Facebook has changed the way students, faculty members, and administrators communicate outside the classroom. Now, with the introduction of the London School of Business & Finance’s Global MBA Facebook app, Facebook is becoming the classroom.
The Global MBA app—introduced in October—lets users sample typical business-school courses like corporate finance and organizational behavior through the social-networking site. The free course material includes interactive message boards, a note-taking tool, and video lectures and discussions with insiders from industry giants like Accenture Management Consulting and Deloitte. This may be a good way to market a school, notes an observer from a business-school accrediting organization, but it may not be the best way to deliver courses.
Unlike most online business courses, the Global MBA program will not require students to pay an enrollment fee up front. Instead, students can access basic course material free of charge and pay the school only when they are ready to prepare for their exams. School administrators hope that letting students “test drive” the online courses before actually shelling out the tuition money will boost graduation rates.
While the school offers a large collection of study material on Facebook—including 80 hours of Web video—students seeking formal accreditation must qualify for entrance into the M.B.A. program. Once enrolled in the paid course, students are given access to additional content on the business school’s InterActive course management system, and are required to sit for examinations—like they would if they were enrolled in more traditional distance-learning or brick-and-mortar programs. The Facebook MBA program is accredited by the University of Wales and costs a total of £14,500—about $22,000.
Steve Parscale, director of accreditation for the Kansas-based Accreditation Council for Business Schools & Programs, said sample classes offered through social-networking sites could provide great advertising opportunities for online colleges. “The younger generation is all on social media,” Mr. Parscale said. “If you can get them on Facebook to test-drive a class, then you can get them to actually enroll.”
But Mr. Parscale said he doesn’t know if Facebook is the best place to actually host courses. Although he is not familiar with the London school’s program, Mr. Parscale said that Facebook generally lacks the infrastructure to track student progress, manage data, and prevent cheating that is built into more traditional course-management systems. Programs like BlackBoard and Moodle “are designed to do that, where Facebook is not really designed to facilitate coursework,” he said.
According to the London School of Business & Finance, the Facebook course already has 34,000 users, and it expects 500,000 prospective students to test-drive its classes over the next year—though it’s not clear how many of them will go on to pursue an M.B.A. “Even if people do not decide to go for formal accreditation,” Mr. Etingen said, “the LBSF Global MBA will, at no cost, better equip business students to deal with the global job market.”
33 Responses to British Business School Offers M.B.A. Courses on Facebook
mikereddin - December 1, 2010 at 7:20 am
*Please* get your staff to check out *thoroughly* this deeply suspect phenomenon. You have taken their press release and reprinted it verbatim – and owe your readers a serious apology.
theblondeassassin - December 1, 2010 at 7:54 am
The London School of Business & Finance is not technically a British University (see http://www.hefce.ac.uk/unicoll/HE/#l) although it is an institution of higher education located in the UK.
trav5254 - December 1, 2010 at 11:08 am
Thanks for the note, theblondeassassin. You’re correct, and we’ve fixed the headline.
-Travis Kaya
df1995 - December 1, 2010 at 2:17 pm
You should note that the LSBF is NOT either the world famous London School of Economics and Finance OR the London Business School (both parts pf London University)despite it’s similar name. It’s a very good school regardless.
crispappas28 - December 2, 2010 at 4:49 am
Hi Travis,
your post is extremely interesting. Recently I wrote a post concerning Facebook for e-Learning (http://blog.efrontlearning.net/2010/11/facebook-for-e-learning-educational.html)and I have create a group on Facebook. I am very glad that The London School of Business & Finance is using Facebook as a learning environment and I hope that more academic institutions will follow.
Have a wonderful day,
Christopher Pappas M.B.A., M.Ed.
11228563 - March 29, 2011 at 4:13 pm
what’s the problem? its real, it happens, what do you expect. thanks for reporting the news as it is.
ruritania - March 29, 2011 at 4:17 pm
So’s taking a crap. Do we need to see pictures of it?
greeneyeshade - March 29, 2011 at 4:22 pm
Well shoot–if the Chronicle can publish the, um shot, why can’t a student newspaper?
blue_state_academic - March 29, 2011 at 4:28 pm
Would people have reacted differently if the gender roles in the photo had been reversed?
rmelton5 - March 29, 2011 at 4:30 pm
Re: the last sentence. The high school cheerleaders on campus compounded the problem because a) that means there were more innocent eyes on campus that might have seen the newspaper? or b) that means there were more potential spreaders of HPV?
les_j - March 29, 2011 at 4:34 pm
The goal of the cover was to bring attention to HPV. The cover achieved its objective. No other cover would have created as much discussion, and subsequently awareness of HPV. Congratulations on a thoughtful and effective image!!
pragmatist - March 29, 2011 at 4:36 pm
It should not be portrayed in that manner in a public, campus newspaper for the same reason that such activity – oral sex – should not be performed live in the student union.
