OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES FOR LONG DISTANCE EDUCATION ON COMMERCIALIZING SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY: A CASE STUDY ON ESTABLISHING LEARNING NETWORKS Pedro Conceição - IST, Lisbon and IC 2 Institute, Austin, Texas Barbara Fossum - IC 2 Institute, Austin, Texas Manuel V.Heitor - IST, Lisbon Sheila Kearns - IC 2 Institute, Austin, Texas Conceição Vedovello - IST, Lisbon

Research Question New challenges to universities within the knowledge-based economy Need to go beyond traditional activities Issue of how to contribute to the development and commercialization of new technologies Constraint of wanting to preserve the university’s institutional integrity How can universities foster innovation and the creation of new business and jobs, helping to transform organizations to address the challenges of science and technology commercialization in a global economy?

Learning è A set of formal and informal processes and practices, strongly influenced by the environment, that lead to knowledge accumulation Challenge è How to promote learning that links diverse social actors with different degrees of development Perspective è Universities Key Actors è Firms Mechanisms è Networks linking people in order to increase their ability to learn Key Components of the Experiment

What kind of a network? Learning network that leads to self-reinforcing learning cycles (interactive model) Universities as agents that actively link participating people and firms in a web of knowledge sharing, production, usage, and diffusion

The Population of the Program

Major Challenges Different cultures Different time-zones Complex communication technology Lack of basic teaming skills

Lessons Learned Handling different levels of cultural/environmental differences Improvement of global teaming techniques Multiple channels for interaction and communication

Recommendations for the Future More homogeneous, but nonetheless diverse, population One shared course Cooperative and collaborative teaching Cooperative and collaborative evaluation of students More formalized occasions for interaction and communication