00:00:05
so we were interested in how mukes might
00:00:07
affect business education everyone is
00:00:09
sort of worried and I think spending a
00:00:12
lot of sleepless nights that this that
00:00:14
mukes might be uh might kill Business
00:00:17
Schools uh free cheap or cheap or free
00:00:20
online education uh take apart the
00:00:23
bricks and mortar of traditional
00:00:25
high-end Business Schools like Wharton
00:00:27
and uh we were wondering is that like to
00:00:30
be the case uh the surprising findings
00:00:32
to us is that uh with nearly a million
00:00:36
people registering for the Wharton core
00:00:38
courses uh things like accounting and
00:00:40
operations as well as uh some added
00:00:43
courses like gamification and the uh
00:00:45
business of sports it turns out that in
00:00:48
fact uh muks seem to be attracting
00:00:51
people who are uh not in the usual MBA
00:00:54
or Executive MBA kind of programs uh
00:00:57
people from uh developing countries High
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proportion of them in these mukes they
00:01:02
don't go to mbas or executive mbas uh
00:01:06
firstborn Americans who tend to be
00:01:09
highly educated but not terribly well
00:01:11
employed again a big proportion of the
00:01:13
mukes surprising to us and uh yet not a
00:01:17
big representative group in the MBA and
00:01:19
Executive MBA program and probably uh
00:01:22
against very surprising to us a lot of
00:01:24
underrepresented minorities
00:01:26
African-Americans Hispanics and others
00:01:28
taking these uh massive online open
00:01:31
business courses uh but obviously uh a
00:01:35
group that we're trying to get uh
00:01:36
increased representation in the uh uh
00:01:39
regular MBA and Executive MBA programs
00:01:42
so getting these people uh who are
00:01:45
otherwise not in the mainstream of MBA
00:01:47
in to the uh uh business education
00:01:50
through moo seems to be very surprising
00:01:53
and it suggests that uh actually mukes
00:01:55
are serving a different kind of
00:01:56
clientele than regular mbas and
00:01:59
executive MB a those people who maybe
00:02:01
are traditionally excluded or
00:02:03
underrepresented in our uh regular
00:02:06
bricks and mortar classes and it might
00:02:08
serve a very enriched population to
00:02:11
Target for recruitment to mbas and
00:02:13
Executive MBA programs smart
00:02:16
well-educated very interested people who
00:02:19
otherwise we might not have contacted
00:02:21
and in that regard it doesn't seem like
00:02:23
muks are undermining uh traditional
00:02:25
Business Schools but maybe actually
00:02:27
complimenting them enriching them and
00:02:29
providing a great opportunity uh to get
00:02:32
uh other uh diverse student
00:02:38
bodies so I think the uh massive online
00:02:42
education uh these courses that reach
00:02:45
thousands tens of thousands hundreds of
00:02:47
thousands of people on various platforms
00:02:50
like corsera edx have been a real worry
00:02:53
to people that they're going to upset
00:02:55
the higher education Marketplace uh
00:02:58
maybe undermine traditional education
00:03:00
and we were very interested in that uh
00:03:03
I'd say that the three or four big
00:03:05
takeaways from our study are first uh we
00:03:09
these massive online open education
00:03:11
courses or mukes seem to Target uh very
00:03:15
important groups that uh otherwise
00:03:17
aren't involved in the traditional MBA
00:03:19
or Executive MBA programs groups like uh
00:03:22
students in developing countries uh
00:03:25
especially non brick countries uh
00:03:27
student first generation American
00:03:30
recent immigrants who are well educated
00:03:32
from their home country but may be
00:03:33
underemployed in the United States
00:03:35
probably using these mukes to gain
00:03:37
additional skills and training and to
00:03:39
demonstrate that they are competitive
00:03:41
for jobs here and then a another very
00:03:44
surprising group underrepresented
00:03:45
minorities were uh also very uh over
00:03:49
represented in the moo uh program as it
00:03:52
compared to the MBA or the Executive MBA
00:03:54
program nearly 20% of the enrollees in
00:03:57
the American uh side were under rep
00:03:59
represented minorities and that's a
00:04:01
group that uh many business schools have
00:04:03
been trying to Target uh to enroll in uh
00:04:06
traditional MBA and Executive MBA
00:04:08
programs a second surprising finding was
00:04:11
that women did not Faire that well
00:04:13
especially women in developing countries
00:04:15
in these muks they tend to be still
00:04:18
dominated by well-educated men uh there
00:04:21
may be bigger barriers for women maybe
00:04:23
they're not they don't have the
00:04:24
educational preparation to take
00:04:26
advantage of the business style muks uh
00:04:29
it may also be that they don't have
00:04:30
access to uh internet uh and other uh
00:04:33
Necessities computers uh for doing them
00:04:37
third big takeaway uh is that many
00:04:40
people uh lament the fact that there's
00:04:42
