e-Education: Partnerings Save the Day
Bob Jensen at Trinity University
Introduction
Online Degree Programs
Comprehensive Universities
Industry Programs
A Crystal Ball Look Into the Future
For two workshops at the American Accounting Association 1999 Annual Meetings in San Diego, I prepared update modules on the following topics:
Module 1: e-Education: Partnerings Save the Day
Module 2: e-Learning: Emerging Pedagogies
Module 3: e-Research: New Research Opportunities
Module 4: e-Technology: Emerging Technologies
Module 5: e-Publishers: A History of Failed Ventures
Module 6: e-CPA Review: Updates on Commercial CPA Exam Software
Module 7: e-Peep: Peeking out from Behind our Campus Bunkers
Module 8: e-Sharing: Some Free Cases from Bob Jensen
What follows is Module 1 on e-Education with particular focus on distance/distributed
higher education in accounting and business.
GEMBA's Lift Off and Global Orbit
Go to GEMBA
Focus is on
Partnerships
The Global Executive MBA (GEMBA) program at the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University is the most important e-Education venture in the history of business education. The reason is that the GEMBA was launched at a time when prestige graduate business programs were either ignoring the e-Education paradigm shift in education, or they were judging it with disdain as glorified correspondence-school pedagogy. It was a shock when GEMBA was launched by a premiere university. The Fuqua School of Business is a wealthy and prestigious operation ranking [Add Here] among its elite peers by US News.
What is even more important is that officials at Duke University view GEMBA as one of the most successful ventures ever undertaken by the Fuqua School of Business. Key accomplishments include:
It should be noted that GEMBA was not designed to be an asynchronous learning program. Faculty prepare cases and other learning materials much like they prepare such materials for live classrooms. Networked classes in GEMBA are synchronous with students around the world meeting at the same time and communicating with one another and the instructor much like they would communicate in a classroom on campus.
ADEPT Jolts the Ivy League's Luddites
Go to ADEPT
The ADEPT online masters program in the School of Engineering at Stanford University is
the most important e-Education venture in the history of the top 10 universities in the
world. The reason is that the ADEPT was launched at a time when the top 10
universities were either ignoring the e-Education paradigm shift in education or they were
judging it with disdain as glorified correspondence-school pedagogy. Whereas GEMBA at Duke
University was a similar program in graduate business education, GEMBA had non-traditional
students who were executives of companies around the world. ADEPT was aimed at more
traditional students who might otherwise be accepted into the traditional graduate
engineering program at Stanford University..
What is even more important is that when large universities such as UCLA, UC Berkeley,
NYU, etc. began to experiment in distance education over the Internet, they did so through
their adult-extension programs rather than their mainline schools and departments.
The ADEPT program, however, was part and parcel to the School of Engineering's
mainline graduate programs and faculty.
Ernst & Young Partners With the Fighting Irish and the Cavaliers
Go
to E&Y Web Site
Go to Notre Dame
The E&Y-funded masters programs in assurance services are not the first such programs in which employees of large accounting firms enrolled in graduate programs with the firms paying for tuition, fees, and living expenses. However, they are the first, to my knowledge, to employ distance education courses over the Internet that lead to a masters degree in accounting and qualify students to take the CPA examination. It should be noted that only two of the courses are web courses taken by employees who are working full time around the world. For the other courses, students must take a leave of absence and meet in traditional classrooms on the campuses of Notre Dame or the University of Virginia (UVA).
Things that I find significant about this program include the following:
It should be noted that, like the GEMBA program course, the E&Y web courses are synchronous rather than asynchronous. Students meet at the same time in virtual classrooms.
PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PWC) Partners With the Bulldogs
Go to Georgia's PWC
Program
The Terry College of Business Program at the University of Georgia is the first
university business school, to my knowledge. to partner with a public accounting firm to
tailor-design all courses for employees of one firm and to deliver every course
asynchronously online. This is an MBA program targeted for consulting-division
employees of PWC who do not take a leave of absence from work for any course in the
program. The only accounting courses are accountancy courses normally required of
MBA students who are not concentrating in accounting or intending to sit for the CPA
examination.
