MBA教育新趨勢 線上+線下

The internet has had a radical effect on the way business schools are able to disseminate learning. It allows them to deliver courses online and therefore to interact with students in far-flung locations. However, it has also opened the door for new entrants who can provide online teaching without the overhead of a campus.

互聯網已經對商學院傳播知識的方式產生了根本性的影響。通過網絡，商學院可以在線教授課程，從而與距離遙遠的學員進行互動。然而，網絡也爲一些新入行者提供了機會，它們可以提供在線教學，不用負擔開辦學院的費用。

These are early days, however. Online business education is a fledgling sector where no provider can claim to have created the perfect delivery model.

不過，現在只是開始。在線商業教育是一個剛剛興起的行業，任何一家在線教育提供者都很難說自己創造了完美的授課模式。

After the rush to put free content online through massive open online courses (Moocs), a number of leading business schools have developed web-based programmes that blend online teaching with meetings on campus or virtual interactions that replicate the discussions that can take place in lecture halls. Many schools are also realising they need to charge for their content and teaching services.

在各方競相通過大型網絡公開課（Massive Open Online Courses，簡稱Mooc）形式將免費內容放到線上之後，一些知名商學院開發了基於網絡的課程，將在線授課與校內上課或者複製那種講座討論的虛擬互動結合起來。許多商學院還意識到，它們有必要對內容和教學服務收費。

“The potential to reach new audiences and to integrate new ways of teaching means that online education is definitely here to stay,” says David Smith, who leads the education practice at the London office of Simon-Kucher & Partners the pricing and monetisation advisers. However, he adds that schools still need to find the right, sustainable business models.

“贏得新受衆和整合新型授課方式的潛力意味着，在線教育必將持續下去，”定價和盈利諮詢公司Simon-Kucher & Partners倫敦分部的教育業務主管戴維•史密斯(David Smith)說。不過他補充說，商學院還需要找到正確的、可持續的商業模式。

Some schools are trying to adapt their traditional teaching methods and put them online. Others are looking to reinvent the market. Mooc providers such as Coursera and edX have broken new ground. They have created purely online models, where content is free and revenue is generated by users paying for things such as accreditation certificates.

一些商學院正試圖改變他們的傳統授課方法，並將調整後的課程放到網上。其他一些商學院則試圖重塑市場。Coursera和edX等提供Mooc的機構已經走出了一條新路。它們創建了一種純粹的網絡教學模式，內容免費，靠用戶申請認證證書等進項來賺取收入。

Some schools have made courses available on the big Mooc platforms. Others have created their own platforms to deliver versions of courses online, in part to counter the threat from entrants from Silicon Valley.

一些商學院將課程放在大型Mooc平臺上。其他一些商學院則開發了自己的平臺，提供不同版本的在線課程，部分目的是爲了對抗來自硅谷的新入行者帶來的威脅。

What is emerging is a set of business-school run courses that blend online and offline teaching. These are based on the principle that online learning is not a passive activity, but a chance to interact with professors and other students through web conferencing.

由商學院提供的一類新課程正在嶄露頭角，這些課程將線上和線下授課結合起來，並基於如下原則：在線學習並不是一種被動的活動，而是一個通過網絡會議，與教授和其他學員互動的機會。

An example is Harvard Business School’s digital learning platform HBX. This provides online tuition, but marks a break with Mooc platforms in that it involves a selective admissions process and a tuition requirement for enrollees.

哈佛商學院(Harvard Business School)的電子學習平臺HBX就是一例。該平臺雖然提供在線授課，但由於是選擇性招生，並向錄取者收取學費，因此與Mooc平臺有所不同。

The first HBX course programme, called Credential of Readiness (Core), consists of three courses on business analytics, accounting and management economics, and is taught by HBS faculty.

HBX平臺上的第一個課程項目名爲“Core”（Credential of Readiness ，意爲“準備就緒證書”），包括商業分析、會計和管理經濟學三門課，由哈佛商學院的老師授課。

A pilot, started last summer, was limited to Massachusetts-based undergraduates, who could be physically and virtually monitored, but applications are now invited from around the world for 600 places on a 10-week, $1,500 course.

該課程的試運行從去年夏天開始，當時僅限馬薩諸塞州的本科生報名，學員可能要接受線上和線下的指導。現在，這個爲期10周、收費1500美元的課程向全世界600個地方的人開放申請。

“We went through a conscious effort not to go down the Mooc route,” explains Bharat Anand, professor of business administration and faculty chairman of HBX.

“我們有意識地不重複Mooc課程的老路，”HBX學院主席、商業管理教授巴拉特•阿南德(Bharat Anand)解釋道。

“We wanted it to be more than just watching a video for 25 minutes. HBX is about interacting, asking others questions and getting involved online.”

“我們希望它不僅僅是看25分鐘的視頻。HBX的重點在於互動、向他人提問以及在線參與。”

The pilot confirmed that Core was financially viable and showed the HBX structure succeeding where Moocs have failed in terms of student engagement. About 90 per cent of students who started the pilot completed the course, Professor Anand notes, similar to results for Harvard campus courses.

