STEVENS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY AND CHINA CONNECTION and ANOTHER DIGITAL OPTIMIST COLUMN

STEVENS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY FORMS PARTNERSHIPS WITH FOUR CHINESE INSTITUTIONS TO OFFER HYBRID GRADUATE DEGREE PROGRAMS
"It was surprisingly simple and unbureaucratic," says Robert Ubell, Dean of Stevens Institute of Technology’s School of Professional Education, referring to at least four partnerships he and his colleagues at Stevens have built to offer hybrid graduate-level degree programs to students in China. Any stumbling blocks, such as those that could possibly be generated by cultural differences and government regulations, never seriously materialized. A master of science in Telecommunications Management was the first Stevens Institute of Technology hybrid program to launch in China, officially started in November 2003 through a partnership with the Beijing Institute of Technology (BIT), one of China’s top technical universities. A Stevens master of science in Microelectronics and Photonics is also being offered at BIT. The hybrid mix of these programs is one third taught online by Stevens faculty, another third by Chinese instructors in Beijing, and a third by Stevens faculty in Beijing. MORE

PROFILE OF THE STEVENS BEIJING INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY TELECOMMUNICATIONS MANAGEMENT PROGRAM
The first cohort of 21 Chinese students has graduated from the master of science in Telecommunications Management offered by Stevens Institute of Technology in partnership with the Beijing Institute of Technology (BIT). A commencement ceremony was held in January 2005 in Beijing, with remarks made by Stevens Vice President Maureen Weatherall, Stevens Professor Kevin Ryan, and officials from the Chinese Ministry of Education. The second cohort of 22 students is entering this month. Overall, this is a successful program from both an academic and a business standpoint, surpassing its break-even analysis for the first cohort, says Stevens Dean of the School of Professional Education Robert Ubell. MORE

THE DIGITAL OPTIMIST
Editor and publisher George Lorenzo talks about assessment e-portfolios and institutional e-portfolios, some of the latest resources from the popular press on China, and some other points of interest coined "miscellaneous kinds of stuff." MORE