How can higher education and corporate America work more closely together to develop mutually beneficial online learning courses and programs? How can these, so to speak, "two worlds" begin to better understand each other and form some common ground for measuring the quality of online learning? Can educators and trainers accelerate the evolution of quality online learning experiences by encouraging more collaborative projects between corporate and academic learning professionals? These were some of the questions addressed at a Sloan-Consortium (Sloan-C)-sponsored Corporate-Online Learning Workshop held in Manhattan on January 25, 2005. The workshop was co-chaired by Nancy Lewis, head of on-demand learning at IBM, and Robert Ubell, dean of professional education at Stevens Institute of Technology and principal investigator of the Sloan-C-sponsored Greater New York City Online Learning Center.

The workshop, which was attended by a mixed group of 80 educators from corporations and higher education, has become a catalyst for a closer examination into the distinct advantages of two worlds that have adopted online learning in different ways.

The late 90s has seen the world of higher education experience widespread adoption of fully online and blended learning, primarily in what Sloan-C calls the asynchronous-learning-network (ALN) model, in which faculty members lead courses typically structured within semesters or quarters that emphasize asynchronous interaction between students and faculty. Occurring at approximately the same time, the corporate world has stressed more of the self-paced, web-based form of teaching and learning (which grew out of computer-based training), mixed with synchronous events.

"I have not seen great strength in ALN on the corporate side," says Frank Mayadas, program director, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. "The university world, on the other hand, has got a fairly solid base in ALN knowledge, based around the Sloan-C five pillars [student satisfaction, access, learning effectiveness, faculty satisfaction and institutional cost effectiveness] and what we know about interactivity and how to motivate instructors and students." The corporate world has placed a stronger emphasis on building self-paced training modules and effective synchronous learning events, such as web conferences and live satellite broadcasts. "These kinds of self-learning and synchronous environments have a role in universities, and most of the know-how there has been on the corporate side."

Five Promising Categories for Partnerships

Mayadas believes there are five primary categories that show promise for corporate/higher education partnerships:

Generic Education Programs

With the growth of fully online and blended degree programs in such disciplines as engineering, business, and health care, more employees and employers are seeing the benefit of these flexible ways for earning a credential. The proprietary institutions, by investing heavily in creative marketing strategies, are jumping on this bandwagon in a stronger way then the non-profits. However, many non-profit institutions, in addition to becoming more market-savvy as the landscape for online learning becomes more competitive, are increasingly offering successful programs to various company-specific audiences. WebCampus at the Stevens Institute of Technology, for instance, offers a variety of graduate degree programs that have substantial ALN components available only to the employees of large, progressive companies such as Boeing, Verizon, Intel and others (see http://gradschool.stevens-tech.edu/offcampus/index.html). Babson College has partnered with Intel Corporation to deliver an MBA Program for Intel Employees delivered within the Babson Fast Track MBA Program in a blended learning format (see http://www3.babson.edu/MBA/programs/intel/default.cfm).

Generic Training Programs

Both proprietary companies and non-profit institutions are increasingly developing fully online and blended training programs that typically help meet certain regulation requirements, or are generated by some kind of legal action, within a wide variety of industries. Topics of interest, such as diversity and ethics training, would fall under this category, but the number of areas of interest that can be included in this category really run the gamut from project management and marketing to privacy and security issues. New York University and the University of Virginia’s Darden School, for instance, put together an interactive online ethics training program for WorldCom (now MCI) as part of that company’s bankruptcy settlement.¹

Tool-Specific Training Programs

Training in specific software and hardware applications falls under this category. Specialized certifications in Microsoft, Cisco and Lotus applications are good examples of areas where colleges and universities can become authorized training partners. Many continuing education departments offer these kinds of training opportunities and are incorporating ALN elements into their curriculums. A good example of this kind of partnership can be found at the Information Networking and Telecommunications Department of Fort Hayes State University, which offers an Online Cisco Certification Program focused on the principles and practice of designing, building, and maintaining networks capable of supporting national and global organizations. The program can be completed for college credit at a fraction of the cost often charged by corporate training facilities (see www.fhsu.edu/int/cisco/onlineccnainfo.shtml).

Industry-Specific Education and Training

Professional schools (nursing, medicine, law, architecture, engineering, etc.) are the traditional bastions for industry-specific education and training. However, Mayadas believes there is an "un-exploited opportunity" to be realized in offering more specialized programs and courses that may not be available through professional schools. Stanford University, for example, has created a host of "courselets" that are self-contained, integrated sets of online learning materials offered in a wide variety of science and engineering-specific areas of interest, including bioinformatics, electronics, a number of health care topics, and much more (see http://scpd.stanford.edu/scpd/courses/courselets/list_auth.asp). Another example is an innovative partnership between FCIB, an association of executives in finance, credit, and international business, and Michigan State University Global (MSU Global) that has resulted in a new online certification program in international credit and risk management. The program uses an asynchronous instructor-led cohort model.²

³ Richard Benner. Implementing Curricula Using a Variety of Learning Modalities at Liberty Mutual Group. Sloan-C Series: Books on Online Education. Elements of Quality Online Education: Engaging Communities, volume six in the annual Sloan-C quality series. Needham, MA: Sloan-C, in press 2005.