosting country, the branch campus addresses and fulfills unmet demand for higher learning, provides quality education that is usually recognized domestically, and enables local faculty to gain international experience in the home context. In this example, though not necessarily exclusive to propositional collaborations, the goals of each entity are not necessarily aligned but are complementary.

Cooperative

The cooperative approach implies a level of commitment by individual participants through an equal stake in the governance of the partnership and established processes for membership, participation, and the setting and amending of the rules of engagement. It is considered a democratic model of collaboration. Unlike the example of a branch campus as a propositional collaboration where roles and goals are largely distinct, a cooperative approach reflects the need to innovate toward a product in which both, or all entities may benefit, and all stakeholders participate in a democratic decision-making process to ensure outcomes are truly congruent with the majority’s needs.

Mutual Service Alliances

Mutual service alliances require the least amount of commitment from the collaboration. This type of partnership can be characterized as participants engaged in an arrangement that provides content, service, and support at a lower cost or with lower overhead than what might be expected participating in the same service as a singular entity. One example might be the development of a policy brief by a hosting organization that would provide value to a receiving organization. Another might be a shared service where multiple organizations share the cost of an online application by aggregating participants among institutions to lower the cost of service for all. Mutual service alliances are becoming a common way to arrange for cost-effective services to meet a community need.

Examples of Collaborations and Partnerships in Practice: Formation, Value, and Sustainability

In this section, four case studies are be presented, drawn from Canadian and transnational arrangements. The aforementioned partnership and collaboration types will be aligned to a given case study to illustrate how partnerships and collaborations in postsecondary education may develop and evolve, and how they can be sustained.

Commonwealth of Learning: Regional Centres

Established in 1987, the Commonwealth of Learning (COL) is an intergovernmental organization located in Metro Vancouver, Canada. COL’s mandate is to engage in capacity building (e.g., workshops), advocacy (e.g., thought leadership), networking (e.g., holding and attending events), and partnerships.

Profile

The 54 member states of the Commonwealth are clustered in Sub-Saharan Africa (19 member states), Asia (8), the Caribbean and Americas (13), Europe (3), and the Pacific (11) (see Fig. 1). Of the 2.4 billion inhabitants, 60% are under the age of 30, as compared to the OECD, for example, where the median age is over 40. India is home to the largest population of Commonwealth citizens at 1.35 billion, and Nauru is home to the smallest by population at nearly 10,000. Economically, GDP per capita ranges from USD 97,000 in Singapore, the richest, to USD 1,000 in Malawi, the poorest. More than half of the member states, at 31 countries, are categorized as small states, loosely defined as having approximately 2 million inhabitants or fewer. Amid this immense diversity, there are several binding elements shared by Commonwealth member states, including a commitment to democracy and to human rights.

Fig. 1
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Member states of the Commonwealth

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To enable its operations, COL relies on a vast network of partners throughout the Commonwealth. Long-term partnerships with member states are essential, and this is largely manifested through key country appointments. Otherwise referred to as Focal Points, these appointees are staffed in government or educational institutions (usually universities) and act as liaisons between their home country and COL. Among a range of roles, Focal Points field requests from COL for annual country contributions, inform COL of strategic directions and learning needs in their country, and can identify new institutional partners for COL. The focal point is a voluntary role and carries a degree of transience. Consequently, the level of engagement from Focal Points varies.

Another important partnership to COL is its Regional Centres. There are four Regional Centres, strategically located in several geographical regions, and they are outlined below.

Regional Training and Research Institute for Distance and Open Learning (RETRIDOL)

The first Regional Centre, established in 2003, was the Regional Training and Research Institute for Distance and Open Learning (RETRIDOL). It is located at the National Open University of Nigeria, located in Abuja, the country’s capital city. RETRIDOL responds to the ODL needs of the five Commonwealth States in West Africa. RETRIDOL is focused on training, networking, and research (Eya, Shaibu, & Amini, 2019). It has several main projects, which focus on tertiary education to develop ODL capacity and ultimately acquire accreditation from their national higher education governing bodies. RETRIDOL is also engaged with ongoing collaborations with the Economic Community of West African States, which includes 15 member states from the region.

