On Campus Or Off?On whether MBA Online Programs are as good as the "real," in-person kind, the mail is running four to one in favor of virtual learning. Writes an Air Force officer named Paul Dickinson Jr., who has not one but two distance-learning graduate degrees: "I will be joining corporate America this November, [and] so far in my job search, my degrees are just as good as a full-time student's. The only difference between an on-campus degree and a quality distance education is that with the latter, one doesn't make the personal contacts (for future networking)" that full-time, face-to-face students often gather. Plenty of professors, too, are converts to virtual learning. Steven Wolff, Ph.D., teaches a course in managing organizational change--both online and in person--at Marist College. Says he: "I fully believed that class discussions could not be as rich and spontaneous in the online format. Now I am struggling to figure out how to make the face-to-face course as valuable a learning experience as the online course." Why is that? For one thing, the in-person version of the course "suffers from 'impression management' and does not allow the quieter students the time they need to compose a thoughtful response. The online course also allows students to follow multiple discussions at the same time." Want to find out more about online schooling? The U.S. Department of Labor has asked me (and who am I to refuse?) to mention the agency's huge database, America's Learning Exchange, at www.alx.org, which has resources for both "employers seeking work-force training and learners searching for continuing education." Indiana University's Kelley School of Business announced recently that it is offering MBA Online Programs. Purdue University has offered its online executive masters program since 1993. Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. offers a totally Web-based MBA program. And even that bastion of tradition, Harvard University, has incorporated Web-based learning into its traditional program. Universities are recognizing that studying online is a natural for students who are comfortable with the Web as a part of the business world. The IU online MBA, which starts this fall, is no different from an on-campus MBA in that the 48-credit-hour program will take students two years to complete. Tuition is also comparable. Students will access lectures, take virtual tours and participate in online chats with faculty and other students. Students also will complete one week of on-campus learning at the start of each academic year. |