Studying online opens up a new world of opportunity

Distance learning is gaining in respect and popularity as a way to achieve an MBA, wherever you are in the world.

"We are very proud to be running a high-quality MBA in cyberspace," announced Professor Julius Weinberg, vice-chancellor of Kingston University, earlier this year, as the university launched its first distance learning Master of Business Administration degree.

The university is one of the UK's most respected providers of MBAs and has already spread its wings as far as Moscow, delivering MBA courses in the Russian capital. But in venturing into cyberspace, offering prestigious UK degrees to students based thousands of miles away, it is joining a sizeable and ever-growing club. Cyberspace, increasingly, is where the MBA of the 21st century is being forged.

There are more than 20 UK universities and business schools offering MBAs and similar qualifications off campus, attracting students from all over the world. Most of the students will need to visit the UK at some point, but they are spared the hefty costs of a full-time residential course and, thanks to flexible teaching methods and modular courses, can combine part-time study with full-time employment.

Kingston's new distance learning MBA, beginning in January 2014, is fairly typical of what the UK has to offer. The cost of the course, spread out over three years, is £16,000, compared with £18,560 for a full-time MBA, a saving of £2,560; and after a two-week induction in Kingston, students can continue their studies online, wherever they are, be it a bedroom, a café or an aeroplane.

Learning on the hoof may not compete emotionally with the old university ideal of long lazy days on campus, arguing about Keynes and Marx, but it is an option more and more people are choosing – or being forced to choose in straitened economic times.

"The way the global job market is changing has led to much more pressurised working lives," says Professor Jean-Noel Ezingeard, dean of the Kingston Business School. "It is increasingly hard for people to take time off work to study – hence the attraction of an MBA delivered by a leading business school which incorporates the flexibility to study at home, in the office or while travelling."

The new course has attracted interest from over 70 countries, with students from Russia, the Americas and the Middle East leading the pack. The distance learning model, which can be traced back to the 19th century, when London University pioneered the concept, has never been more popular. Almost a third of all MBA enrolments in the UK are now for distance learning courses, according to a survey last year by AMBA, the Association of MBAs.

As a stepping stone to a fatter pay cheque, the distance learning MBA still lags a little behind the residential MBA. The average salary of a graduate after completing a distance learning MBA is around £80,106, that of a graduate of a full-time MBA £85,865.

But that gap is closing fast, and the differential in earnings needs to be offset against the significantly higher cost of residential courses. The £2,560 which distance learners at Kingston will save is dwarfed by the £10,000-odd which they would save at the Manchester Business School or the London School of Business and Finance.

Students enrolling for distance learning MBAs are typically a few years older than those opting for the conventional MBA. At the Open University, where the MBA course costs £14,425, the average age of students on the course is 37. They come from 126 countries and can take between 30 and 84 weeks to complete the course, according to their personal circumstances. Flexibility – and the more flexibility the better – remains the guiding principle of distance learning.

Once rather esoteric, the distance learning MBA has now become such a familiar feature of higher education in the UK that those shopping around for courses are spoiled for choice. Almost all institutions offering such MBAs are accredited with AMBA, AACSB (the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business) or EQUIS (the European Quality Improvement System), or sometimes all three, creating an alphabet soup in which it is easy to flounder.

The closest thing to a league table is the annual QS Distance Online MBA Rankings, which takes into account employability, student quality, diversity, faculty and teaching, class experience and accreditation.

The distance learning MBA offered by the Warwick Business School emerged as the top-ranked such course in the UK in 2012, with Manchester Business School, Durham Business School and Imperial College London also scoring highly.

The most important thing for students looking to enrol for a distance learning MBA is to find a course tailored to their needs, with modules compatible with their choice of career and a pattern of study suited to their personal circumstances.

Can virtual classrooms beat face-to-face interaction?

For most students, university is a time for making friends, discovering a new city and making the most of the facilities on campus. But when you are studying online, your living room is your lecture hall and an online chat room is the equivalent of the student bar.

Can a computer screen make up for human interaction, and how can distance learning students avoid isolation?

If you are choosing to study online, chances are you have other commitments – work, children or other caring responsibilities – and you may be studying for purely academic reasons. The benefits of flexible study can outweigh the downside of not meeting people in real life.

But being part of an online community when studying at a distance is important, says Richard Reece, associate vice-president for teaching, learning and students at the University of Manchester.

He says: "Academically, support from other learners is as important on campus as it is off campus. We encourage students who are on campus to form peer-assisted study schemes. We do the same for distance learning students as well."

Online forums, Facebook groups and email lists with the contact details for other students can help online learners connect with their peers and ask questions about their studies.