Southern African Development Community Center for Distance Education

Geo-politically, Southern Africa is supported by the Southern African Development Community (SADC), comprised of 16 member states. The COL Regional Centre in the SADC region takes its name from this organization, as it is entitled, the SADC Centre for Distance Education, or SADC-CDE. SADC-CDE is housed at Botswana Open University, which, like SADC, is in the capital city of Gaborone. SADC-CDE was jointly established by its hosting university and the Ministry of Education and Skills DevelopmentFootnote 1. SADC-CDE has a large geographical remit that includes 11 Commonwealth States. Its projects mainly focus on building capacity for technology-enabled learning in secondary or open schooling institutions.

Pacific Centre for Flexible and Open Learning for Development

The Pacific Centre for Flexible and Open Learning for Development, or PACFOLD, is COL’s Regional Centre in the Pacific. Established in 2013, it is housed at the University of the South Pacific, a regional university with 13 campuses located throughout the South Pacific. Like its Open University counterparts in Nigeria and Botswana, the University of the South Pacific has a focus on open and distance learning, though it has not adopted an ODL moniker. PACFOLD’s remit is the nine Pacific Island Countries that are also members of the Commonwealth. The work of PACFOLD is focused on developing skills and employability. It is engaged in several projects having recently been coawarded a grant from New Zealand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Projects are largely focused on youth and youth workers (Commonwealth of Learning, 2019), out-of-school-children (Narayan, Naidu, Mays, & Perris, 2021), and teacher education (Mays, Ogange, Naidu, & Perris, 2021).

Commonwealth Centre for Connected Learning Foundation

The newest COL Regional Centre is the Commonwealth Centre for Connected Learning Foundation, or 3CL Foundation. It was established in 2017. The 3CL Foundation is in Valletta, Malta, and is supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The 3CL Foundation has a unique remit, as compared to the other Regional Centres. Situated in the southern Mediterranean, it serves as a linkage to COL with the European Union and includes the United Kingdom and Cyprus as its Commonwealth counterparts in the region. As these are high-income countries, COL and 3CL Foundation focus their work elsewhere, and mainly in Sub-Saharan Africa, and pan-Commonwealth. Its projects are focused on imparting innovations in postsecondary education such as in digital literacy, and blockchain in education.

Formation and Context of the Partnership

COL and its Regional Centres demonstrate the effectiveness of a regional service alliance. Both entities are dedicated to the advancement of open and distance learning and focus these efforts in low- and middle-income countries. Funding is a shared endeavor. COL provides annual operating budgets, and a dedicated staff member to support project implementation, and the hosting organization of a Regional Centre provides staffing, space, and equipment. In reverting to the understanding of a mutual service alliance, the synergies are quite clear – COL has a mandate to support its member states and relies on the Regional Centres to carry out COL’s work by leveraging local networks and delivering or codelivering workshops, and related activities. The Regional Centres rely on COL for funding, strategic direction, and technical expertise. For either entity to engage in such work independently, the yield of outcomes and impact would be significantly curtailed. Contractually, there is usually a three-year agreement signed between COL and a Regional Centre, but funding is in one-year instalments.

Where COL is focused on the pan-Commonwealth, the Regional Centres are more localized. To date, there have been few multilateral or other bilateral arrangements between the Regional Centres, and it will likely remain the responsibility of COL to foster interactions between its Regional Centres.

The Partnership for Enhanced and Blended Learning

The Partnership for Enhanced and Blended Learning (PEBL) project was aimed at enhancing the quality, development, and delivery of blended learning modulesFootnote 2 among a collection of universities located in four East African states that were also members of the Commonwealth. The four countries included Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda. The project was run over 5 years, from 2017 to 2021.

The project was formed by four technical partners including the Commonwealth of Learning and three UK-based organizations: the Association of Commonwealth Universities, or ACU, the University of Edinburgh, and the Staff Educational Development Association. The project was funded by the Department for International Development of the United Kingdom under the Strategic Partnerships for Higher Education Innovation and Reform initiative. The ACU was the lead organization responsible for disbursement of funds to the technical partners and liaised with the funder.

