Today I have been thinking very much about the e-Learning process and how it translates to real world business environments. During all my graduate class work so far, I assumed most of what I have been learning correlates directly to the way business and companies in general operate. I think everything I’ve understood up to now has been intriguing as well as innovative. Now, chapter 3 has complicated my understanding quite a bit.  Bates presents the advantages and disadvantages of two possible models of managing e-learning.  First, the Lone Ranger model allows professors to maintain their independent creativity and autonomy in teaching while relying on graduate students for technological expertise.  On the other hand, project management, a rather different approach, requires that faculty work as a team to develop common “core” in projects. There are clear advantages and disadvantages to both. Yet, I find it difficult to chose which would better serve a university’s goals. I hope that I am able to devise or discover a program which combines the best of both.   While I am reading the chapters of the book, various posted resources, case studies and other links, I “see” the practical and pragmatic application of both methods.  If project management, which can be very expensive because it functions as a structured team requiring technology and subject matter experts, allowed room for individual teaching independence as allocated by the Lone Ranger model, then professors might be more inclined to agree to a knowledge repository based model.  A knowledge repository based model would encompass the structure of project management where the professors become the “experts” on technological facets as well as subject matter.  By using the system to generate and fine tune knowledge in teaching, the university could develop a significant KM (knowledge management) repository.  Every item in the repository can be cited/copyrighted which would then be accessible to all other members of the project management team.  The only conflict might be the determination of communal goals as opposed to individual discoveries and objectives.  Not sure yet how to resolve that but may find an answer with further research.