What I find unique in this PWC-funded MBA program are the following:
Western Governors University --- Indiana Becomes a "Western"
State
Go to WGU
Participating States
Course Providers
(Note
that Oklahoma State University provides course even though Oklahoma
is not a
participating state.)
This is the first "prestigious" virtual university to start from scratch as a web-based university. This virtual university did not spring forth from an existing campus or an existing distance education program delivering courses by older technologies such as snail mail, telephone, and television. This "university" was uniquely conceived by the Governors of the states west of the Mississippi River (later Indiana applied to become part of the program).
Bringing WGU to where it presently stands has not been easy. Sponsoring states did not all appropriate funding at the start of the funding requirements. For example, California and Texas had to be cajoled into finally appropriating their shares of the funding. Although WGU is now offering courses and certificates, it is not yet fully accredited to offer most university-level degrees at undergraduate and graduate levels. It is, however, in the final stages
The key to WGU success to date has been the following:
Open University --- The Largest e-College in the World
Go to OpenFacts
The largest university in the United Kingdom moved quickly to modify existing distance education courses to web-based courses. Unlike WGU, Open University did not spring forth with the advent of the Internet. However, Open University did move quickly into into delivering courses on the Internet soon after the world wide web was invented.
Today, Open University stands as a giant amidst the crowd of colleges and universities that offer web-based courses and entire degree and certificate programs. Its 214,000 currently enrolled students have options to participate in over 100 web courses. This British giant distance education university will continue to flourish with new partnerships such as its partnership with Western Governors University to deliver courses in the United States. It will likely become dominant in global delivery of online degree programs.
The University of Phoenix --- Largest Private University in the
World
Go to Home Page
Go to Map
This fledgling distance education university of questionable quality adapted to web
technologies, got accreditations for programs, and soared over the Internet to become the
world's largest private university. With over 61,000 currently enrolled students, it
has become the largest private university in the world.
What I find most significant about the University of Phoenix is its adaptation to technologies for small classes and geographically-dispersed students. In most courses, students now communicate both synchronously and asynchronously with each other and with instructors. This has lifted the reputation of the University of Phoenix. Its courses are now more than glorified correspondence courses where students work in isolation. In many ways, the pioneering efforts of this university have made larger and more prestigious universities to sit up and take notice of what is happening at the University of Phoenix.
California Virtual University Bites the Dust
Go to CVU Home Page
Not every major effort to create a virtual university has succeeded. A noteworthy
failure is the California Virtual University. CVU failed to get sufficient state
funding and funding from partnerships to become a viable online university. Reasons
are many and varied, but one obvious reason is that its competitors are literally all
higher education campuses in the State of California. Colleges and Universities in
California are fighting to offer their own online programs. In addition, the
Governor of California elected to push California into putting up the funds to become a
viable participant in Western Governors University.
Virtually Every State University and Many Private
Universities are Joining Up
Yahoo's Distance Education Guide
http://dir.yahoo.com/Education/Distance_Learning/Colleges_and_Universities/
Virtual University Net (helps you find networked higher education and training courses)
http://www.users.uswest.net/~phdtom/home.htm
Other web pointers --- See Bob Jensen's Bookmarks
http://www.trinity.,edu/Bookbob2.htm#050421Colleges, Virtual
Online Colleges, and Online Certificate Programs
The U.S. Military Has Over 4,000 Training and Education Courses
The United States Military has been a pioneer in the development of technology aids for education and training. Its resources are vast and its training/education priorities are on the same levels as priorities for military hardware development. It does little good to develop military hardware that fails due to lack of training and skills of personnel who deploy such hardware.
What I find most important is that the U.S. Military has conducted extensive research on efficiency and effectiveness of e-Learning. In some instances research outcomes are shared with academe, although many studies remain classified. For example, the U.S. Military carried out the first studies, to my knowledge, of Hawthorne effects of e-Learning. Similarly, the U.S. Military paved the way for virtual reality (VR) learning studies. The very first hypertext software development came from military grants to developers such as Owl Corporation.
The Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) has a reasonably good free online
Education section at http://www.cboe.com/education/
I mention the CBOE free online Education section to illustrate the exploding number of
training and education modules that are available from private industry to enhance the
skills of potential customers and possible future employees. The CBOE reasons that
investors who learn about their "products" will be more inclined to consider
investing in such products and become long-term loyalists if they are not burned by their
own ignorance the first time they naively buy into a product.
In the case of the CBOE, the products are quite complex such as derivative financial instruments such as LEAPs, [Add here]
I also mentioned the CBOE tutorials because these are the first tutorials from industry that are both made free online to the public and make use of the Macromedia Authorware reader software. For the free Authorware Reader and other Macromedia downloads, click on the Download button at http://www.macromedia.com/. Authorware is very sophisticated course authoring software that typically is used only for CD-ROM or intranet delivery. Worldwide delivery on the Internet is somewhat unique and does demonstrate to academics that Authorware can be used for web delivery of college courses.
Motorola University, General Electric University, etc.
AT&T Virtual Academy at http://www.att.com/learningnetwork/virtualacademy/
Virtual University Net (helps you find networked higher education and training courses)
http://www.users.uswest.net/~phdtom/home.htm
Other web pointers --- Bob Jensen's Bookmarks
http://www.trinity.,edu/Bookbob2.htm#050421Colleges, Virtual
Online Colleges, and Online Certificate Programs
From On the Horizon, July 2, 1999, http://horizon.unc.edu/horizon/online/login.asp
"Corporate Universities: Just-in-Time Learning"
by Michael D. Kull.
Kull examines the goals and operations of corporate universities, one permutation of the
general trend toward an expanded and diversified education market.
"Instead of relying on the country’s education system to furnish packaged
solutions in the form of new graduates," he writes, many "organizations want
education to be delivered to the right people at the right time in the right way:
just-in-time." For some corporations, the "right" solution is an
independent, company-run university. For others, it is an educational alliance with an
existing university; consequently, educators should pay more attention to the business
market and to how traditional brick-and-mortar institutions can better serve it. After
all, Kull reminds readers, "partnering represents the next step in the evolution of a
knowledge economy."
A Crystal Ball Look Into the Future
Judith Boettcher in Syllabus, June 1999, 18-24 (the online version is not yet online, but it will soon be posted to http://www.syllabus.com/ ). Judith Boettcher is affiliated with CREN. She predicts the following scenarios (which appear to be heavily in line with the emerging WGU programs mentioned above):
1. A "career university" sector will be in place (with important partnerships of major corporations with prestige universities).
2. Most higher education institutions, perhaps 60 percent, will have teaching and learning management software systems linked to their back office administration systems.
3. New career universities will focus on certifications, modular degrees, and skill sets.
4. The link between courses and content for courses will be broken.
5. Faculty work and roles will make a dramatic shift toward specialization (with less stress upon one person being responsible for the learning material in an entire course).
(Outsourcing Academics http://www.outsourcing-academics.com/ )6. Students will be savvy consumers of educational services (which is consistent with the Chronicle of Higher Education article at http://chronicle.com/free/99/05/99052701t.htm ).
7. The tools for teaching and learning will become as portable and ubiquitous as paper and books are today.
An abstract from On the Horizon http://horizon.unc.edu/horizon/online/login.asp
Will Universities Be Relics? What Happens When an Irresistible Force Meets an Immovable Object? John W. Hibbs
Peter Drucker predicts that, in 30 years, the traditional university will be nothing more than a relic. Should we listen or laugh? Hibbs examines Drucker's prophesy in the light of other unbelievable events, including the rapid transformation of the Soviet Union "from an invincible Evil Empire into just another meek door-knocker at International Monetary Fund headquarters." Given the mobility and cost concerns of today's students, as well as the growing tendency of employers to evaluate job-seekers' competencies rather than their institutional affiliations, Hibbs agrees that the brick-and-mortar university is doomed to extinction.