The project was a response to the immense growth in participation rates in higher education in the region (Young et al., 2021). To ameliorate a shortage in subject matter expertise, the project was designed to develop and share quality-assured blended learning modules across institutional and national boundaries, a distinctive feature given the challenges of accreditation and transfer in the region (Trines, 2018).

Nontechnical partners included Kenya’s Commission for University Education, and 23 universities engaged in module development and module sharing located in the aforementioned four African states.

To enable the development and utilization of modules, all universities were to designate individuals who would be eligible to participate in pedagogical and quality assurance capacity-building activities. COL was designated as the quality assurance lead. It carried out its role in two ways. First, COL developed a rubric to quality assure the modules against a series of benchmarks codesigned with technical and nontechnical partners (Perris & Mohee, 2020). Second, COL developed a self-audit tool for universities to assess their status with blended learning, identify gaps (e.g., professional development, physical infrastructure), and develop a corresponding improvement plan (Mohee & Perris, 2021). Like other technical partners, COL conducted in-person and online workshops, along with digital correspondence (email and text messaging) to build rapport with participants, provide support, and share materials.

Modules were developed for undergraduate- and master-level programs and covered a range of disciplines. In total, there were 22 modules developed. They are located as free downloadable files, as Word files, or as Moodle backups, at OER Africa: https://www.oerafrica.org/partnership-enhanced-and-blended-learning-pebl.

The comparative advantage of a given institution was in its capacity to design quality-blended learning modules in a particular discipline that could be openly shared with another institution lacking comparable capacity in a given discipline. Overall, the project carried the following aims:

  1. 1.

    Improved network of universities for sharing degree-level blended learning courses

  2. 2.

    Strengthened and increased use of regional (OER Africa) and individual learning management systems (LMSs)

  3. 3.

    Increased capacity of universities to support pedagogical approaches for blended learning

  4. 4.

    Strengthened quality assurance systems for blended learning courses

  5. 5.

    High-quality, credit-bearing blended learning courses included in university programs

Formation of the Partnerships

The PEBL project was comprised of multiple partners, located across seven countries and three continents. On the surface, the technical partners were the purveyors of knowledge, and the nontechnical partners were the recipients of knowledge. Each technical partner brought a niche area of expertise in pedagogy, quality assurance, technology, or project management that contributed to the project’s aims. Each nontechnical partner brought a foundation, or interest in blended learning, along with subject-matter expertise.

Among the technical partners, the formation of the partnership was an ad hoc bilateral arrangement between the ACU and each technical partner. COL, for example, only engaged with the other technical partners during annual in-person meeting and workshops. Though it was no fault of any technical partner – there were no restrictions to engage with any technical or nontechnical partner – this presented some challenges as the flow of information and decision-making was largely controlled by the ACU. The nature of the partnerships varied; between technical partners, it was deemed more of a cooperative approach. All technical partners had an equal stake in the governance of the partnership, exemplified as membership in decision-making bodies that included the Steering Committee and Module Development Fund Committee. The partnership with the ACU and the other technical partners, however, was not fully equal. As the liaison with the UK government (funder), ACU was privy to more details and was the ultimate decision-maker in the project.

Like the case study of COL and the Regional Centres, the arrangement in PEBL between technical and nontechnical partners can be best described as a mutual service alliance. The universities in the PEBL project were recipients of funds to produce an outcome(s). In this case, it was to build capacity of staff to deliver blended learning modules, and for some of the institutions, there was the added outcome to develop modules. A small proportion of individuals from the universities participated in governance structures, but by and large, there was little room for nontechnical partners to contribute to decision-making. Technical partners relied on the universities which held the subject-matter expertise, institutional knowledge, and understanding of the sociopolitical contexts of their institution and their constituents. Without their presence, no outcomes could be generated.

