The ELearning Fieldbook [Electronic resources] : Implementation Lessons and Case Studies from Companies that are Making eLearning Work نسخه متنی

Case 3: Babson College

Company Facts and Figures

Industry: Academic Institution dedicated to business education

Scope of Services and Products: Offers Bachelors and Masters degrees, and executive education

Estimated Number of Employees: 208 Faculty

Year e-Learning Introduced: 2000

Offices and Locations: Wellesley, Massachusetts, U.S.

Estimated 2002 Revenues: Non-profit organization

Web Site: www.babson.edu/

Number of e-Learning Programs in Entire curriculum: Babson College offers a public blended Fast Track MBA, in addition to custom e-learning capabilities to corporate clients.

Introduction

Babson College entered the world of e-learning in January 2000 through the formation of Babson Interactive, LLC, a distance-learning, for-profit company with Babson College as the sole shareholder. The notion was to establish a small company that could be more responsive to the marketplace and which could leverage Babson’s wealth of knowledge and courses to deliver e-learning. This capability would be applied in both the Graduate School and in the School of Executive Education. Babson Interactive provides interactive learning experiences through its expertise in curriculum creation, project and program management, and technology implementation.

Immediately upon the founding of Babson

Interactive three major projects were launched.

The Babson Intel MBA program

A suite of business simulation products

A multi-media CD-ROM on Corporate

Entrepreneurship

Why e-Learning?

Babson’s School of Executive Education (SEE) believes that the classroom experience is the focus of learning; however, it builds on proven strengths to deliver custom e-learning executive education programs, which provide corporate clients with:

Distance learning solutions needed to concurrently teach executives, middle managers and front-line managers around the world via online courses

Capability to build learning beyond the boundaries of the classroom

Reach to extend training from select executives to broad numbers of key managers

Cost-effective ways to disseminate information, provide specific skill-building training, and the ability to build global communities

The Babson Intel MBA Program

The Babson Intel MBA program is the focus of this case. This innovative MBA program, which is very closely aligned with the Babson full-time, two-year MBA program, uses the same content and the same number of sessions comprising the standard MBA. It combines face-to-face, live and self-paced e-learning, and simulations in a blended learning model.

In addition, great effort was made both by Intel Corporation executives and Babson faculty to ensure that the Intel MBA program is:

Integrated with Intel strategic business drivers

Applied to real work projects and initiatives

Supported by the presence of Intel executives during the intersessions and in guiding the work team projects

The learnings gained by Babson during the design, development, and delivery of the highly successful Babson Intel MBA program have been leveraged to create a new blended model MBA now offered to the public. It is called Babson Fast Track MBA.

How Was the Program Aligned with the Business?

As in all partnerships, the business drivers of both organizations must be considered and embraced to ensure success. In the design, development and delivery of this ground-breaking MBA program, both Babson College and Intel Corporation were focused on important, discrete strategic goals that were supported by the collaboration.

Babson School of Executive Education, a leader in entrepreneurship, recognized immediately the opportunity to build capacity in a new venue for teaching and learning. e-Learning offered ground-breaking innovations and capabilities for traditional institutions of learning to meet the requirements of their corporate clients through geographically unlimited, multi-media approaches to learning design and delivery. In addition, the learning curve offered to faculty and staff by engaging in an aggressive e-learning initiative enabled Babson to quickly develop an embedded interest and experience in delivering learning in this new methodology.

By offering a viable alternative to Intel’s policy of sending people to full-time and part-time MBA programs, Intel sought to keep their best people, reduce attrition, and become more attractive when recruiting the best engineers. Intel wanted to be recognized as one of the best corporations for top engineers to work and to learn. Their strong belief was that the ability to offer an internal MBA from a recognized academic institution would offer a competitive edge in recruitment and retention.

Company policy offered their best employees a leave of absence to participate in two-year traditional MBA programs. Intel found that frequently once those who chose this option completed their degrees, they left Intel entirely. By helping the top employees to balance their workload while completing an MBA from a brand institution, Intel hoped to retain these high performers.

In addition, by forming a cohort of advanced, highly-motivated students within Intel, they offered a program that built cohesion, integrated learning with Intel issues and projects, and achieved synergy that benefited the company and the participants.