Reece says: "It really benefits the learners if they have a sense of community rather than feeling like an isolated person tapping away at a computer."

Instead of tutorials or lectures, support from lecturers comes through online forums, email exchanges, phone conversations and Skype.

Tony Priest is course director for the foundation degree in drug and alcohol counselling at the University of Leicester and says his course uses "e-tutors" to support students.

He says: "Each e-tutor has a certain number of students who they follow through their comments on the discussion boards and answer their questions. They'll also contact them if they don't appear for a while and ask if they have problems and how they can help."

It might seem a little impersonal not meeting your tutor in real life, but distance learning students can sometimes have even more support than campus students, says Reece.

He says: "I would say that there are some things that you do need face-to-face interaction for, but our distance learning students do have significant access to teaching staff. In a number of cases they get even greater amounts of contact than students who are on campus and come in for a few scheduled lectures but not much more."

Amy Woodgate, project coordinator of distance education initiative and Moocs at the University of Edinburgh, agrees.

She says: "People tend to think that online learning is very detached and less of a community. It has a remote aspect so people think it is remote. But actually with online earning, students have something in common so build up good relationships."

Distance learning students can use online forums as a chance to meet their peers socially, but it can be difficult to replicate real life interactions.

"One of the biggest challenges for distance learning students is engagement with other peers," says Steve Mills, student president for education welfare at Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen.

He says: "A big part of the student experience is meeting new people, making friends, joining societies and having social events, but distance learning students don't get to experience that, so it is very academic for them."

Some distance learning courses do include an element of time on campus, and making the most of these moments to meet other students is important.

Forums and social networks are there to help connect students with their peers, but it is important to know that as a distance learning student you still have access to university support too.

"The principal that we try to work on is that the support should be the same for distance learning students as it is for campus students," says Reece. "most of our students are studying abroad though, so obviously they can't just walk into our office and ask for help. But our services are available online and on the phone too."

Students' unions work on behalf of distance learning students too, and getting involved with your union could really help improve your life as an online student.

Mills says: "Our student helpline is there for online students, and we also deal with problems from distance learning students via Facebook and Twitter. And importantly, distance learning students have access to student counsellors via Skype."

You might not be able to walk into a counsellor's office as an online student, but the support is still there, and making the most of it can make all the difference to your experience of online learning.

Original article: http://www.theguardian.com/education/2013/nov/13/human-interaction-distance-learning

HCL Launches Online Education Platform, Learn On Cloud

HCL Learning, the education and talent development division of HCL Infosystems, has launched a new (beta) version of its cloud-based learning initiative, called ‘Learn On Cloud‘ which offers various personalized learning courses in the IT segment to students.

Features: According to the company, these courses will offer virtual labs, assessments, discussion forums, webinars and the ability to ask queries to a mentor. When we checked the portal, we observed that the site currently offers courses in Java programming language, Android application development, and digital integrated circuit designing with plans to offer courses in web designing and English learning courses in the future. The platform is powered by education solution provider IPintentio, which offers a web-based IC (Integrated Chip) design platform.



These courses provide learning material in various modules and users can opt for either an animated or a non-animated presentation depending on their broadband speed. Users can also toggle these presentation modes during the presentation. Going forward, the company says that it will also provide relevant job listings and services like certification on the portal.

Pricing: The portal currently offers both free and paid courses. Users can sign up for these free courses by providing necessary details like name, contact details, college name, and location, while they can purchase the paid courses from the HCL store. Users can pay for this course through various online payment modes like credit card, debit card, net banking and offline payment modes like cheque, demand drafts and direct bank transfers.

Other Players: Sparsha Learning Technologies has a similar platform which allows professors to create and deliver activity based learning content to their students. This platform also features simulated virtual labs to provide a physical hands on experience to students and allows students to generate reports and screenshots of the results. Sparsha works on a subscription based model with pricing starting at $2 per month per lab and is currently available on the Windows platform.

The company had received an angel round of funding from Blume Ventures and TempusCapital in September 2011 and was working on an online assessment platform for IEEE in June 2012. Sparsha had claimed to have sold 12000 licenses till June 2012 and had plans to launch 40 courses in the next four years, open up its authoring platform to professors, diversify to more platforms and introduce its tablet offerings in the future.

Other education businesses include Educomp Solutions Ltd, Pearson, EdServ SoftSystems among others. Earlier in the month, Technium Labs which operates the digital learning platform LurnQ had raised and undisclosed amount of funding from Seedfund, while the eLearning Company LIQVID hadraised $3 Million From SBI Holdings subsidiary.