In alignment with the main deliverables on quality assurance, COL developed two tools, informed by inputs from technical and nontechnical partners, to support the development of modules, and to develop institutions’ capabilities to delivery-blended learning of good quality.

Most institutions which used the tools wrote reports to reflect learning and progress with a module and/or the institutional self-review. The creation of the tools was enabled by inputs from all partners, which occurred in person and virtually from 2018 to 2019. Technical and nontechnical partners piloted or offered inputs to the first version of the Rubric applied to the first six modules. It was then revised, independently reviewed, and published carrying a CC BY-SA 4.0 license. The subsequent 16 modules were quality assured using the published Rubric document.

The other tool COL developed was the Institutional Quality Assurance Review Tool, which was designed for institutions to carry out a self-audit to identify the status, gaps and means of improvement to deliver quality-blended learning. Like the Rubric, the QA Review Tool was benchmarked against a set of criteria codesigned by COL and other PEBL partners. Each institution’s implementation of the QA Review Tool included an online survey and follow-up on-site review that entailed planning, collecting, and analyzing data (e.g., interview, document analysis) to corroborate and expand upon findings from the online survey. The culminating activity was a report that outlined the findings and an improvement plan. The QA Review Tool was published under a CC BY-SA 4.0 license. Of the 23 universities in the PEBL project, 20 submitted the report at the time of writing this chapter.

By most accounts, including the findings from an external monitoring and evaluation exercise for the PEBL project (Young et al., 2021), the QA outcome reiterated here, “Strengthened quality assurance systems for blended learning courses,” was achieved. Institutions adopted some of the tools as a matter of policy, including the Open University of Tanzania and Makerere University (Uganda). Discussions have begun with Kenya’s Commission for University Education to consider a national policy on blended learning with focus on quality assurance, and there is potential to broaden such engagements with commissions in Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda.

The sustainability of the activities and partnerships forged in the PEBL project remain. In the middle of the PEBL project, the Covid-19 pandemic caused nationwide lockdowns in the four East African countries where the project was focused. To an extent, this was a blessing in disguise as it accelerated the adoption of digital learning. With limitations on in-person gatherings persisting, the importance of imparting flexible learning options in a blended format will likely persist. Without the technical and financial support enabled from PEBL, questions loom on how far progress will continue. One promising development is that COL has started independent work with three universities to expand on some of the capacity-building activities from PEBL.

Leveraging Resources Through Partnerships Within University and College Systems

Universities and colleges across Canada, and indeed globally, have initiated large and small-scale projects to implement online learning consortia with the objective of participating in a common activity or pooling their resources for achieving a common goal. Once equipped with the needed ICTs, they form these alliances to bring postsecondary educational opportunities directly to learners. Various academic, social, or workplace development needs motivate such consortia initiatives. The impetus for the initiatives has come from systemic pressures to utilize public education opportunities more purposefully, to provide increased access to higher education for underserved populations, or to increase learner mobility in competitive employment environments.

Governments, funding agencies, and institutions strive to understand and control some of the factors that affect the success of large-scale consortia projects in which they invest to give propositional collaborations a stable platform on which to build and grow. Examples from two provinces in Canada, British Columbia and Ontario, are described to highlight the value propositions of these collaborative ventures and to discuss the requirements toward their sustainability.

BCcampus

Over 19 years, BCcampus has moved from a propositional venture to an operational entity, providing research, services, and support for the 25 public higher education institutions in British Columbia. BCcampus is a government-initiated collaborative venture carrying the aim to network these institutions in a manner that allows learners to find and engage in online learning opportunities. The BCcampus concept was designed to benefit students by providing them with a set of online services that promoted access, choice, flexibility, and mobility.

In strategic collaboration terms, BCcampus began as a propositional collaboration, a visionary approach to an organizational or business need (academic services in this case) based upon the need to enhance research, instructional delivery, and student services to the parties involved. A primary mandate was to enhance students’ ability to identify, choose, register for, and take courses from any of 25 institutions in the province. BCcampus also enabled students to apply any academic credits earned within the system against credentials from a selected (home) institution. While providing students with measurable value – namely, online course spaces available from all institutions – the collaboration was also intended to benefit institutions through the rationalization of demand for academic opportunities from students. This was realized through the supply of all online courses available, and the system attempted to mitigate duplications of service for maximum efficiencies within this large academic ecosystem.

