“At drinks with some full time MBA students, we talked about how they all have ipads with apps for case studies, websites to elaborate finance models and how they submit coursework online through complex plagiarism software”, writes Wesley Cole, business systems manager for a recruitment company, in a blog from London’s Cass Business School – and admits how baffled he feels. “I quickly realise I have no idea how to learn.”
Most MBAs who started their academic education 10 or 20 years ago grew up in a library, not in Google, comments BusinessWeek. Things are changing, though. New York University’s Stern School for example has put about 20 business cases – previously a 500-page, spiral-bound book of course materials and about half the reading students have to bite through – into an iPad edition last year. In each digital case study, students can highlight material in fluorescent colours and take notes.
Harvard Business School as the largest publisher of case studies in the U.S., is in the process of converting 3,500 of its files to tablet-enhanced formats during this school year and expects to finish converting its library of 17,000 titles by 2013. The University of Western Ontario’s Ivey School of Business made over 500 of its cases available via Apple’s iBookstore end of June.
In the future these case studies can come to life by embedding chief executive officer videos, audio files, and a number of additional assets within the text, which instructors might select on their own. The tablet medium also seems ideal for simulated cases, students may be smacked with unexpected events, such as their biggest competitor slashing prices, or by their receiving a higher-than-expected counterbid after a merger proposal. Students choose what they would do, and the simulation immediately tells them the consequence of that action.
Administrators see MBA candidates preferring the tablet and other mobile devices over laptops for digital delivery. Students are also more inclined to use tablets for supplemental reading. Business schools also see enormous potential for part-time MBA, executive MBA, and non-degree executive education courses, whose students tend to have full-time jobs and travel frequently. This is one of the reasons why this year the University of Utah's Eccles School of Business gave their EMBA students free iPads.
The iPad poses problems, too. Students and professors who have used it for case studies say the device isn’t great for exercises that require hard data analysis or spreadsheets. And if business schools introduce apps, as Stern did, they must provide tech support, which may intimidate schools that lack sufficient resources.
Sources:
MBA Blog
Business week
