Desert or desk: the school is a click away
By Andrew Baxter
Twenty years ago this month, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, while working at Cern, the European Particle Physics Laboratory, proposed a system that would manage information about its experiments and enable people to work together through a web of hypertext documents.
Sir Tim called his idea “Mesh” - he coined the term “World Wide Web” a year later. Business schools were not alone in taking a while to exploit the technology, but, 20 years on, the web has become an integral part of the programmes they offer. There is more to come, too - emerging web technologies will further enrich online education.
That world would not exist without the internet, but distance learning has a longer history, and might have continued almost unchanged had the online revolution not taken place.
“We would still be using books and bad CDs - those CDS were truly ghastly,” says Gary Woodhall, chief technology officer for Kaplan Professional UK, the training company. Private, global networks would have taken off, he says, but these would have been very expensive.
Distance learning would probably be closer to the traditional model without the web, says Bert Valencia, vice-president of distance learning programmes at Arizona-based Thunderbird School of Global Management.
“We wouldn't be posting things online that show up overnight anywhere in the world - we would be shipping things,” he says. The internet gives students the ability not only to receive information whenever they want but to interact. “Each person, across 24 hours, is making their own contribution in their working day, posting and interacting, then going to sleep while another student contributes, and this is facilitated by the internet.”
Mr Valencia sees the internet as a roadway on which, increasingly, “new vehicles” in the form of software are offering better ways for students to collaborate. “You and I and another student in China could be discussing a case study together as long as we agree a time,” he says.
This “network effect”, which has transformed the ways in which schools and students communicate, is a powerful unifying influence. “If we had not had the internet, there would be two separate roles - one for content delivery, through CDs, DVDs and printed material - and the other for communications, using existing means,” says Sabine Seufert, associate professor of education management at the University of St Gallen, Switzerland. For all its contribution to business education, however, online learning has not swept all before it.
While distance learning is now almost entirely online, it is just one weapon in a school's armoury. Blended learning is the preferred option, and even a predominantly online MBA programme will normally have a face-to-face element of some kind, if only for a few days.
Conversely, it would be inconceivable for a full-time course to be conducted in an internet vacuum. Students' laptops in a classroom will be connected to the internet, and may need to be in order for the session to achieve its educational aims.
In a recession, with companies cutting training budgets, one might assume that distance learning programmes - which are cheaper and achievable without having to give up your job - would take market share away from full-time courses.
In fact, all varieties benefit - distance learning programmes are reporting increased applications, but so are full-time courses. The reality is that students are making more careful decisions about what is right for them, says Chris Howorth, director of external and executive programmes at Royal Holloway School of Management, part of the University of London.
“If you are faced with redundancy or unemployment, going back to full-time education fills in a space in your CV, and also upskills you for when the upturn comes,” he says. “If you are in work, you are probably being asked to do more as companies downsize, and you need more skills - but you don't want to risk leaving your job.”Timing may also be an important consideration for prospective MBA students in the current environment, says Mr Valencia at Thunderbird. No one knows how long the economic crisis is going to last, he says, but it makes sense for students to be completing their courses when the upturn is under way.
Whatever course they choose, however, most business education students will hardly be fazed by further innovations in the schools' online offerings.
“The pace of technology change is so fast,” says Mr Howorth. “Two years ago we would have been talking about RSS feeds, but not about LinkedIn [the business networking tool], Delicious [a social bookmarking web service] and Web 2.0.” Now, he says, programmes are making use of wikis and blogs and Royal Holloway also uses LinkedIn to network with alumni.
Wikis, web pages that can be modified easily by anyone entering them, have quickly become a powerful tool for enhancing collaboration. Students on the McGill-HEC Montreal EMBA programme, for example, are building a series of wikis as a knowledge base on key business issues they are exploring. “This is a great way for them to share knowledge within their class,” says Marianne Vandenbosch, director of the Canadian programme.
Because Web 2.0 tools such as social networking sites help to foster a sense of community, they can play a powerful supporting role. As Kaplan's Mr Woodhall explains, online learning has gone through several stages - starting off as a means of delivering books quickly and cheaply, then moving through asynchronous learning (content is delivered, then accessed at a time to suit the learner), personalisation and synchronous or two-way learning (including webcasting and videos watched live).
“The next trend is the ‘integrated learning community,' which will attract people who don't like learning from books but need a community in order to learn,” he says.
Web 2.0 does have a lot of potential as an informal style of learning, says Ms Seufert, who this August becomes University of St Gallen's professor of business education. But much will depend on bringing it together with the existing educational system which business students need, too.
Among several areas where she feels the web could offer more is the provision of “social graphs” - visual representations of researchers in a particular field, their work and their interconnections that could provide a useful starting point for new students. Social networking sites such as Facebook are a small step in that direction, says Ms Seufert.
At least one thing that has not changed with the rise of online learning is the graduation ceremony - how could that be anything other than a physical event? Think again: business schools have set up campuses or rented “islands” on the online world of Second Life. Avatars of students and faculty have been replicating real-world activities in a three-dimensional virtual community where participants can feel they are present without really having to be there.
Last month, in what has been claimed as a first, the avatars of 18 senior BP executives gathered on Manchester Business School‘s virtual island to pick up their alter egos' certificates, following a year-long project management programme. They shook hands with the dean, Michael Luger, who says MBS's Second Life presence is all part of “adding value to the real-time experience of our students”.
