Today's German Universities and dynamic education webs : does it fit?

Contemporary lifelong learning (L3) concepts require permeability between higher and further education. Today, human resources development is a critical success factor in a global environment. Shorter innovation cycles and the challenges of the service economy imply the alignment of further education concepts to the employees' working situation. Standardized content offers are no longer sufficient to meet the needs of both learners and companies. Public and private education providers have to collaborate to meet the customers' learning needs. Providers can and should establish dynamic business webs - so-called dynamic education webs - in this collaborative process. These partnerships are temporary in nature and are based mainly on incentives instead of contracts. We will focus on this new phenomenon and present research results with high practical relevance. The core questions arise: What promotes dynamic education webs? Who are the key players? What are critical success factors? These questions are answered based on literature, market studies and expert questionings of important market players. The recommendations derived can help the management to participate successfully in dynamic education webs. A glance at trends and market potentials as stated by the experts concludes the paper.