Key Business Drivers

Babson College

Babson College differentiates itself in its approach to business education by:

Offering integrated streams of learning rather than courses

Focusing on entrepreneurship

Seizing opportunities to be innovative in learning

Intel Corporation

Intel realized that an internal MBA program would support:

Recruitment and retention of the best engineers in the world

Work-life balance for these employees in meeting both work requirements and educational aspirations

Better return on investments in higher education than Intel was realizing by sending individual employees out to participate in part-time MBA courses

How Was the Program Designed?

Intel approached Babson College to collaborate with them in developing a branded, world-class MBA program in an innovative format for their internal, high-potential employees.

The first approach was by a small group of young Intel engineers who were given a charge to find and develop an MBA program. The result of the first meeting was a decision by Babson to go to Arizona and spend a day talking to prospective candidates and the senior sponsors. Ultimately, the size of this group was too small initially to pursue the opportunity, and the proposal went on the shelf.

Then a top-level Intel human resources executive charged with the effort to create corporate-wide educational programs including an internal, customized MBA, approached Babson again and subsequently became the internal advocate of the program.

In the beginning of this venture, Babson’s School of Executive Education was very new and inexperienced in e-learning, and did not have existing frameworks and models to apply. However, in the entrepreneurial and innovative spirit, they realized that the only way to become expert was to jump in to this new field. To produce high quality learning experiences, they engaged partners knowledgeable in the field of e-learning. They also determined that the design and delivery of the customized MBA must be of the same high quality and rigor of the traditional full-time MBA. It was anticipated that this look and feel alignment with the traditional degree program would satisfy both the concerns of the Babson faculty about the academic rigor of the new venture and meet or exceed Intel’s requirements for a top-level MBA program.

Babson Intel MBA Design Parameters:

Similarities to Babson’s Two-Year MBA

Faculty Oversight Committee Reviews the design and quality of the program and reports back to the faculty at large, ensuring a religious rigor to the traditional MBA program

Student Profile 25 to 30 years old; Five to ten years work experience; good grades; GMAT scores of Intel internal students slightly higher

Assessment Tools

Same assessment tools as in the two-year MBA: Written case studies, exams, and formal presentations

Exams sent to Intel by Babson; monitors hired and the exams collected and returned to Babson for grading; presentations done in video conference and recorded for grading by the Babson faculty

125 Instruction Days

Equivalent to the two-year MBA

62 intensive, face-to-face instruction days, 2.5 days per month over 25 months

63 instruction days in intersession, intensive individual and team learning supported by live and self-paced e-learning.

Content streams rather than courses

Content delivered in an integrative way, with one case being taught from multiple points of view in one day.

Evaluations

Same evaluation as in two-year MBA

17-question evaluation of faculty, content, relevance, and teaching materials

Innovations to Babson’s Two-Year MBA

Projects relate to real work

Students integrate learning into project assignments on the job

“We do real work, not homework.”

Visibility to senior management

Senior managers sponsor the projects and view the presentations of the teams

e-Learning

CD-ROM is the backbone of the program, with syllabi and learning objectives week-by-week

Interactive video cases with interviews with executives, investors, and employees

Web forums using series of questions posted to different teams, critiques, and comments on each other’s postings

Multimedia course overview

Web-enabled seminars and presentations

Media and Tools

Multimedia CD-ROM

Video conferencing

Streaming video

Macromedia Flash

Simulations

Live e-learning using CentraOne

Web-enabled forums

Voice-over PowerPoint

Voice-over financial analysis and spreadsheets

Web casts

How Was the Program Deployed?

The first cohort of 33 Intel students began the Babson Intel MBA program in May 2001, and 31 finished their MBA in June 2003.

Over the course of 27 months, 2.5 face-to-face classroom sessions are held each month. These classroom sessions offer integrated streams of content and are delivered each session by up to three full-time Babson College faculty working in teams. Rotating among three Intel office locations in Oregon, California, and Arizona, all students and faculty travel to the designated location to attend.

