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Kelley School's Online MBA Program begins classes this week
Aug. 20, 2000
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Students in the first publicly offered class of an online, two-year MBA program developed by Indiana University's Kelley School of Business are beginning classes today (Aug. 20).
Developed last fall with corporate members of the school's Kelley Executive Partners, the executive education arm of the Kelley School, the Kelley Direct Online MBA program previously was available only to the companies' employees.
Students are gathering this week for a one week in-residence requirement at the beginning of each academic year. Newly enrolled students and second-year students will be on campus together in Indianapolis for classes, networking and campus services orientation. This will be the first of only two opportunities for students to put faces behind the names of their colleagues and faculty.
The remainder of the program is Web-based and asynchronous, which allows for the executives to learn according to their schedule.
The Kelley School decided to "go public" in August with the 2002 class, making Kelley Direct one of the first online master of business administration programs available from a top-ranked business school.
"This program was developed to satisfy a critical need in the distance learning marketplace," said Dan Dalton, dean of the Kelley School, adding that IU is committed to developing the online program with a "level of quality and rigor that is consistent with the university's reputation while providing worthy students who have full-time careers and families the opportunity to earn an MBA."
Toward this goal, the school collaborated with a select group of executive education clients to successfully launch a pilot offering last August.
"Our students already have achieved considerable success in their careers," said Richard J. Magjuka, associate professor of business administration and chairperson of Kelley Direct, the school's new distance education department.
"When considering an MBA program, they tend to shy away from full-time residential programs. In fact, work schedules have made it increasingly difficult for students to commit to the typical part-time MBA program since their schedules make it difficult to be enrolled at the same location for 16 weeks in a row, which is the length of a typical semester," he said.
The courses are delivered through various media. Students will access a variety of materials directly from the Web, including text, audio and video presentations, and virtual tours. Faculty utilize discussion and debate forums and faculty-student interactions via e-mail, phone, and text/voice chat through the Internet.
An e-mail directory, online bulletin boards and other online chats are standard features, along with traditional MBA course materials such as textbooks and business case readings. Simulations and time-revealed scenarios enable and enhance case-based learning. Other features of the program are online testing and audio and video streaming.
The program uses only full-time tenure track faculty, and many of them have been recognized for the quality of their teaching in other programs offered by the Kelley School. "The focus of our teaching is interactivity," Magjuka said. "Our faculty also have devised several teaching strategies that enable the program to attain a high level of interaction among students and faculty, while ensuring that the program retains its asynchronous character, which is vital for an effective online MBA program."
A unique feature of the Kelley Direct Online MBA is its use of a customized, Web-based learning tool, developed by the school, that integrates MBA program content into an imaginative computer environment. Students engage in authentic situations with believable characters in a narrative revealed over time.
"The Online MBA program represents the initial stage in the evolution of distributed education at the Kelley School," Magjuka said. "The program allows students and faculty to establish a new form of learning. Students engage each other and the faculty to produce what is learned in the program -- faculty from students, students from faculty, and students from each other. We believe that we are expanding current perceptions about student learning and the way business education will be delivered in the future."
More details are available at the Kelley Direct Web site at http://mbaonline.indiana.edu or by calling 317-278-1566.
(George Vlahakis, 812-855-0846, gvlahaki@indiana.edu)