innovations in course and curriculum design, such as repeating concepts from a prior course that will be useful again in the current one; and “flipped classrooms” in which students listen to a lecture online at home to prepare for a class session where they’ll actively discuss the material as a group.
An obvious feature of online coursework —its ability to extend its reach across geographic regions and the varied time schedules of students—can make a high-quality, digitally delivered MBA program available to learners anywhere, Lyons writes.
“This change in who is able to compete and deliver may be the single most disruptive element of digital education in the world of business school deans,” Lyons says in the article.
Lyons told me that Haas school leaders have been mulling some variety of online MBA program that could capitalize on the school’s strong reputation and address a global market.
“People are saying, ‘If you don’t do it somebody else will,’” he says. “We haven’t made a final decision.”
As for a 100 percent online master’s degree, he says, “I think we’re a long, long, long, way from that.” But a 50 percent online program—maybe, he says. “You’d never want to do it at a lower quality level.”
Lyons is fully aware of the impact that a move toward online MBA programs by top-ranked business schools such as Harvard, the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago, Stanford, and Berkeley could have on the thousands of other schools competing for student dollars worldwide.
“The top few schools could make the whole world contestable,” Lyons says.
In the current shifting environment, when edtech is demonstrating the ability to teach complex topics such as accounting and finance, all business schools have to consider what elements of their existing programs on campus are so valuable that they can’t be duplicated by an online experience, Lyons says.
At the Haas school, Lyons says, those elements include the chance to interact with other students who are chosen based not only on intellectual achievements but also on character; the close contacts with faculty members; the ability to tap into the school’s connections with employers; and personally learning by example that a goal like forming a company is within a student’s own reach.
“Why do I need that campus?” Lyons asks. “We have to keep thinking about that.”