The Curriculum is delivered in four modules as follows:

Module 1: Introduction/Opportunity Recognition

Creative Management in Dynamic Organizations

Law (continues throughout all four modules)

Leading in Dynamic Organizations (organizational behavior)

Effective Teams

Module 2: Opportunity Assessment

Competitive Strategy and Assessment

Data Analysis

Financial Impact of Business Decisions

Managing Cash Flows

Market, Environment, and Industry Adjustment

Market Opportunity: Definition and Assessment

Module 3: Managing and Sustaining a Business

Designing Marketing Systems

Decision Support Systems

E-Business

Information Systems for Managers

Managing and Valuing Cash Flows

Strategic Cost Systems

Technology and Operations Management

Module 4: Managing Growth in an Uncertain Environment

Entrepreneurship

Financial Strategy

Managing in the Global Economy

National Business Systems

For three weeks of each month between the classroom sessions, the students engage through online, virtual collaboration in individual and team study, and in application to work and real issues. For example, one team is asked to interview some of their own legal staff or to meet with the marketing or finance executives; individuals use the media-rich CD-ROM materials to master financial analysis; participants engage in faculty seminars delivered in live e-learning sessions, in video conference presentations, and in Web-enabled forums with related assignments, postings, commentary, and dialogue.

What Was the Business Impact of the Program?

For Babson College the business results were highly satisfactory.

The faculty is on-board with the notion that a blended delivery model for a degree program is a viable and valuable alternative to full-time, classroom-based learning.

The increased understanding, experience, and capability at Babson to support the internal development of e-learning materials have greatly improved.

The lessons learned have guided the launch of the Babson FastTrack MBA.

The expanded opportunity to consider geographically remote markets for Babson degree programs has become a reality.

Babson College is being recognized as a leader in learning innovations. Financial Times has quoted Babson as ‘leading the way’ in providing interactive online education for executives through Babson Interactive.

Intel Corporation launched the second Babson Intel MBA program cohort in January 2003.

The program evaluations submitted by the students indicate that the satisfaction with the learning experience equaled, and in some cases exceeded, the evaluations submitted by full-time MBA students.

Learner Perspectives

Intel Corporation Learner Perspectives

Almost no attrition, only two students did not finish the program

Students appreciated:

Relevance of the program to every day work

High visibility to senior management

Peer learning

Integrated view of the company

Quality of the program with full-time faculty

Module 1 Student Feedback by Subject Area:

* On a 5 point scale,with 5 being excellent

Summary

Purpose: Engage e-learning in a blended model to provide Intel high potential employees with an MBA program from a branded educational institution to:

Support recruitment and retention of the best talent

Assist in work-life balance issues

Improve return on educational investments

Program Structure: The blended model enabled the faculty to engage the students in face-to-face sessions, as well as through Web-enabled learning, media-rich CD-ROM based learning and other distance and e-learning techniques, extending the learning into workplace realities and issues.

Number of Learning Hours per Learner: 1,000

Total Number of Hours of Learning in the Program: 1,000

Number of Learners: 31

Completion Requirements:

Finish all coursework and pass multiple assessments and examinations similar to the rigor and manner utilized in the two-year MBA program at Babson College

Media and Tools:

Multi-media CD-ROM

Video conferencing

Streaming video

Macromedia Flash

Simulations

Live e-learning using CentraOne

Web-enabled forums

Voice-over PowerPoint

Voice-over financial analysis and spreadsheets

Web casts

Deployment Mechanism:

Face-to-face classroom sessions

e-Learning supported by CenQuest and CentraOne

Project teamwork

Lessons Learned

Always gain the commitment of the company senior executives at the beginning of the engagement, defining clearly the mutual commitments: what the company is prepared to do; what the institution is prepared to do; roles and responsibilities in marketing; and commitment of senior executives to sponsor work-related projects.

Cover the basics of the content in face-to-face sessions to develop the context, to present what is being learned and why it is important, and to gain the student commitment to the learning at the launch of each new topic.

Cover lecture-type material in Web seminars, not wasting valuable face-to-face time.

Use e-learning capabilities for deeper, intensive learning in small groups or individually.

Voice-over spreadsheets are an especially powerful tool to teach finance and decision systems.

Dramatized cases and simulations are impressive; however, can be a waste of money. They look pretty, but students click through them because they can read faster.

Web Forums are best when a variety of assignments are given to different groups, each group presents findings, and then comment on and critique each others results, followed by introducing just-in-time cases and articles to support dialogue.

Some faculty prefer traditional face-to-face delivery, and the best performers in this environment may not be the star performers in the manager of learning role required in the e-learning environment. They manage the process rather than being on the podium leading the class.

Don’t underestimate the cost of moving content into a digitized delivery mode.

Blended solutions do not need to be a 50/50 split between classroom and e-learning. In some cases it can be 20/80.

Residency and evening MBA programs can be made more efficient through the use of e-learning.