Leveraging resources through partnership is not a new concept for academic institutions, particularly in areas where they do not compete or where the aggregation of resources effectively lowers costs for all as outlined from the following two examples in British Columbia:

  • BCNet: An arrangement between universities and government to operate a high-speed research network.

  • BC Council on Admission and Transfer (BCCAT): Using its Education Planner Website, it provided parents and students an information resource about the details of program requirements and transfer regulations across the BC higher education system.

These instances, however, did not pose an existential threat to a participating institution. Where “brand” played an important role – such as in the recruitment, admission, and registration of highly qualified students – partnerships and strategic collaborations were typically more difficult to develop and sustain. And, because propositional collaborations are based upon visionary goals rather than fully identified need, their development and nurturing required a more sophisticated approach to mitigate risk and to underscore the importance of cultural fit. In such cases, the prerequisite is the same for both active participation and persistence: the identification of resonant value from the perspective of each institution. For example, BCcampus needed to ask: Which critical need for College X might be met by one or more of the many benefits that BCcampus brought to students, educators, and the postsecondary system? The type and extent of this need fulfillment was the value proposition for individual institutions.

BCcampus explored the power of resonant value during its early years when the consortium administered the awarding of grants for reusable online resource development, funded by the provincial Online Program Development Fund. On bringing the successful grant proponents into a community of practice, BCcampus surfaced their concerns around copyright and reuse. A disconnect became apparent between the tools available in the proposed Creative Commons licensing scheme for open educational resources (OER) and the requirement by some institutions and faculty members for more tightly controlled copyright and licensing of creative works. This concern exposed a crack in the collaborative venture and the government-sponsored funding programs associated with it. The norm in the beginning was to preserve an institution’s competitive advantage in its marketing of programs and courses. To fulfill this essential requirement, a hack of the Creative Commons license, the BC Commons license was designed. Its resonant value was to ensure that reuse was preserved within the province, but that marketing and sale of courseware could remain an exclusive revenue stream when institutions marketed learning resources and programs outside of the province. This decision was a double-edge sword, which deviated from an ideal of Creative Commons licensing that later in its lifecycle had to be revisited, readvocated, and reestablished by BCcampus. Fortunately, with lower costs, standards-based service levels, and predictable dates for upgrades, the approach taken by BCcampus was an overwhelming success.

Even within a network of collaborative ventures where partner entities have clearly defined roles, there is a possibility for service overlaps or even service confusion in the context of changing technologies and organizational capabilities.

In the case of BCcampus and BCNet, each provided different versions of shared services to academic institutions with the goal of reducing cost and enhancing a consistent service and maintenance for key services such as LMSs and other academic technologies. By 2012, BCcampus had multiple shared services as described in Fig. 2.

Fig. 2
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BCcampus shared service offerings 2011–2012 (BCcampus, 2012)

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What sometimes became a confusing approach to shared services for institutional partners, and conveyed the appearance of competition between services providers, was resolved by specialization (or comparative advantage) using organizational strengths.

BCcampus had a strong pedagogical approach to defining service needs, and BCNET had a strong technical orientation to structuring and managing online services. In 2014, the leadership of both organizations structured and signed a memorandum of understanding to define roles that complemented the strengths of each organization as illustrated in the role descriptions in Table 1. Each partner committed to executing its role in an optimal fashion.

Table 1 Shared service role structures for BCcampus and BCNET as outlined in a 2014 memorandum of understanding (BCcampus, 2014)
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Since 2014, BCcampus and its partners have been providing services to the province’s 25 postsecondary institutions. BCcampus has specialized as a leader in the development, adaptation, review, and distribution of open educational resources. It has also served as a leader in providing services to support emergent academic needs. Equity, diversity and inclusion programs, the facilitation of online teaching and learning, and supporting training for universal design for learning are some examples.

