September 2000 Meeting: Universities
Preparation
From Eilif Trondsen:
A. Online graduate and executive education
B. Online institutions and offerings
C. General college (mostly undergraduate) educationFrom Jay Cross:
Peter Drucker, Ivy Online, Unext, The Virtual Diploma, Digital Diploma Mills
A. Articles and resources on online graduate and executive education
• The New Republic, August 8, 2000: “The Virtual University.”—See:
http://www.thenewrepublic.com/magazines/tnr/current/confessore100499.html
Key Points:
— Colorado-based Jones International University became the first fully accredited, entirely online university.
— OnlineLearning.net: a private LA-based company loosely affiliated with the University of California at Los Angeles. In August 1996, OLN had 17students; the fall of 2000 it will have enrolled roughly 6,000 people from just about every state and 43 countries.
— The natural market for distance learning lies within the fastest-growing segment of the otherwise stagnant higher education industry: continuing and professional education for working adults
— According to the College Board, almost half of all people enrolled in higher education in the US are participants in part-time classes or training—one reason why some of the most prestigious universities in the country (including Harvard, Stanford, Duke, Columbia, and the University of Chicago) run continuing education programs.
— NYU’s School of Continuing and Professional Studies (SCPS) pulled in revenues of $92 million, while Harvard Extension School (which serves nearly 60,000 part-time students) earned a hefty $150 million, and UCLA Extension earned $42 million.
— In October 1999, NYU spun off NYU Online, Inc, a private company —to which that NYU supplied $1.5 million in start-up capital—that will offer noncredit, online courses to corporate training programs (NYU’s SCPS, in partnership with IBM, also offers online courses through its “Virtual college” program.
— Stanford, the University of Chicago, the London School of Economics, Columbia, and Carnegie Mellon have all signed deals with Unext.com (where Mike Milken is a key investor)
— The University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton Direct program, a division of Wharton School of Business, has inked a deal with Pensare of Los Altos, CA to develop and market Wharton-derived online “courseware.”
— In August 1999, the Department of Education announced a $10 million in awards to colleges, universities, companies and nonprofit organizations to “help adults gain access to distance-learning opportunities.”
• FT News From Campus: Master in International Management program will be created by Thunderbird School in cooperation with Acer Group—targeted at fast-track executives from Asia.
Key Points:
— Faculty from Thunderbird will supervise the program which will be divided into 10 modules over a 13-month period. Each module will consist of two parts: (1) an in-class session and (2) an eLearning session. The in-class sessions run for six days will be held at the Acer learning center in Taipei.
— The eLearning sessions will comprise research, self-study and distance learning technology using computer-based interactive communication.
• FT; 7/17/2000; “Cambridge at a distance.”
Key Points:
— Cambridge university’s Judge Institute of Management has taken a bold step into the 21st century and joined forces with FT Knowledge to launch an executive online MBA (Note by ET: FT Knowledge, a part of Financial Times, is owned by the Pearson media group that has made a number of acquisitions in the US over the last year, both in K-12 and corporate training [the Forum Corporation], and has made deals with AOL to provide online learning)
— FT Knowledge is already working with Wharton at the University of Pennsylvania offering an open learning e-business course and also with University of Michigan Business School to develop and deliver executive education via the Internet.
• FT, 7/3/2000; “Cashing in on the corporates.”
Key Points:
— Duke University’s Fuqua school is spinning off its client-based executive education department into a profit-making company. By doing so it hopes to meet customers’ needs—and to make money for the university.
— Although several US business schools have toyed with such ventures, the Duke plans is on a remarkable scale.
— The new company, Duke Corporate Education, brings together Fuqua’s customized executive education portfolio, the school’s consultancy business—which was set up last year to advice clients specifically on distance-learning issues—and the technology base of the school.
• Wall Street Journal (as part of special on eCommerce), 7/17/2000: “A Matter of Degree.”
Key Points:
— Some $6 billion in VC funding has flowed into the education sector since 1990. Analysts expect another $4 billion in 2000.
— Universities are moving more quickly than many industry analysts expected and want to show that Virtual U’s—such as Kaplan College, Capella University, or Apollo Group Inc’s University of Phoenix Online (which claims a virtual student body of 60,000)—aren’t all they are cracked up to be.
— Many eLearning efforts, including those of New York University, Cornell, and the University of Maryland (which has offered distance-education classes to the military for 50 years) are being spun off as for-profit ventures. And Maryland hopes to tap venture capital to help with development costs and the marketing of hundred of online courses.
B. Online Institutions and Offerings:
• Corpedia: http://www.corpedia.com
— “Web Delivered, Tracked & Managed Corporate Education.”
— Have exclusive offering of Peter Drucker’s Executive Management Series (5 hour course on Business Strategies Essentials; introductory special priced at $450); other courses are: (1) The Successful Acquisition; (2) Alliances: The Rules for Successful Partnerships; (3) Five Deadly Business Sins; (4) Permanent Cost Control; (5) Entrepreneurial Strategies
— Coming Soon: W.Edward Deming’s System of Profound Knowledge
• See National Public Radio reference below.
• A Google search found 955,000 hits on “online education” including:
— A Guide to Online Education, by Greg Kearsley; See: www.gsehd.gwu.edu/~etl/online.html
— JOE: The Journal of Online Education; See: www.nyn.classes/keefer/waoe/waoej.html
— Online Education Notebook; This notebook is a constantly evolving meta-site of web resources on online higher education (very extensive): See: www.uis.edu/~schroede/sources.htm
— World Association for Online Education; See: www.kagawa-jc.ac.jp/~steve_mc/WAOE-founding.html
— BBC Online-Education; See: www.bbc.uk/education
— Online Education Directory; See: www.1netcentral.com/online-education.html
C. Articles dealing with general college (mostly undergraduate education):
• NPR article on “Better Learning through Technology” including links & Resources—See: http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/000828.cfoa.html
• Wall Street Journal, July 28, 2000: “Financier Herbert Allen Jr. Woos Elite Colleges to Teach on the Web”—See: http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB96473895852937235.htm
Key Points:
— Allen’s Global Education Network has reached preliminary agreement with Wellesley College as a charter member and is negotiating with some 10 other schools as well as individual faculty members.
— If ventures like GEN succeed, they promise to raise troubling questions about the role of selectivity at elite colleges. Are Ivy League courses as valuable when they are available to millions instead of thousands?
— Mr. Allen’s GEN is significant because, unlike most other ventures, it focuses squarely on undergraduate liberal-arts courses—the very subjects many people think least susceptible to computerization.
— The venture is targeting four distinct markets for its online courses: (1) “lifelong learners” who graduated from college decades ago but want to challenge themselves; (2) college students at smaller institutions who want to supplement their studies with courses not offered on their campuses; (3) high-school students gearing up for competitive college-admission processes; and (4) students overseas who want access to US institutions.
• Financial Times; April 3, 2000: “Partners in education aim to create global library on Web”
Key Points:
— The London School of Economics, Cambridge University Press, the British Library, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of National History, the New York Public Library, and Columbia University are the founding members behind fathom.com
— With an initial investment over the next year estimated at $80 million, the aim is to combine access to knowledge with online educational offerings and innovative partnerships between the institutions.
• Financial Times; News From Campus; August 2000; “Houston School in online Deal.”
Key Points:
— Jesse Jones Graduate School of Management at Rice University has become the latest school to form an alliance with an online learning partner, teaming up with Quisic (previously University Access of LA)
— They are launching Business Bound, an interactive program in business fundamentals and “near real-time computerized simulation.”
— Quisic recently acquired IEC, an eLearning company focused on customized content development
