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IU's Kelley School to participate in largest-ever civilian/government distance learning contract
Nov. 16, 2000
BLOOMINGTON, Ind -- Indiana University's Kelley School of Business has been selected by Arthur D. Little, a global consulting and technology firm, to provide online course work as part of a five-year, $88 million e-learning contract for the Internal Revenue Service.
IRS awarded Arthur D. Little the contract to provide a broad range of distance learning services designed to help the agency retool its workforce and improve performance. Arthur D. Little is partnering with the school's Kelley Executive Partners and more than a dozen other universities, law schools and business schools to deliver college credit courses to IRS employees nationwide.
The award, made possible under the IRS Learning and Workforce Development program, is the largest e-learning contract ever awarded by a civilian government agency.
Early next year, Kelley School faculty, through the Kelley Direct program, will begin delivering online courses in accounting to more than 1,000 IRS employees. This is expected to generate about $3 million in revenue for the school.
In addition, the school hopes to provide courses in a number of other areas, including customer service; finance; taxation and compliance; information technology; and human resources. These courses could generate at least $10 million in tuition revenue over the next two years.
"We were approached early on by Arthur D. Little based on the reputation of the Kelley Online MBA Program, the Kelley School's reputation in accounting, finance and general management, and IU's leadership in instructional systems design," said Daniel P. McGurrin, director of custom programs for Kelley Executive Partners.
"In working on the original proposal, Kelley Executive Partners assisted Arthur D. Little with access to faculty information at IU and recommended other leading institutions to partner with, a request of IRS," McGurrin said. "Our experience with distance learning for a number of major corporations and our recent forays into custom-designed, non-credit online courses have put us at the forefront of the e-learning movement."
In addition to delivering distance learning, Arthur D. Little will work closely with the Kelley School to conduct research and bench-marking studies to continually improve the effectiveness of online course design and delivery for IRS.
Other university partners in the project are the Arthur D. Little School of Management, the University of California at Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon University, Cornell University, Ferris State University, Florida A&M University, Florida Community College, Florida State University, the Georgetown University Law Center, George Washington University, Howard University, the University of Minnesota, the University of North Dakota, the University of Texas at Austin and Villanova University School of Law.
Arthur D. Little (http://www.adl.com) is one of the world's premier consulting firms, with offices and laboratories in more than 30 countries around the world. Founded in 1886, the company has continually set the standard for excellence in management consulting, technology and innovation, and environment and risk management.
The Kelley School of Business at IU is one of the country's premier business schools. Its undergraduate program is ranked among the top 10 in the nation and its MBA program has been ranked in the top 20 by Business Week. Kelley Executive Partners, the school's executive education arm, also is ranked by Business Week in the top 20 and offers professional development programs that are designed to serve the client's specific needs. Kelley Direct is the academic unit of the school that is responsible for delivery of for-credit online courses. This year it began offering publicly an online, two-year MBA program.
(George Vlahakis, IU, 812-855-0846, gvlahaki@indiana.edu or Twig Mowatt, Arthur D. Little, 617-498-7366, mowatt.twig@adlitte.com)