BCcampus is funded by government primarily and, as such, is largely seen as a public service in British Columbia’s higher education sector demonstrating a collaborative approach to support institutional needs. In collaborative ventures which begin as propositional initiatives, a key strategy is incremental adjustment to continuously provide resonant value for client institutions and partners in federated service roles.

In 2013, the government of Ontario, Canada’s largest province, made the decision to follow the model provided by BCcampus and initiate its own collaborative venture among the province’s 45 public colleges and universities. The government of Ontario called its collaborative proposition eCampusOntario and began the development of the entity in earnest in 2014.

eCampusOntario

In 2014, the Ontario government committed $72 million over 5 years to support the development of eCampusOntario, and the provision of high-quality online learning experiences for Ontario’s postsecondary students. It established eCampusOntario as a nonprofit corporation positioned between government and its members: the province’s 45 public colleges and universities. Its revenues were provided by government, and the broad range of functions eCampusOntario was mandated to provide was rooted in a rapidly evolving series of transfer payment agreements between eCampusOntario and the provincial government.

eCampusOntario initiated the process to build its first strategic plan in late Fall of 2015. It embraced the following six targeted services: Quality (in courses and programs), Innovation, Collaboration, Research, Accountability, and Relevance.

The Ministry funded the creation of eCampusOntario with the ambition to push system improvements through collaboration and innovation and build Ontario’s global reputation as a recognized leader in online and technology-enabled education. Unlike the original BCcampus model which initially supported access to online courses and course registration and transfer support, the eCampusOntario model had a much more focused mandate, aimed specifically at the pedagogical aspects of supporting technology-enabled learning. Its mandate, as outlined in its strategic plan, broadly described the trajectory for the organization at the 45 members institutions:

  • Support the development and delivery of quality online learning experiences

  • Lead in research, development, and sharing of best practices in online and other forms of technology-enabled learning

  • Support member institutions in fostering innovation, collaboration, and excellence on behalf of Ontario students

  • Contribute to the evolution of teaching and learning by:

    • Anticipating and responding to new and emerging technologies

    • Leveraging existing strengths in Ontario’s postsecondary system

    • Developing new capacity

    • Supporting the development of state-of-the-art fully online courses and programs

The mission was clear and bold and, with a highly competitive edge, intended to position Ontario as a learning technology leader in Canada and globally. eCampusOntario was to work with member institutions “to promote accessibility, collaboration and innovation in online and technology-enabled learning that will enhance learner experience, support faculty development and extend Ontario’s global reach,” and become “a centre of excellence and a global leader in the evolution of teaching and learning through technology” (eCampusOntario, n.d.).

From 2016 to 2018, eCampusOntario operated under its initial strategic plan that also had as a primary duty the distribution of competitive grant funding to institutions to address the items from the strategic agenda that would be undertaken by institutions themselves. The bulk of the funds flowed to institutions as requested by government, divided equally between the college and university sectors in agreement with Colleges Ontario and the Council of Ontario Universities, the two sector councils representing academic institutions with government.

In 2016, a chief executive officer was hired to lead subsequent steps in moving the eCampusOntario development process forward, including a renewed focus on collaboration guided by an updated strategic plan for the 2017–2021 time span. The strategic priority of government at the time was to also build on work by BCcampus to create a digital library of open textbooks and other teaching resources that would be freely available to Ontario faculty and students. eCampusOntario responded by launching an OER development fund and the creation of a digital library with search tools, submission, and review (tools) to ensure a quality-informed process was used to build a collection of free and reusable academic resources. By 2021, eCampusOntario had reported over USD $10 million in savings using open textbooks by students and the subsequent savings to students through the availability of free learning resources. In British Columbia, where BCcampus has been established since 2003 and its open library since 2012, they reported savings of USD $16 million by October 2020 (BCcampus, 2020).

eCampusOntario continued rounding out its portfolio of service offerings to institutions and faculty through the 2016–2019 period. Notable additions to its service offerings mirrored expressed needs from institution, faculty, and government and included the following key programs:

