Better than face to face?

Warwick Business School (WBS) has just launched a new MSc in Management by blended learning which is arguably even better than face to face teaching. The course is taught by intelligent use of current technology and builds upon the tried and tested techniques of blended learning, enabling candidates to continue working, looking for work, during a career break or even on vacation, whilst still participating in the course.

WBS is an established leader in the provision of distance and blended learning programmes and is recognised as an innovator in online learning.

"Distance learning programmes are robust and reliable," says Michael Shulver, Senior Teaching Fellow. "However, they can leave a candidate feeling rather isolated, they can be expensive and also inconvenient in some circumstances. The advent of collaborative web technologies, e-learning systems and in particular synchronous online learning environments means we can now offer almost the equivalent of face to face contact time, online and at the candidates' convenience."

Most of the course is delivered electronically; all lectures, seminars and group work take place online, using our own bespoke platform, wbsLive. Using this system students will interact with the lecturer via text or voice in real time, carry out group work in online breakout rooms and present findings and make presentations live to other colleagues online.

Increasingly, business schools around the globe have responded to the demand for a pre-experience Masters degree in business simply by reducing the experience requirement and in some cases removing it altogether. However, without significant redesign of the MBA programme this approach is clearly problematic. Experienced students feel short-changed, and inexperienced students are out of their depth.

Warwick Business School has responded to this problem by designing dedicated programmes for pre-experience graduates in non-business degree subjects. Both Full-Time and Blended Learning variants of our MSc in Management are specifically tailored to very bright, able and hard-working new graduates. This tailoring is evidenced by the admissions requirements. We require a good degree from a non-business discipline, and student's experience of management and business must be no more than 18 months; ideally no more than a year's worth. A candidate applying for the programme with more than 18 months business experience would typically be asked to consider waiting and applying for the Warwick MBA. In controlling recruiting in this way we can carefully target the educational experience to the needs of the audience.

See a demo at www.wbs.ac.uk/go/wbsLive