Distance education has long been considered a cheap variant of the MBA. Today renowned schools often offer alternatives that have equal worth. Distance learning is also well-received by companies and employees.
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There hasn't been a difference anymore at Warwick Business School for a long time. Whether students take the one-year, full-time MBA or the three-year distance program, in both cases simply "Warwick MBA" appears on the degree. Combining both options is also possible. "Some start for ten weeks with the full-time program and then switch to the distance program," explains Sue Beech, program director of the Distance Learning MBA. "We call it the kick start." Others begin with the distance program and then complete the last part of their studies in the full-time program.
The learning material for distance learning is available as a textbook and can also be downloaded from the Internet. The participants have an average of ten years work experience and are 34 years-old on average. 57 percent of the students are international and 300 Germans have graduated thus far. Roughly 100 participants are currently registered and several German companies like Allianz, Siemens and WestLB have already supported their employees in Warwick distance education.
In the first part of the program, which lasts 12 to 18 months depending on the learning tempo, participants take five modules and attend an eight-day seminar on the Warwick campus. In the second year, five-day seminars are offered in Warwick, Hong Kong, Brussels and Mannheim on top of the compulsory and elective courses. One year of project work including a thesis follows. "It is often concerned with a problem from the company where the participant works," explains program director Beech.
Practical implementation
The distance learning offers are well-received by companies due to the practical implementation alone of what students learn in the program. The reduced absences from jobs and often lower tuition fees are advantages. And the distance programs have also gained credibility through the most expensive Executive MBA programs because, thanks in particular to new online technologies, they focus increasingly on distance studying elements.
This way the students can cram before their lessons for the attendance modules in the distance course and work on case studies and projects in virtual teams in between. At the same time, several schools offering distance education have peppered up their programs with attendance phases and virtual team work. Both program variants use chat rooms, video conferences and the virtual classroom. The possibilities are endless.
65 percent of the Euro-MBA is comprised of e-learning and students spend six weeks in various countries. The 75 students are predominantly European and have an average age of 36. The learning material is available online. Work is done primarily as a team. "Participants read the case study and decide who should work on which task," says Eric Holl. The engineer works for General Electric in Purchasing for GE Energy in Germany.
"Everything is gathered, the result is discussed and a joint project is turned in." The team leader takes on the task of coordinating. "It isn't that easy to organize if one participant is in California and another is on an oil rig in the North Sea," says the 30 year-old. The Euro-MBA is a joint product from six European schools. The Handelshochschule Leipzig (HHL) has also belonged to this group since March.
Better learning method
Enrique Dans, professor of information technology at the Instituto de Empresa (IE) Madrid, even considers online learning to be the better learning method now. In the classroom a student can only ask a short question to which the professor has to answer on the spot. But with an online forum, the student already reflects on the question while writing and the professor can answer it right away or later, forward it to other students or make reference to corresponding literature.
Both online programs are already among the most successful programs at the Spanish school. While the Global MBA is comprised of online discussion groups and lectures, video conferences and two- to three- day "Community Integration Days" in various cities, the 75 students in the "International Executive MBA Online" only meet face to face three times. But that doesn't hurt the cohesion of the class.
"It is even more intense than in classroom teaching," observes Dans. Thanks to Web 2.0, participants can organize telephone conferences, exchange text messages in real time or work on a project together. These possibilities mean that the school's role is changing. "The professor is no longer the one who knows the most," says the IE professor. "He or she is only a kind of media moderator."
This article appeared on April 18, 2008 in the Financial Times Deutschland.
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