  • LearnOnline portal: A directory of online courses offered by all 45 member institutions, and transfer requirements, and noted whether a course used an open textbook as its primary resource https://learnonline.ecampusontario.ca

  • The Ontario Open Library: A directory of downloadable open textbooks and resources that could also be integrated with websites and LMSs https://openlibrary.ecampusontario.ca

  • Micro-credential Portal: Funding and support for institutions and employers to create short-form, assessed, competency-learning experiences to upskill and reskill learners to enhance employability https://micro.ecampusontario.ca

  • Extend: A microcredentialed professional learning program comprised of six modules and a capstone project to upskill educators for online teaching (see https://extend.ecampusontario.ca)

  • Student Experience Design Lab (SXDLab): Focused on bringing together students to create new forms of experiential learning (see https://sxdlab.ecampusontario.ca)

As often happens with government-funded propositional collaborations, a change in government can affect policy and priorities. A new government, elected to office in 2018, decided to review its digital education agencies and commissioned a study of eCampusOntario. It reported that eCampusOntario had a consistent focus on:

  • Coordinated course delivery across multiple institutions for credit

  • The generation of best practices, research, and data on technology-enabled learning

  • Interinstitutional collaboration on tools, services, and technologies to create a suite of supports for online learners and their instructors

However, the report noted that it was difficult to ascertain whether government had a higher-level strategy and expectation for digital learning that included other digital agencies that it supported, and whether each, including eCampusOntario, was having the impact at a level government should expect. As the report highlighted,

eCampusOntario serves two masters — the government that funds it and the institutions that represent its shareholders. Given the makeup of its governing board, it is perhaps not too surprising that a nontrivial amount of its funding goes directly to institutions to promote the digital-learning developments and activities they desire. The fundamental question is whether these activities of eCampusOntario are consistent with the desires and inclinations of its funder, the government, or whether the government would like to see some of this funding directed to other provincial digital-learning priorities and goals. The answer to this question demands clarity from government and, subsequently, clear direction to eCampusOntario from government. (Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario, 2020)

Subsequently, the government of Ontario has continued to fund eCampusOntario and has established a Virtual Learning Strategy centered on a new USD $40 million investment that is intended to drive growth and advancement in virtual learning across the province’s postsecondary institutions. The strategy will expand the possibilities of traditional and lifelong learning through the accelerated use of both online and hybrid learning https://vls.ecampusontario.ca.

Factors That Promote Sustainability or Facilitate Strategic Pivots in Effective Collaborations or Partnerships

In this chapter, we set out to identify forms of partnerships and collaborations present in four case studies premised on advancing access to quality learning through the application of ICTs. The collaborations and partnership types included propositional collaborations, cooperative, and mutual service alliances.

International Case Studies

In the internationally oriented case studies – the COL Regional Centres and PEBL – we identified cooperative and mutual service alliances as commonly represented. The arrangement between the four technical partners in the PEBL project was most closely aligned to cooperative. Governance structures and procedures were subject to deliberation by all technical partners. The Association of Commonwealth Universities, however, was the ultimate decision-maker. This outcome illuminates important contours to the types of collaborations and partnerships discussed in this chapter. Partnerships should be assumed to be complex arrangements. Institutional histories, individual personalities, and varied interests are oftentimes tacitly expressed and can never be completely understood by another party. In PEBL, the arrangement between technical partners, albeit cooperative, was nuanced and fluid. Readers should therefore view these types as existing on a continuum and consider the idiosyncrasies – which are also not fixed – in a partnership to understand the arrangements, contributions, and roles of each stakeholder.

As a mutual service alliance, the services provided by the PEBL technical partners enabled cost savings for the 23 recipient universities. The quality assurance outputs, to which COL was responsible, were reliant on inputs and piloting of tools by the 23 partner institutions. Their contributions were mainly in-kind and in the form of professional time and absorbing incidental costs.

