The Online MBA Comes Of Age

A recent study of the online educational market by Parthenon showed that potential applicants most prefer hybrid programs that combine Internet-based classes with on-campus study sessions and projects. Pure online programs were then favored in the study, even over on-campus degrees. So far, the scant data available on online degree learning is limited. Cates says UNC’s twice-a-quarter surveys of its online MBA candidates show that student satisfaction is extremely high. “Students feel they know each other well, that they have great access to the faculty, and that they are being intellectually challenged,” adds Cates.

For the professors who teach in online settings, it can initially be a little disconcerting.  “In a classroom, I can look at a student’s body language and facial expressions,” says Cummings of Babson. “I can tell when they’re not getting it. Now I am deprived of that.” On the other hand, the bulletin board discussions can often seem more substantive than the real dialogue in a classroom. “As a professor,” adds Cummings, “I have noticed that if a student has to write their comments, they have to understand the material. You can skate around things in a regular classroom. Your voice evaporates into thin air, but your written comments are there for a long time.”

That’s one reason why many of the best schools in online education require face-to-face meetings with fellow students and faculty. Week-long orientation immersions, weekend retreats and multi-day consulting projects onsite are all part of the more sophisticated blended programs. After a kickoff week on-campus, Babson’s Fast Track program has students studying two courses over each seven-week module in a 21-month program. In each module, there are four weeks online, then two and one-half days of on-campus class, and finally three weeks of online study. All told, 60% of the contact hours are via the Internet, with the remaining 40% in person.

BLURRING THE LINES OF WHAT AN ONLINE EDUCATION IS

“You are seeing a blurring of the definitions of online education,” says Lytle of The Parthenon Group. “There will be a lot of movement to hybrids which include some face-to-face interaction. We are at the beginning of a period of great growth and innovation. This is not the end of it.”

While the videos, podcasts, animations, bulletin board discussions and chat messaging are largely a given in each online program, each school has come up with a different approach to its on-campus segments, generally meant to create the kinds of bonds among students that might seem more elusive online. The University of Florida requires online MBA students to come to its Gainesville, Fla., campus for weekend classes and projects every four months during the 27-month-long program.  A weekend orientation program at the beginning includes a ropes and challenge course. At George Washington University, there’s four-day residencies on the school’s campus in Washington, D.C., during and right after completion of the fundamental course work. In Carnegie Mellon’s 32-month program, there will be 15 “Access Weekends” where students get together with faculty from Friday through Sunday in one of three locations in Pittsburgh, New York, or Silicon Valley.

Besides the week-long “connect week” on Indiana’s Bloomington campus at the start of the Kelley Direct program, there is second “connect week” at the start of the second year. And for the first time this summer, Kelly Direct is bringing 20 of its students to Botswana, Africa, for a global consulting project with one of five small businesses. Teams of four students each will first fly to meet their clients, which range from a garment business to an auto body shop, in Washington, D.C., for a weekend. They will then fly back home and for the next seven weeks work closely with clients virtually. Finally, in August, they will spend a week on site with the business in Africa before making final presentations to the client.

“It’s an eight-week engagement with two face-to-face meetings with the client,” says Powell of Kelley Direct. “The students will interview customers and vendors. They’ll sit at work site and observe work flow. They will be coached by faculty, and students will be given grades based on the ultimate value of their advice to their clients.”

‘OUR EMPHASIS IS TO DO THINGS IN AN ONLINE PROGRAM THAT YOU DIDN’T THINK YOU COULD DO ONLINE’

If all that sounds familiar to students of full-time MBA programs, it is. As Powell points out, “Our whole emphasis is to do things in an online program that you didn’t think you could do online. Where will it lead? Toward the career switchers. Right now online programs serve the career accelerators. If we get an enthusiastic applicant who is a concert pianist who wants to be an investment banker, we point them toward the full-time MBA program. But in the next five to ten years, you will see more people who want to use an online MBA switch to a new industry or discipline. The program will have to help them make that transition.”

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