THREE LAYERS OF MACRO UNIVERSITY

A micro-university is a self-contained learning environment, usually on a single PC, for a single student. A micro-university is designed to serve a single student, but of course many instances of the same micro-university can be created to serve many students.

A virtual university is a collection of individualized learning environments so that students can engage in learning activities from home, remote locations, etc. A virtual university is usually owned and operated by an academic institution and has more administrative functions than a micro-university.

The macro university is a framework such that many virtual universities can pool their resources together, thus creating a very rich learning environment for a large number of students from all over the world.