It is noteworthy that COL initiated efforts to deepen the relationship with three of the universities in East Africa. COL’s invitation to partner on different initiatives tangentially related to PEBL is an example of emergent or new priorities deemed of mutual benefit in relation to capacity building in technology-enabled learning. These new arrangements, which will continue as mutual service alliances, point to a degree of maturation between parties and reinforce the fluidity of partnerships. The interests that bring together partners may be based on a vision or an idea, akin to a propositional arrangement, rather than a specific project. These new mutually beneficial opportunities have deepened the partnership between COL and some of the other partners and bode well for their sustainability.

In the context of the COL Regional Centres arrangement, this was also identified as a mutual service alliance. Like the PEBL project, the partners from the Regional Centres are able to acquire cost-savings for their constituents based on COL’s financial contributions and technical inputs. COL, in turn, strengthens its footprint and reaches a wider swathe of institutions across the Commonwealth.

Partnerships have existed over several decades in the case of RETRIDOL and SADC-CDE, and new regional centers have emerged with additions of PACFOLD and the 3CL Foundation over the last several years. The partnership between COL and RETRIDOL and SADC-CDE has been sustained over time because of continuous investment in human and financial resources on the part of both COL and the Regional Centres’ hosting organizations – a point that has been articulated to the other two Regional Centres relative to growth and sustainability. External circumstances have also elevated the visibility of the Regional Centres. The New Zealand government made a sizeable investment in PACFOLD and the University of the South Pacific, and there have been discussions to strengthen the relationship with regional bodies in West and Southern Africa. The extent that COL and the Regional Centres may deepen their partnership, with the prospect of securing additional funding from external sources, is the likeliest scenario toward continued sustainability, and more importantly growth.

Canadian Case Studies

In Canada, province-wide needs to develop a more cohesive and comprehensive learning culture in the uptake of online learning were paramount. A differentiator in the Canada-centered case studies was that resources and technical expertise were locally available. There was also direct government involvement and oversight as these partnerships and collaborations were intended to serve each province’s taxpayers. Indeed, COL and the PEBL network imparted accountability mechanisms, but as multilateral initiatives, the involvement of government funders was lessened. Scrutinizing the nuances of domestic or internationally formed partnerships, relative to value for money and impact, is beyond the scope of this chapter, though evaluations of entities, in three case studies cited earlier, included a review of expenditures (see Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario, 2020; McGreal, 2020; Young et al., 2021).

The BCcampus and eCampusOntario case studies were designated as propositional collaborations and predicated on creating a robust, comprehensive, and evolving online learning ecosystem that would include all the publicly funded postsecondary institutions in each province. The visions from each entity were complementary – eCampusOntario was the spawn of BCcampus yet diverged based on the context of Ontario. Both entities carried a mandate to enhance the student learning experience and did so by identifying visionary goals rather than fully identified need. BCcampus promoted learner access to courses across institutions in British Columbia, developed a comprehensive repository of open textbooks, and engaged other province-wide entities to offer complementary or shared services. Its counterpart in Ontario was tasked with responding to nearly twice the number of institutions. It emulated the work of BCcampus by creating its own open textbook repository for Ontario faculty and students and providing information on transfer requirements between institutions, developing microcredentials, and other innovations.

The propositional collaborations to which we aligned BCcampus and eCampusOntario required an approach of “building the plane as you fly.” It required well-resourced funders, and each provincial government was in concert with these entities. In both cases, bold moves were made that necessitated accepting risk that the 70+ institutions shared between the two provinces would buy in to their idea of advancing teaching and learning. As evidenced in the case studies, the risks paid off, and both BCcampus and eCampusOntario continue to make inroads through innovation and providing resonant value to their constituents.

Conclusion

As we conclude, it should not be assumed that mutual service alliances are a better fit to meet the educational needs in the emerging world context, or that propositional collaborations are a better fit to meet the educational needs for the well resourced. Partnerships are contextual, and in those we have identified, the binding element is to advance access to quality learning suitable for rapidly changing social and economic conditions. The presentation of the four case studies demonstrates the variance in pathways to achieve this end. Any view to sustainability must recognize partnerships as dynamic, subject to change, and not necessarily bound by fixed deliverables, time frames, or resources.