World Telecommunication Day 1999 |
Business education to date has mostly been a face-to-face affair. Top management schools have consistently argued that nothing can replace the effectiveness of direct interaction between students and professors in the classroom and in team working.
That picture is starting to change. Rapid growth in computing power and in communications systems - the Internet in particular - means that students and teachers can come together on-line and exchange information in a variety of forms. Multimedia applications covering written text, graphics, video, audio and conferencing techniques allow participants to create virtual classrooms, teams and tutorial sessions. All of this can be done, including the earning of a degree, from one's own home.
These technological advances coincide with burgeoning demand from managers and other working professionals for business courses that will allow them to study and continue their everyday jobs at the same time. One of the main reasons for this is the need for lifelong learning created by the unrelenting pace of change in global markets and ever-sharpening competition across frontiers.
Another important factor in many countries is a reduction in government grants and public sector funding for people wishing to take higher education courses. This is making prospective students look at alternatives that will allow them to earn while they learn.
As a result, management schools and other providers of business learning are placing growing emphasis on developing advanced communications systems and on offering programs that can be followed wholly or partly on-line. According to the Association of MBAs in London, major British institutions that already offer distance learning MBAs include Henley Management College, the Open University and the universities of Strathclyde, Warwick, Leicester and Durham.
The ESSEC business school in France has developed a multimedia package that allows students and teachers to communicate through the Internet and to take advantage of enhanced features such as streamed video. ''We are taking a pragmatic approach to the ways in which this package will be used,'' says Jean-Pierre Choffray, a professor at ESSEC and Liège University who is responsible for information technology and multimedia. ''Fundamentally, we are operating in a market, and the market will decide.''
Earning coins from Fontainebleau
INSEAD in Fontainebleau, near Paris, relies largely on face-to-face teaching, but the school recently introduced an on-line link between participants and professors in its International Executive Program (IEP). ''The link operates through our Web site, and it was introduced mainly to hold participants together in the gap between sessions held at our campuses in Fontainebleau and Singapore,'' says Gordon Redding, INSEAD professor of Asian business and director of IEP.
The Open University works on new ideas for distance learning through two institutions: the Knowledge Media Institute for conceptual work and the Center for Educational Software for applications development. ''One of our newest developments is a real-time audio link, which we will use initially in our program on managing knowledge,'' says Paul Quintas, director of research at the Open University Business School.
In the United States, Stanford's engineering program offers 100 courses, taught on-line to students around the world, at 140 percent of the school's normal tuition. It has drawn 3,000 students since it began in 1997. Duke University's Global Executive MBA includes a computer and Internet connection, and has attracted international executives for a 19-month program that mixes on-campus sessions with intensive on-line study.
High potential
''According to some estimates, the market for on-line training in Europe alone could reach some 12.5 billion euros ($13.3 billion) next year,'' says Falko B. Diener, marketing director for a recently created German company called Youandi. Youandi offers a brokerage service and a communications medium through its Web site (www.cafe-mondial.net) to organizations that wish to provide their employees with distance-learning facilities without creating the infrastructure themselves.
''Our company was set up as a result of an EU-funded project known as the European Communication Network [Café Mondial],'' Mr. Diener says. ''We believe that the market is ripe for this initiative, since businesses everywhere are now on the lookout for flexible training solutions at reduced cost.''
''In general, established business schools and management centers are using the technology mainly as an add-on to existing programs,'' says Martine Plompen, director of information services and EC liaison at the European Foundation for Management Development in Brussels. ''Some of the newer entrants such as 'virtual universities' and corporate colleges are tending to employ the technology more radically.''
Michael Rowe