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A be very careful of. I think most leading Business Schools are not trying to expand aggressively, [but] they will still want to maintain the exclusivity of the programme, so that the value of the degree remains.’ Working with third-party service providers Anju Seth, Director, Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Calcutta, and Board Member, AMBA & BGA ‘The ubiquitous move to online from face to face is the single most significant trend which we have all observed around the world. ‘I think that it would be useful to talk about a couple of the trends that are associated with this online presence. One is the uncoupling of coursework on the degree. There is a greater degree of customisation associated with this move online. In the past, when we were delivering our coursework face to face, we had a structured and predictable curriculum. But in this online move, we have had to be very innovative in devising new ways of delivering courses that allow for students to hit the ground running. For example, there is more learning by doing and more autonomy on the part of the learner. This change is associated with the changing face of education in general. ‘At IIM Calcutta, we have been very fortunate that our flagship two-year programme is taught by faculty who have experience in teaching some of our executive programmes using blended learning. ‘In my previous experience, I’ve encountered universities with large engineering schools and universities which have many different schools and departments within them. Those are very different from the standalone Business School that we are at IIM Calcutta. We don’t have the wherewithal to capitalise on large edtech departments which serve the university with technical expertise, course creation or digital formatting systems. What we have found at IIM Calcutta – and what has been really valuable – is partnering with specialist organisations that provide these sorts of services. ‘We are the first Coursera partner in India to launch special certificate programmes and then also think about modularising towards an MBA programme. What we are finding is that there are many service providers who can offer us the capabilities to achieve this digital transformation. Now the question is, how exactly do we implement that in a seamless fashion? That’s a difficulty that we have, in comparison to my experiences with larger universities. They have somebody at the other end of a telephone call that will be there to help you out. It is not that simple when you are dealing with a service provider. You must find them, work with them, and build a mutual understanding, but once you have that mutual understanding, it is great.’ Leveraging technology to make the difference Francisco Veloso, Dean, Imperial College Business School ‘Our edtech lab works both with our faculty and by itself, to come up with new solutions for education that are relevant to our delivery.
‘I would say there are several components to this, including: how to organise your teaching; what are the new tools?, how do you
leverage technology in the classroom?; and what platforms are out there that can add good physical and digital components? However, there are other elements that I think are
becoming increasingly important and which will disadvantage any top Business School which does not have these elements well organised and well resourced. These are things that happen outside the classroom. For example, should we start to use 3D glasses, and virtual technology, to teach students how to speak in public settings or to conduct interviews? ‘I think that the use of technology in career support is vital, for example with the use of gaming on the recruitment side in management consulting. We need to be able to make our students feel comfortable with that. ‘That is not something we would usually associate with the classroom. But there are many things for preparing students on leadership, engagement with companies, public speaking, and careers that can add a lot of benefit and that are increasingly being leveraged with technology. ‘For our students, it might be valuable to use the carbon capture lab that we have at Imperial College as part of the department of chemical engineering. We can throw them a problem in a carbon capture plant to test their leadership skills and this is an example of where we are using technology in a different way to teach students how they can engage and think about leadership roles, working in teams and reacting to adversarial environments. ‘The final thing, which I think is important and critical for the future, is that we find out how our students learn and feed that back into the way that we organise things. We have been capturing all of the interactions that our students have in the Global Online MBA and we have a partnership with the College’s Department of Mathematics to do research about how they learn – whether they are crammers or steady learners, for example – and how they might have better outcomes. ‘The fact that we are digitalising the educational experience means there is an opportunity for us to better understand how our students learn. We can then work with them to try to make them better learners. It’s an opportunity for us, as a Business School, to better understand what we can do to make a difference to their learning outcomes, their position in the job market, and their careers. ‘The science of learning and the science of education are going to be taken to a new level, with the vast amount of data that is becoming available by the process of digitalisation. I think that is going to be a very important part of the future of education as well.’ AMBA & BGA‘s Accreditation Forum 2020 was held online in October 2020. For details of AMBA & BGA's next high-profile events, visit: www.businessgraduatesassociation.com/events
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