On Friday 24th October 1997 a team from British Aerospace visited the Open University to talk about the British Aerospace Virtual University initiative. The team visiting the OU included the VC of this new University, Geraldine Kenney-Wallace; the Director and Registrar, Alan Millican; the Director of BAe Personnel, Terry Morgan; the Dean of the BAe Virtual University Business School, Clive Richardson; and the Dean of the BAe VU Faculty of Learning, Ian Grant.

The BAe Virtual University team presented an update on the progress of their initiative to a select group from the OU, including the Vice Chancellor Sir John Daniel; Kitty Chisholm, Director of Development; Chris Wood, Director of Corporate Relations; and Prof Marc Eisenstadt, Director of the Knowledge Media Institute. In its turn, the OU group discussed how we are developing our own approach to supported open learning into the 21st Century.

In the afternoon, the visitors were introduced in much more detail to the work of KMi with Marc Eisenstadt; and IET with Robin Mason; and the Business School with David Asch.

There is clearly a great deal of potiential for synergy bewteen the UKs newest and oldest virtual universities.