Michael Chui - March 29, 2011 at 4:51 pm
Prudishness?
edwoof - March 29, 2011 at 6:31 pm
Why is the photo distasteful? He obviously has lost a contact.
drnels - March 29, 2011 at 6:59 pm
See, I think that would have been worse because it would have been just another instance where male pleasure is considered the norm.
akprof - March 29, 2011 at 7:00 pm
As a nurse, I applaud the Spinnaker staff for clearly illustrating the issue – funny, just today I learned of a friend receiving radiation therapy for an oral cancer in which HPV was implicated. And believe me, the high school cheerleaders are aware of oral sex and are in just as much need of this info as the college students at No. Florida are. You should hear the questions that junior high school students ask students nurses when they go into the “Ask a Nurse” booth at student managed health fairs at their school!! You can’t imagine how early kids today become sexually active (except for my kids, of course)!!
drnels - March 29, 2011 at 7:01 pm
Though I’m a gay man who has never engaged in the act in the photo, I do think it’s good to see a photo that makes the pleasure of women it’s center. So much of our society is about pleasing men. Of course, the article is about the dangers that can come from engaging in such acts, but it’s still nice to see the act taken seriously.
supertatie - March 30, 2011 at 6:36 am
I doubt it. In fact, I think it would have been worse.
iriselina - March 30, 2011 at 8:32 am
What would the Founding Fathers have to say, I wonder.
la_profesora - March 30, 2011 at 9:25 am
Considering what a bunch of old lechers they were, they probably would have said, “Gimme some of that!”
edwoof - March 30, 2011 at 9:54 am
They would have said
“You can ring my (Liberty) Bell -el -el, Ring my Bell!”
keis8427 - March 30, 2011 at 10:44 am
No way was this proper! I would have been very upset to see this in my mailbox. Shame on them! And frankly, I don’t care if people think I’m prudish…
pragmatist - March 30, 2011 at 10:45 am
The cover is also misleading. People who are already aware of this issue know that throat cancer attributed to oral sex is overwhelmingly limited to the gay male populace.
pragmatist - March 30, 2011 at 10:49 am
In response to Michael Chui – not prudishness, but simply exhibiting civilized behavior. We are human beings, not dogs on the street.
swish - March 30, 2011 at 10:57 am
What? But I thought it’s women who harbor HPV. Hey, AKProf (above), you’re a nurse. Is Pragmatist right?
mmcknight - March 30, 2011 at 1:22 pm
What, swish?! Anyone can “harbor” HPV–like most (all?) viruses, it doesn’t care about the sex of the person it infects. It’s women who suffer more of the results, yes, since it is most highly correlated with cervical cancer. But it can also lead to other kinds of cancer in people of either sex. I have never heard of pragmatist’s claim that the throat cancer is mostly limited to gay men… don’t plenty of women also give oral sex to men?
oldcommprof - March 30, 2011 at 3:38 pm
Only if it causes cancer.
oldcommprof - March 30, 2011 at 3:39 pm
So that’s the problem — the gays!
oldcommprof - March 30, 2011 at 3:40 pm
I think they’d want to know if they were at risk for throat cancer.
oldcommprof - March 30, 2011 at 3:41 pm
And apparently you don’t want to be informed, either. And certainly don’t want others to be informed…..
sgray17 - March 30, 2011 at 4:15 pm
Perhaps if the woman in the photo was not headless, it would be less offensive. Although, university outrage against the objectification of women seems somewhat unlikely.
akprof - March 30, 2011 at 5:03 pm
HPV is less likely to cause symptoms or disease in men than women; in men, HPV infection is more associated with anal cancer than throat cancer. I am unaware of statistics that suggest throat cancer attributable to oral sex is limited to gay males – the male friend I mentioned who has HPV associated oral cancer (it was of his tonsils, which are located in the throat) is not gay (nor, I think, bisexual)! It is always best to assume that if a risky sexual behavior negatively impacts one gender, there is a potential that it will have a negative impact on the other gender. The safest approach is to avoid risky sexual behaviors – the next safest approach is to use condoms!!
akprof - March 30, 2011 at 5:05 pm
Whether ii should be or not, I’ll bet oral sex has been performed in many student unions across the country!