Tales from inside the blender — Five models of collaboration

Abstract

While much has been written about collaboration in higher education, very little of it focuses on collaboration across educational institutions. This paper describes the experience of a project to share courses between two Australian institutions using a blended online and face-to-face course design. We discuss models that have emerged in the process. It was found that collaboration is most fruitful, in terms of student learning and course development and delivery, when the course coordinators in the two universities are peers who have comparable gravitas and breadth and depth of knowledge. It was also found that there are preconditions to the success of a two-university collaboration, and that establishing these preconditions takes a considerable amount of time.