A virtual university is an excellent concept from the perspective of effective supply chain planning and control. Whereas a regular bricks-and-boards university must not only attract willing students, it must bring them in from around the country, house them, feed them, and provide education in the form of classroom and laboratory instruction. All of these processes cost a substantial amount of money and require a large investment in terms of buildings, campus, teachers' salaries and contracts, and many more commitments. A virtual university, on the other hand, only needs to attract the students and find teachers willing to teach in a virtual environment. There are no campus, no classroom buildings, no dorms, no food service, and no travel involved. Moreover, students do not have to travel to and from the university, so they can be enlisted from anywhere in the world. A virtual university operates asynchronously, so the students and the teacher do not even have to be in the same time zone; the students "attend class" at their own convenience when the teacher is offline. The virtual university, then, greatly streamlines the supply chain and its concomitant planning and control.
As Keinänen and Oinas-Kukkonen (2001) point out, today's virtual organization requires decentralization, flexibility, and coordination. While a bricks-and-board university may house everything in a central location, a virtual university can use instructors from any location and draw resources from anywhere. In addition, the virtual university provides flexibility in the sense that students can log on at any time to complete their work and can communicate with each other via online posts that they can pick up and respond to at their convenience. They can thus work their education into their schedule and "go to class" in their bathrobe and slippers if desired. Coordination can be asynchronous via e-mail and forums or synchronous via <...