UKeU

The UKeU (UK eUniversities Worldwide Limited) was a company and website that promoted online degrees from UK universities. 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. It operated between 2000 and 2004 and was subsequently wound down having failed to deliver its targets.

The UKeU (UK eUniversities Worldwide Limited) was a company and website that promoted online degrees from UK universities. 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. It operated between 2000 and 2004 and was subsequently wound down having failed to deliver its targets. ==Cancellation== It became clear however, 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 and to 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 m¹ and recruited only 900 students. These received some of the most expensive degrees in history at £56,000 each. A highly critical [report https://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 2005¹. 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." The £2m-plus wage bill for 2002 to 2003 included chief executive John Beaumont's £180,000 salary and performance-related bonus of £44,914. UKeU's executive directors received £100,000 in total bonuses during 2002/2003. HEFCE identified marketing, and inadequate market research in particular, as the key cause of the failure of UKeU. Based on an assumption that there was a huge unmet demand for internet based e-learning, too much trust was put on the PwC forecast of student numbers and the general atmosphere of enthusiasm surrounding the 'dot com boom' . UKeU did not undertake any market research despite spending £4.2 million on sales and marketing. There was confusion in the branding and unique selling points of the online offerings. Mainstream UK higher education at the time relied heavily on emphasising the three elements of tradition, place, and quality. Marketing by UKeU that promised "the best of U.K. higher education with online convenience". 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. Much of the original content on the site can be accessed using the Wayback Machine, however. Details of the House of Commons Select Committee on Education and Skills, their UKeU report and the evidence they received can be found at https://web.archive.org/web/20060812215051/http://www.parliament.uk/parliamentary_committees/education_and_skills_committee.cfm A collection of reports on UKeU were in the dim past be found on a Higher Education Academy web site. The collection of all reports is now split between https://bacsich.org/euni/ and https://bacsich.org/ukeu-reports/ 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 (2010) being https://www.academia.edu/4238152/Lessons_to_be_learned_from_the_failure_of_the_UK_e_University ==References==

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