For more information, contact Cindy Young, (937) 775-3232.

November 11, 1997

WRIGHT STATE MBA STUDENTS
TAKE CLASS ON THE INTERNET

The college classroom of yesterday: students amble in, take their seats, remove their pens and paper and wait for class to begin. The professor begins lecturing on the day's topic, the students dutifully take notes, and there might be a few minutes for questions and discussion at the end of class.

The college classroom of today: students amble in, take their seats, log onto their computers and wait for class to begin. The professor lectures, but students may have already printed the class notes that had been posted on the Internet. When it's time for questions and discussion, students can now log on and interact not only with their own classmates and professors but with those from other universities around the world. Instead of a hypothetical case study, students have the opportunity to learn how a company plans to launch a new product. Instead of student ideas being written into a report, they might find their ideas adopted by a multinational corporation.

It's all part of "distance learning," which colleges and universities, including Wright State University, are embracing to a greater degree. Distance learning serves students who are separated from their instructors for all or part of the learning experience.

And it's already happening at Wright State. The first "distance class" offered by the College of Business and Administration was conducted this fall as part of MBA 771, Information, Technology, and Organizations. Taught by Rebecca Koop, Ph.D., assistant professor of management information systems, the course integrates the use of information and technology in organizations. The distance class was a combination of three onsite sessions and offsite Web-based class technology.

For this project, 24 of Koop's MBA students joined more than 1,000 students, faculty, and business executives from around the world who participated in the Mondex Global Lesson. The project was a study of the efforts of Mondex International to establish the Mondex card as a worldwide alternative to cash.

The Mondex case "involved live technologies such as chat rooms and asynchronous technologies such as listservs, Web boards and news groups," said Barbara Denison, chair and assistant professor of management science and information systems. "Mondex executives entered live chats ... and discussion groups with the participants."

"Student response has been overwhelmingly positive," said Koop. "As a part of this class ... students participated in a global case study lesson with 20 other universities in seven countries."

News groups discussed topics such as privacy, security, strategy and culture. Executives with experience in electronic payments, chip security, global marketing, privacy,
organizational design, and interface design also participated.

"We don't always have access to these people," Koop said. A quick turnaround is another unique aspect of the Mondex case study. Normally, case studies are written and distributed over a two-year time period, and some aspects of the case become outdated. The Mondex case was written in June, and then participation was invited by putting it on the World Wide Web.

The students from Wright State and elsewhere are not just analyzing how a company launched a new product. They have the opportunity to contribute ideas to the actual development of the product. Tests of the Mondex card were conducted last year at the Atlanta Olympic Games. Mondex recently announced a launch of the system in the New York City area.

MBA 771, one of the core courses in the MBA program, meets on the Internet. Koop says "The Web learning environment is password protected for the security of both students and professors." Software used in the course was provided by a Wright State University Alumni Foundation Teaching Grant.