High enrollment numbers but when you
00:04:44
look at the number of people who
00:04:45
complete the course and get certificates
00:04:47
it's way down at three or in the the B
00:04:50
the case of Business Schools
00:04:51
5% um even though that's a small
00:04:54
percentage uh it's an important to
00:04:56
remember that when you start out with
00:04:57
very large numbers hundreds of thousands
00:04:59
that's small percentage is many many
00:05:01
thousands of people many more people
00:05:02
than you have in a regular MBA program
00:05:06
but more importantly many of the
00:05:07
students say look getting a certificate
00:05:09
is not that important for me I got a lot
00:05:11
of information or a lot of knowledge or
00:05:13
what I wanted without getting the
00:05:16
certificate and so we need to think
00:05:18
through how mukes are actually
00:05:19
satisfying the educational needs of uh
00:05:22
students rather then figuring out you
00:05:24
know the the end result is to get
00:05:26
everyone a certificate and that may also
00:05:28
have some important implic for the
00:05:30
pricing model uh charging at the end for
00:05:32
a certificate may not be the wisest uh
00:05:35
move uh maybe a uh uh other platforms
00:05:39
for charging uh like a a monthly
00:05:42
subscription fee or some other program
00:05:44
would be a much wiser way of uh Revenue
00:05:51
generation so I think one of the
00:05:53
important elements from our study of uh
00:05:56
students who take the business massive
00:05:59
online courses uh is that they are
00:06:02
probably a very good uh uh Target
00:06:05
population for recruiting for
00:06:06
traditional mbas uh these are groups
00:06:09
that business schools have wanted to
00:06:11
enroll uh students from developing
00:06:13
countries um underrepresented minorities
00:06:16
who traditionally are underrepresented
00:06:18
in business school and so H these
00:06:20
massive online courses may allow
00:06:22
targeting for recruitment that could be
00:06:25
uh greatly enhanced I'd say that the
00:06:27
second uh uh important conclusion
00:06:30
certainly for uh Business Schools is
00:06:33
that uh they should look at muks and
00:06:35
these online course opportunities uh as
00:06:38
opportunities not as competitive and shy
00:06:41
away from them fearing that they're
00:06:42
somehow going to undermine what they do
00:06:45
in a traditional classroom or an
00:06:47
Executive MBA programs at least
00:06:50
initially now they don't look
00:06:51
competitive they look like they might be
00:06:53
synergistic and I think exploring more
00:06:56
deeply uh with the students who have
00:06:58
taken the course es and what they think
00:07:01
they've gotten out of them how these
00:07:02
courses can enhance or maybe bring them
00:07:05
into the Executive MBA bring them into
00:07:07
the traditional MBA programs I think is
00:07:09
where we should be looking uh and so I
00:07:12
think the The Fear and Loathing that
00:07:13
often accompanies muks among academic
00:07:16
administrators is probably overplayed
00:07:19
and we need to think of it much more as
00:07:20
a positive opportunity to expand uh all
00:07:24
the great resources we have uh educating
00:07:28
uh students
00:07:33
well this research focuses focused on uh
00:07:35
Business Schools and business education
00:07:37
because we had this unique opportunity
00:07:40
uh given the fact that Wharton was
00:07:42
running these sort of core Preparatory
00:07:44
courses uh in things like accounting and
00:07:47
uh marketing uh uh and operations as
00:07:50
well as some of the additional uh more
00:07:53
expansive courses like gamification uh
00:07:56
but I think the conclusions probably
00:07:58
extend to high education much more
00:08:01
broadly uh you know again many higher
00:08:04
education administrators have sort of on
00:08:06
the one hand think uh uh thought they
00:08:09
needed to experiment with massive online
00:08:12
education but on the other hand are kind
00:08:14
of dreading it and fearing that it's
00:08:16
going to somehow undercut their uh tra
00:08:18
their finances and the enrollments uh
00:08:21
what we suspect is that there's actually
00:08:24
opportunity to use the online courses to
00:08:26
augment what is happening in the
00:08:29
traditional educational program that in
00:08:32
fact there are different audiences to
00:08:34
use I think the Big Challenge which our
00:08:36
study doesn't solve is the question of
00:08:39
how do you uh how do you make a business
00:08:42
model that makes sense for it uh because
00:08:44
it does look like completing the program
00:08:47
completing a set of courses uh and
00:08:49
paying for that is probably not the
00:08:53
optimal uh
00:08:58
approach there was a an article in the
00:08:59
Wall Street Journal just the other week
00:09:02
talking about how Business Schools might
00:09:05
adapt uh or might fear uh massive online
00:09:09
education uh but it had no data and so
00:09:12
one of the things we have tried to do is
00:09:14
instead of having a lot of speculation
00:09:17
