UKeU

Summary

The UKeU (UK eUniversities Worldwide Limited) was a company and website that promoted online degrees from UK universities. As such, UKeU was not a university in its own right and ultimately was a dot-com failure. UKeU delivered courses over a learning environment developed by Sun Microsystems UK. It was set up with UK public funds under the auspices of the Higher Education Funding Council for England.

Brief history

The UKeU was first proposed as a concept by David Blunkett, then Secretary of State for Education for the UK, in a speech in February 2000, as a vehicle to deliver the best of UK higher education in online fashion across the world. The Secretary of State instructed the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) to take the lead in putting this into practice.

By late summer 2000, the key initial studies on business model, tools and markets had already been done and a shadow body, the e-University Steering Group had been established. There was then a period of (to outsiders) some apparent inactivity but by May 2001 many follow-up studies had been done and the operating company UK eUniversities Worldwide Limited had been incorporated; by Summer 2001 an Interim Management Team had been appointed; and by October 2001 the Strategic Agreement had been signed by Sun Microsystems. By March 2002 a new Chairman and CEO were in post and the Framework Agreement had been signed with Sun to commence development of the e-learning platform

By March 2003 two courses had been launched, from the Open University and Sheffield Hallam University, with many further courses following in autumn 2003 making a total of 15. By January 2004 some 25 courses were recruiting students.

The first Annual Report of UKeU is no longer easy to find but there is a detailed analysis of it by OBHE still available at www.obhe.ac.uk/documents/2003/Articles/UK_eUniversity_annual_report_2002_03_what_more_does_it_tell_us_

Cancellation

However, it became clear that HEFCE had been unhappy for some months, especially with the low student numbers and the lack of private finance, and had commissioned PA Consulting to carry out a Business Review of UKeU. PA reported finally to HEFCE in January 2004 and in late February 2004 HEFCE announced to the UKeU Board andto the world that they would "restructure" UKeU. Although it was not announced as such at the time, this restructuring led to a rapid decline in funds and confidence and UKeU closed as an operating entity in summer 2004. It was regarded as a failure having cost £50 m and recruited only 900 students.

These received some of the most expensive degrees in history at £56,000 each. A highly critical [report http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200405/cmselect/cmeduski/205/20502.htm] by the UK House of Commons Select Committee on Education and Skills was published in March 2005. In an accompanying press release, Committee Chairman, Barry Sheerman said: "UKeU was a terrible waste of public money. The senior executives failed to interest any private investors and showed an extraordinary over confidence in their ability to attract students to the scheme. Any private company which rewards underperformance of this scale would normally face severe criticism from its shareholders."

In a nutshell, the overall concept of a "UK e-University" lasted 4½ years, while the company in its operational phase lasted just over two. Even by the standards of e-learning burn-outs, this was fast. Unlike in many cases in the public or quasi-public sector such as TechBC or Scottish Knowledge, there was no organisation that followed on from UKeU, even in a general sense. However, a number of small components of UKeU continued more or less unchanged as spin-offs, including the eChina Programme and the e-Learning Research Centre.

External links

The URL of the UKeU was http://www.ukeu.com but the link no longer works as the company has ceased to operate and was finally wound up in mid 2006.

Details of the House of Commons Select Committee on Education and Skills, their UKeU report and the evidence they received can be found at http://www.parliament.uk/parliamentary_committees/education_and_skills_committee.cfm

A collection of reports on UKeU were in the past be found on a Higher Education Academy web site but most have vanished* - though the UKeU Overview is still to be found on the HE Academy site at http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/documents/resources/web0279_ukeu_reports_1_overview.doc

The collection of reports is now at http://www.matic-media.co.uk/ukeu/

Two further volumes of reports were in preparation for release but it is believed that the release has been delayed indefinitely.

Various analyses of "why UKeU failed" have been produced, the most recent being http://www.scribd.com/doc/39811726/Lessons-to-be-learned-from-the-failure-of-UKeU

* though assiduous use of the Wayback Machine will no doubt reveal more.