Higher education This article is more than 22 years oldGreat minds link alike
This article is more than 22 years oldSimon Midgley reports on the online degrees offered jointly by the world's top business schoolsA clutch of the world's top business schools and universities have come together to deliver a prestigious MBA programme entirely online.
Cardean University, a subsidiary of UNext.com, is an online learning community for working managers; it offers executive education courses and courses leading to a full MBA.
It's just one of a number of strategic alliances being forged globally to offer premier brand MBAs to students throughout the world.
The Cardean venture, launched last summer, involves Carnegie Mellon University, Columbia Business School, the London School of Economics and Political Science, Stanford University and the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business.
Private investors, including Larry Ellison, the chief executive of Oracle, and Michael Milken, the former junk-bond king, have invested heavily in the venture. Named after the Roman goddess of portals, Cardean University is now enrolling students on its MBA. The programme is constructed around learning based on problem-solving and is rooted in real world business issues. Would-be students need a first degree, and must demonstrate that they can cope with several foundation courses before being accepted on to the full MBA programme. Course fees will be $25,000 (around £18,000).
Cardean is authorised to grant degrees by the Illinois Board of Higher Education and is accredited by the Accrediting Commission of the Distance Education and Training Council. UNext employs experts in the fields of cognitive design, psychology and instructional design to craft courses in ways to motivate and retain students.
This summer the IESE International Graduate School of Management, one of Europe's leading business schools, will be launching a Global EMBA. This involves residential modules held in Barcelona, the China Europe International Business School (CEIBS) in Shanghai and one in America's Silicon Valley.
In April the ESADE Business School launched a Global e-Business Masters in Barcelona in April to teach executives business online. The programme is a partnership between the University of Denver, Copenhagen Business School, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Reykjavik University and Monterrey Tech in Mexico.
The world's oldest executive MBA - the Global EMBA - is offered by Duke University's Fuqua School of Business, based in Durham, North Carolina. This is a 19-month programme offered largely electronically. However, students do convene with faculty in sites in North America, Europe, Asia and South America.
The university also has a Cross Continent MBA - which enables managers to earn an internationally-focused degree in less than two years. Students study on campus in Durham and at the university's Frankfurt campus. The balance of the programme is delivered via computer-mediated distance-learning.
In Austria WU Vien offers a joint EMBA with the Carlson School of Management, which is part of the University of Minnesota. Between taught modules the students keep in touch in virtual chat rooms.
WU Vien also has a long-standing partnership with the University of South Carolina, which delivers a full-time MBA programme. Students spend the first seven months in Vienna and the last seven in South Carolina.
In Germany, WHU Koblenz's Otto Beisham Graduate School of Management runs a joint Executive MBA programme with the JL Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University in Evanstown, near Chicago.
In September 2001 a partnership between the London School of Economics, New York University's Stern Business School and HEC Paris, Graduate Business School will launch the TRIUM EMBA. The Chinese University of Hong Kong and Fundacio Getulio Vargas in Sao Paulo, Brazil, are also involved.
This is aimed to fast-track, high-flying managers with at least five years' corporate experience. Although the LSE is not a business school, it will offer a social and political perspective on business issues - what's going on in the Pacific Rim, for instance. The fee will be $87,500 and the degree will be from all three institutions.
In May this year the London Business School and Columbia Business School will launch the Global EMBA. Each month students will alternate between studying in London and New York. Foundation courses will be delivered online and students will choose their electives from the two schools' extensive portfolios.
Students undertake a company project either individually or in groups, and at the end of the course an international seminar will be staged in Asia.
Graduates receive a degree from both institutions as well as gaining access to the faculties, alumni and student networks of both universities.
The programme, which will cost £60,000 for two years, is intended to be strong on developing leadership.
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