Boston University’s (BU) Center for Professional Education (CPE) made the commitment to launch its online Financial Planning Certificate Program (FPCP) in 2002, and it took about a year to build out the entire curriculum. What’s really unique about the development of this program, however, is that an enormous amount of risk that’s typically involved with starting any kind of online learning program was completely removed because Acadient absorbed all the up-front cost by helping to create and manage all of the curriculum’s content, as well as by building the entire technical infrastructure and instructional design that holds the program. "There was zero risk to Boston University," says John Ebersole, associate provost and dean for BU’s Division of Extended Education.

In return for developing the program, Acadient earns a percentage of all the revenues generated by tuition dollars, which, based on enrollments thus far (over 1,100) and tuition costs ($495 per individual course for 6 courses, or $2,395 for a discounted full program), could be substantial over time. In addition to building the program, Acadient has successfully marketed the online FPCP, which is one of the primary drivers for getting enrollment numbers to surpass 1,100 students in little over one year’s time. (Ebersole could not reveal the exact nature of the contractual agreement that was made between BU and Acadeint.)

Of course, the full reason for the impressive enrollment number revolves around a number of key elements. For one, the program is based on a well established and highly successful classroom-based certified financial planning (CFP) board-registered program offered by BU, which was founded in 1981 and is currently under the direction of Robert J. Glovsky, who is a practicing financial planner with more than 20 years of experience and is nationally recognized for his work in the field. Glovsky has appeared on TV, radio shows and magazine covers, and currently hosts his own radio show in the Boston area, called "Bob Glovsky -The Money Expert."

"It started (the online FPCP) with the idea being that there was a national and, in fact, international market for CFP education," Glovsky says. "We thought the best way to reach that market was through an online program. We provided the content and expertise, and Acadient gave us the technology development. They (Acadient) have a very good team. We are very happy with this group."

As noted in the company’s website, "Acadient designs, develops and distributes online, interactive education programs for professionals in the financial services industry worldwide." Bartholomew Jae, Acadient’s vice president of products, says that the company provides course design and development services, along with marketing and distribution services, primarily in the area of business-related graduate- level or certificate-level programs. "It doesn’t have to be specifically in financial services," he says; "it could be in accounting; it could be an MBA program."

Jae explains that for the program development side of the online FPCP, Acadient started to build the program’s content through its licensing arrangements with publishers such as Pearson Education, The National Underwriter Company, The Center for Fiduciary Studies and others. The Acadient design team basically retrofitted the content from the publishers into the program’s course modules and added exercises and interactive graphics. A team of BU instructors from the classroom-based BU program in financial planning acted as subject-matter experts and provided editing services, practitioner advice, case studies, and real-life examples to the modules, as well as tips for taking the CFP certification exam.

"We used subject-matter experts that were selected and appointed by Boston University," says Ebersole. "It was Boston University’s faculty that did development under contract to Acadient, and they did it at as work for hire, so the university retains ownership of the content."

"We originally thought that corporate sales was going to be the way to go, but then we realized, as we moved on, that it was really directed to a retail market, so we switched gears, and that is when we saw a spike in numbers," says Jae, referring to how the program got off the ground. A marketing effort that centered around leasing e-mail lists from relevant trade magazines, as well as through online marketing initiatives with some of the major search engines turned out to be successful methods for attracting students to the program. Another facet of the marketing scope is that Acadient has a division of the company called the Boston Institute of Finance, which has a website and is responsible for managing the registration and payment processes for the online FPCP. The website includes a course demo with a mandatory opt-in form that asks for a prospective student’s name, e-mail address and telephone number. An Acadient telemarketing group follows up on all the opt-ins.

Another reason for the program’s success deals with the marketplace itself. Not only are people who want to become certified financial planners enrolling in the online FPCP, but also people who simply want to become better consumers. "They are do-it-yourselfers who believe in education and they do not want to go out and hire a financial planner; they want to handle their own affairs," says Glovsky.

"The scandals that have rocked the securities industry over the last three or four years have shaken the confidence of a lot of investors, so we are finding that a lot of people are enrolling in our program who are not planning to become certified financial planners but want to be more knowledgeable investors and managers of their own money, because, frankly, they don’t trust brokers anymore," adds Ebersole.

In the final analysis, however, "the biggest challenge for an online program is attracting the right kind of student and then keeping them in the program," says Glovsky. "Most people are not geared for online learning; most people need the discipline of a classroom. We are trying to encourage the right people to sign up and then encourage them to move through the program.

"We are aware of the marketplace, and we are aware of the challenges that go with it, and we are working to make the product better and better."

Boston University Center for Professional Education
www.butrain.com/cpe

Boston Institute of Finance
www.bostonifi.com