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While theoretically distinct, learning and knowing are meshed in practice. This paper builds on this observation and argues that organisational transformation and the development of best practices in e-learning share some similar context. This is particularly evident when knowledge management perspectives are considered. Specifically, trust and collaboration are shown to be common enablers of both activities. A range of interrelated models is introduced with trust identified as prominent within a complex mix of processes and outputs that can be described in terms of interoperability. Collaboration and interoperability are identified as key organising principles in information-based and knowledge-based economies. Through collaboration common goals and mutual benefit are discerned and pursued; duplication of effort is minimised; innovation is stimulated. Achieving technical interoperability demands use of networks in ways that harness the aggregate capacity of disparate systems, applications and services. The resulting infrastructure matches requirements of both elearning and organisational transformation.

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Globalisation, together with readier access to capability‐enhancing technologies and to technological insights once restricted to a few leading economies, are resulting in greater competition within Europe, and more widely within the developed world, for influence of all kinds (not just influence over the choices that foreign students make about the Higher Education courses on offer to them from Europe, but also influence of a more overtly imperialist kind, extending to the policies, incomes and futures of others). This article looks at trends in one important market for European Higher Education, the Middle East (particularly the GCC countries), which has many providers from North America and Australia. As observed by the late Edward Said, the USA is particularly forceful in the Middle East. Its technological superiority is accompanied by fervour to introduce American methods and curricula, and strong belief in their merit, reminiscent of the belief of the old French empire that ‘France had a “mission civilisatrice”, to civilize the natives”. The danger, highlighted in a recent UNESCO report ‘New Ignorances, New Literacies’, is that the natives will not be listened to. Is Europe listening more or less than the USA, and is it being listened to? Despite attention‐gaining initiatives such as the proposed European Institute of Technology, EIT, and the commitment of EU governments to the Lisbon goals on competitiveness, there are indications of a drop in the influence of European Higher Education institutions in the Middle East. This paper explores the kinds of issues that may be at work, and the implications for European Higher Education policy.

This paper describes a generic technique for representing Adaptive Learning Resources by extending current metadata schemas. The requirement for the work described here has grown out of the necessity to facilitate accurate discovery and integration of Adaptive Learning Resources, namely Adaptive Hypermedia Services.