U Delaware To Build Online MBA

The University of Delaware¹s Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics will be offering an online master's degree in business administration that's expected to launch in spring 2013. The new degree program is being built with the help of Academic Partnerships (AP), a company that specializes in working with institutions to take their existing programs online.

The online MBA students will complete 48 credits over the course of eight seven-week terms. Courses will consist of micro-lectures delivered in multimedia formats including readings, problems, cases, and discussion board participation. Students will also participate in corporate simulation exercises and individual and team projects and assignments.

The collaboration with Academic Partnerships has been underway since April 2012, when an online MBA planning group was created that included each of the college's five department chairs and the associate dean for graduate and executive programs.

The company provides a number of services to its institutional clients, including support with course design and conversion of traditional courses to digital delivery, enrollment help, data integration, program planning, marketing, and regulatory compliance. Frequently, in these types of arrangements, the vendor will have a revenue sharing arrangement with the institution that has contracted for the new program.

"Higher education is evolving as a result of new technology and the resulting changes in students¹ learning styles," said Rick Andrews, deputy dean of the Lerner College. "By using a new delivery modality, our MBA will be accessible to working professionals who travel frequently, to members of the U.S. military and to others who, for whatever reason, are not able to make it to campus for the traditional MBA."

"Sixty years ago, the Lerner College admitted its first MBA class, and we have continued to refine our program to keep ahead of business needs," added Dean Bruce Weber. "Our high-quality MBA, paired with AP¹s proven ability to enrich student learning online, furthers the college¹s academic mission to deliver superior management education to the next generation of business students."

Academic Partnerships' client list includes the University of Texas at Arlington and Texas' Lamar University, among others.

About the Author

Dian Schaffhauser is a former senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning.

Featured

  •  black graduation cap with a glowing blue AI brain circuit symbol on top

    Report: AI Is a Must for Modern Learners

    A new report from VitalSource identifies a growing demand among learners for AI tools, declaring that "AI isn't just a nice-to-have; it's a must."

  • From Fire TV to Signage Stick: University of Utah's Digital Signage Evolution

    Jake Sorensen, who oversees sponsorship and advertising and Student Media in Auxiliary Business Development at the University of Utah, has navigated the digital signage landscape for nearly 15 years. He was managing hundreds of devices on campus that were incompatible with digital signage requirements and needed a solution that was reliable and lowered labor costs. The Amazon Signage Stick, specifically engineered for digital signage applications, gave him the stability and design functionality the University of Utah needed, along with the assurance of long-term support.

  • laptop screen with a video play icon, surrounded by parts of notebooks, pens, and a water bottle on a student desk

    New AI Tool Generates Video Explanations Based on Course Materials

    AI-powered studying and learning platform Studyfetch has launched Imagine Explainers, a new video creator that utilizes artificial intelligence to generate 10- to 60-minute explainer videos for any topic.

  • handshake where one hand is human and the other is composed of glowing circuits

    Western Governors University Joins Open edX as a Mission-Aligned Organization

    Western Governors University is the first organization to join the Open edX project as a "mission-aligned organization" (MAO), a new category of institution-level partnership supporting development of the Open edX open source online learning platform.