ROUNDTABLE REVIEW
“I think we’re still in a period of flux; the pandemic is not over completely and we are part of a sector trying to find the right balance between online and face to face. “We’re seeing different demands for this at different levels of provision. Undergraduates are still largely learning in a face-to-face environment, but post-graduates and our executive or post-experience provision is highly blended and online. “I think there’s certainly an appetite here for further investment – there are a lot of opportunities. We’re exploring all manner of things in terms of emerging technologies, such as augmented and virtual reality. “In a way, the pandemic accelerated that. The appetite is there to grow this area of provision – certainly when it comes to blended. Blended learning has been around for decades, it’s just that the ratio of the blend has started to shift post-Covid towards a better balance between online and face to face. The ability to deliver that has grown, developed and matured to a certain extent over the past couple of years.” Diana Limburg, MBA director, Oxford Brookes University Business School, UK “This is all demand-driven. At Oxford Brooks, the Global MBA has been an online programme since the early 2000s and a blended programme since around 2016. “The reason why we are a blended programme is that we’ve have students all over the globe and they are all working. Therefore, it is demand driven in terms of how we can make an MBA work for this type of student; then it becomes horses for courses because different types of students will need different pedagogies and different delivery modes. “That’s the basis of how you make decisions on where to invest and focus. For us, we need a mixture of asynchronous delivery to make it flexible for students, but also synchronous delivery so they can have that real-time conversation and feel more strongly engaged.” How have you adapted your strategies to attracting and retaining a more international cohort of students? Aldis Sigurdardottir, MBA director, Reykjavik University School of Business, Iceland “We don’t have that many international students, it is more of a local focus. We have
“On the other hand, it’s also about offering diversity in different stages – this is about synchronous, as well as asynchronous, content. “If students are having problems with their visa for coming to Germany for example, they can learn from anywhere in the world and watch recordings of sessions when they have time.” Steven De Haes, dean & professor of information systems management, Antwerp Business School, Belgium “In our case, embracing digital capabilities towards amplifying impactful learning journeys was already in the core of our strategy for many years. Of course, the Covid pandemic has accelerated this journey. “We are further enriching our product portfolio itself, so we are broadening our reach towards having programmes that are mainly organised in interactive campus learning experiences, but at the same time we are also unfolding a fully online portfolio in a digital campus. Programmes in this digital campus are delivered either synchronously or asynchronously, so in that way we can reach a global audience. “We are accelerating in hybrid learning approaches, blending the optimal mix for an impactful learning experience of synchronous and asynchronous and online and on-campus experiences. We have also had some visa issues and problems with students arriving on time at the campus, so they have the opportunity to attend classes in a high-flex online formula before they come to Europe. “As a result of having digital-enabled learning journeys, we are capturing more high-quality data on the learning journey itself and the learner experience and impact. We can now accommodate the learning journeys and impact on students in a much better way than previously because we are capturing much more data.” Mark Dawson, director of digital education and senior teaching fellow, Lancaster University Management School, UK “Prior to the pandemic, the university already had a strong online provision but Covid-19 has enhanced the capability of the university – and our school in particular – so it is now more flexible when delivering blended or hybrid teaching and can accommodate a number of different pedagogical and delivery models.
ROUNDTABLE ATTENDEES CHAIR Colette Doyle Head of editorial AMBA & BGA PANELLISTS Mark Dawson Director of digital education and senior teaching fellow Lancaster University Management School, UK Steven De Haes Dean & professor of information systems management, Antwerp Business School, Belgium Yasmina Kashouh Head of international programmes and academics College de Paris International, France
Peter Konhäusner Professor of digital
entrepreneurship, Gisma Business School, Germany Diana Limburg MBA director Oxford Brookes University Business School, UK Aldis Sigurdardottir MBA director, Reykjavik University School of Business, Iceland
Ambition | FEBRUARY 2023 | 19
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