這個試運行項目證實，Core課程項目在經濟上是可行的，同時也表明HBX克服了Mooc失敗的一個問題：在學率。參與該項目的90%的學生學完了課程，阿南德教授表示，這與哈佛商學院校園課程的完成度差不多。

“In a Mooc world, it [student retention] is single digits,” he adds. “If you get to 10 per cent, you are typically cheering.”

“在Mooc的世界裏，（在學率）是個位數的，”他補充道，“如果到了10%，你通常就會謝天謝地了。”

The problem with Moocs, Prof Anand says, is that they did not play to any of Harvard’s strengths as a leading business school, whose value is based on the quality of its teaching and the dynamic it creates in the classroom when case studies are being taught.

阿南德教授表示，Mooc的問題在於，它們不具備哈佛商學院作爲一所頂尖商學院所具有的任何一項優勢。哈佛商學院的價值建立在其教學質量、以及講授案例研究時在課堂上營造的那種活力的基礎之上。

“The case study method of teaching [at Harvard] is high energy. Everybody is involved, so there is no distinction between the teacher and the student.”

“（哈佛的）案例研究教學法很有活力。每個人都參與其中，因此教師和學生之間並沒有差別。”

Applicants for the upcoming Core course are already from a much wider demographic than traditional campus courses, ranging from undergraduates — who HBS aims to get “business ready” — to people in their 40s and 50s.

本次即將開課的Core課程的申請人數已經遠遠超過了傳統的校園課程，申請人從本科生——哈佛商學院的目標是讓他們“準備好投身商界”——到四五十歲的人。

“With people who are older, we are seeing different motivations,” says Prof Anand. “People who are career switchers, but don’t think they have the skills; a second group of entrepreneurs or people who want to be entrepreneurs; and a third group of people coming from academic and not-for-profit backgrounds.”

“對於那些年紀較長的人，我們看到了不同的動機，”阿南德教授說，“有的人想要改換職業，但又認爲自己不具備相應技能；第二種是創業家或者想成爲創業家的人；第三種是來自學術界和具有非盈利性背景的人。”

The future, according to the professor, will be “multiplatform”, both virtual and face-to-face. “In some ways, the physical classroom will always be better,” says Prof Anand, but adds: “There are things you can only do in the online world.”

這位教授表示，未來將是“多平臺”的，包括虛擬課堂和麪對面授課。“就某些方面來說，現實中的課堂始終要更好一些，”阿南德教授說，但他又補充道，“也有一些事情你只能在線做。”

Over in California, Stanford Graduate School of Business has launched an online business education course, called the Lead (learn, engage, accelerate and disrupt) certificate education programme for company executives. At $16,000, Lead is considerably more expensive than Harvard’s online offering. “I don’t think anything that anyone is doing at the moment is definitive on the direction that the industry should go,” says Dave Weinstein, associate dean and director of executive education at Stanford.

在加利福尼亞州，斯坦福大學商學院(Stanford Graduate School of Business)推出了一門名爲“Lead”（Learn、engage、accelerate和disrupt的首字母縮寫）的高管認證教育課程。Lead項目的收費爲1.6萬美元，比哈佛的在線課程收費高得多。“我不認爲現在每個人做的事情都必定符合這個行業的發展方向，”斯坦福大學商學院副院長兼高管教育總監戴夫•溫斯坦(Dave Weinstein)說。

“One of the critical challenges of Lead is how we get people to come together so that they walk away perceiving that there is a relationship formed at the same place and at the same time.”

“Lead面臨的關鍵挑戰之一是，我們如何讓人們凝聚在一起，這樣當他們離開的時候，他們會感到在同一時間同一地點建立了一種關係。”

Mr Weinstein believes business education needs to be more flexible — large companies, which used to fund their executives on MBA programmes, are less willing to allow senior executives to spend long periods away studying and time-poor start-up founders are similarly unlikely to be able to take time out for an MBA.

溫斯坦相信，商業教育有必要變得更加靈活——曾出資讓高管去攻讀MBA的大公司現在不太願意讓高管長時間離職學習，同樣，分身乏術的初創企業創始人也不大可能專門闢出時間攻讀MBA。

“We believe it is incumbent upon us to deliver education to people who don’t have the luxury to go to a campus,” says Mr Weinstein.

“我們認爲，我們有責任向那些沒有條件專門到學校學習的人提供教學服務，”溫斯坦說。

Stanford’s proximity to the world’s largest collection of technology companies is an advantage, he adds.

他補充道，斯坦福毗鄰全球最大的科技公司羣，這是一項優勢。

“The world of online is the world of Silicon Valley, where you experiment and fail fast. It is in our DNA.”

“一說線上世界就是硅谷，在這裏，你試驗和失敗的速度都很快。這深植於我們的DNA之中。”

The experimentation in online business education is set to continue. But the only certainty so far is that no one has yet proven theirs to be the definitive business model for teaching.

對在線商業教育的試驗還將繼續下去。但目前爲止唯一能確定的是，還沒有人能證明他們的授課模式是終極的商業教育模式。