about massive online courses and what
00:09:19
they're going to do to higher education
00:09:21
and who's taking them is to actually
00:09:22
collect data and I think the University
00:09:24
of Pennsylvania has been uh probably the
00:09:27
leader uh both in offering massive
00:09:29
online education courses both for
00:09:31
business as well as in the non-b
00:09:32
business areas uh mythology or poetry or
00:09:36
my own uh Health policy um course uh
00:09:40
We've also been Pioneers in actually
00:09:43
looking at who's taking the courses why
00:09:45
they're taking them uh we've been among
00:09:48
the best to document the uh High number
00:09:51
of people who sign up about a third of
00:09:53
them actually take the course uh uh
00:09:55
begin the course or sort of initiators
00:09:58
uh but only about five or 10% of those
00:10:00
who have started the course actually
00:10:02
complete it uh I I like to say it's
00:10:04
rules of thirds uh about a third of the
00:10:07
people who sign up actually look at the
00:10:09
first lecture and about a third of those
00:10:12
uh who actually look at the first
00:10:13
lecture actually complete the course
00:10:15
that's a little bit of an exaggeration
00:10:17
but that's a pretty good rule of thumb
00:10:19
uh and we need to study each one of
00:10:21
those it's easy to sign up when it's
00:10:23
free right once you've started the
00:10:25
course uh we need to understand what
00:10:27
you're expecting from the course and why
00:10:29
why uh many of those people get what
00:10:31
they seem to want out of the course
00:10:33
without completing it what is the it
00:10:35
that people are looking for in courses
00:10:37
that doesn't require completing every
00:10:39
lecture or completing every assignment
00:10:41
uh is it brushing up in their knowledge
00:10:43
is it prepping them for uh their next uh
00:10:46
program or their next job uh so I think
00:10:49
a lot of uh uh additional research is
00:10:51
going to be needed and as I said I think
00:10:53
uh at the University of Pennsylvania
00:10:55
rather than speculate we have been
00:10:56
delving into the data and trying to
00:10:58
publish as much as we can to educate the
00:11:01
conversation about massive online
00:11:03
education
00:11:08
programs well I think uh the University
00:11:10
of Pennsylvania has been a leader in
00:11:13
looking at people who take massive
00:11:15
online courses and trying to understand
00:11:18
who they are why they're taking the
00:11:19
courses which ones complete which ones
00:11:21
don't complete what sociodemographic
00:11:24
groups they come from what countries
00:11:25
they come from and getting hard data and
00:11:28
looking at the hundreds of thousands and
00:11:30
now millions of people who've taken
00:11:32
these massive online courses is one of
00:11:34
the things uh the University of
00:11:36
Pennsylvania is leading in uh another
00:11:38
thing we're trying to evaluate is uh
00:11:41
what exactly people get out of the
00:11:42
courses and how do they use that
00:11:44
information a third thing we're looking
00:11:46
at is whether in what ways these uh
00:11:49
massive online courses actually enhance
00:11:51
education or maybe undermine education
00:11:54
and trying to actually empirically
00:11:56
evaluate their benefits and in terms of
00:11:59
actual education knowledge retained
00:12:02
knowledge utilized I think is going to
00:12:04
be a very important finding as well that
00:12:06
obviously takes more time uh uh but you
00:12:09
know we are committed at the University
00:12:11
of Pennsylvania our group and many
00:12:12
others here to actually uh good
00:12:15
quantitative research that'll inform the
00:12:17
discussion going forward about massive
00:12:19
online
00:12:24
courses we're actually trying to
00:12:26
understand uh more concretely uh what
00:12:29
people are getting out of the course uh
00:12:31
what expectations they come into a
00:12:33
course with and what uh when they stop
00:12:36
what have they gotten that allows them
00:12:38
to stop or are they stopping because
00:12:40
it's too much time or they don't have
00:12:42
the resources or there's some other uh
00:12:44
barrier that and they would like to go
00:12:47
to completion so this idea of how
00:12:49
exactly to tailor a massive online
00:12:51
course to make it maximally beneficial
00:12:54
for the groups that are taking them I
00:12:56
think is a major issue and really
00:12:59
something we know almost nothing about
00:13:01
so that'll be a major Focus uh we in my
00:13:04
office and my research group are
00:13:05
especially interested in the global
00:13:08
perspective uh I run uh pen Global and
00:13:12
uh part of what motivates us is who are
00:13:14
the people in foreign countries
00:13:16
especially developing countries who are
00:13:18
using massive online courses and how can
00:13:21
we enhance our offerings to really uh
00:13:23
enhance their education uh that's our
00:13:26
mandate in our office and and we are
00:13:28
going to uh continue to research that
00:13:30
particular issue
00:13:35
[Music]
