Virtual university governance

There is a need to establish collaboration alliances or partnerships if we are to provide global Health Informatics educatics education. Agreements need to make provision for the existing diversity between country educational systems as well as variations in funding, legislation and political systems and a number of other issues including intellectual property and copyright. Four virtual University governance models were identified, 1) evolution of existing universities, 2) newly created organisations collectively delivering one type of program eg MBA, 3) a consortium of partners using a common portal and 4) a commercial enterprise. Collectively IMIA academic members need to be in a good position to respond to the global changes in higher education and minimise the risk of failure when establishing a virtual University to collectively deliver Health Informatics education. Others have undertaken a similar path in the past, some successful others not so, we need to learn from these experiences.