Exciting New Technologies Will Enhance MBA Education at
Fuqua
By John Manuel
John McCann, professor of business administration, minces no words in talking about the importance of Fuqua's getting behind his latest mission.
"I want to see Fuqua in the fast lane of the Information Highway," he says. "What's happening with the Information Revolution is every bit as significant as what happened in the Industrial Revolution. But the Information Revolution is happening in a very short period of time. If you don't get out front of it now, you will be quickly left behind."
McCann and his fellow missionary, John Gallagher, insist that the best way for the Fuqua School to join the revolution is to adopt what they call a "computer-mediated learning environment" (CMLE). By this, they are not referring to new courses on computing, nor are they pressing for huge amounts of new equipment. Rather, they want to change the way students and faculty learn, the way they communicate among themselves and with the world outside Fuqua.
"What we're talking about here is the merger of personal computing and communications," Gallagher explains. "At Fuqua, we've been using computer-supported instruction for a number of years. What we are proposing to do is to use computers to mediate the instructional process."
McCann and Gallagher are quick to point out that much of the business community that Fuqua serves has already joined the revolution. Companies large and small use E-mail to zap messages within and between offices and workers, customers and suppliers in the field. Corporations are doing collaborative research via the Internet, the global computer network that links thousands of other networks around the world. Companies are even doing direct marketing and advertising via the Internet. McCann and Gallagher are convinced that these same technologies and techniques can and must be used to expand Fuqua's reach and efficiency.
The urgent need to make yet another major sacrifice at the altar of technology may come as a surprise to those who thought Fuqua was on top of this field. Indeed, Fuqua was considered a leader among business schools ten years ago when it purchased personal computers and built a local area network (LAN) with an IBM grant.
But much has changed since then. Duke University has been building its own "backbone", connecting most of the buildings on campus with a high-capacity, fiber-optic-based network known as Dukenet. Dukenet offers users a variety of services including E-mail, an on-line catalogue at Perkins Library, and a Novell network that can connect any of the University's LANs, such as Fuqua's, with any other local area network. Most importantly, Dukenet is connected to the Internet. This means that any computer on Dukenet can talk to any other networked computer anywhere in the world.
At Fuqua, and at many other schools within the University, not every computer has been connected to Dukenet, and not everyone has had an account on the Internet. Even those who have had access to the Internet have not always found it to be very user-friendly.
"Just logging onto the Internet has often been a hassle," says Gallagher. "You needed to be connected to a central machine maintained by the University [a UNIX processor nicknamed "Rafael"], and you needed to have an account. Even if you could log onto the Internet, you had to know the commands to navigate it. Finding and posting relevant information involved searching through a bewildering array of news groups with names like alt.Amazon.women.admirers or network locations like wuarchive.wustl.edu."
In the last year, however, significant developments in hardware and software have convinced Gallagher and McCann that it is now possible for anyone to navigate the Internet with ease. To simplify access, Fuqua recently installed operating hardware that automatically logs any computer connected to Dukenet onto the Internet. Now, someone can simply turn on their PC and they are ready to access information around the globe.
Further, a new software package named Mosaic has arrived on the computing scene, an application that makes it far easier to search for and retrieve information on the Internet.
"Mosaic is the road map we've been waiting for," says Gallagher. "It's a killer piece of software that crystallizes what this technology can do."
Developed at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) and distributed free to any Internet user who requests it, Mosaic lets people use their hand-held mouse to click and point their way to the information they want, via something called the World Wide Web. The Web consists of disparate files and directories spread throughout the Internet and connected with so-called hypertext links. Menus provide lists of "servers"--organizations or institutions that provide information via the Internet--with which one can connect and access additional information.
By way of example, one can click on the name "Duke University" from a menu of universities. Text and photos will appear giving basic information about the University, some of which is highlighted in blue. Click on the highlighted name "Fuqua School of Business" and information on the school will appear on the screen. Within the Fuqua file, there are lists of courses and professors highlighted in blue, any one of which can be accessed with a click of the mouse.
"Now, imagine what this could mean to the educational process here at Fuqua," Gallagher says. "Traditionally, a teacher might provide his or her students with a document on some topic of interest, and it might have a list of additional sources of information. If I were interested in pursuing those, I'd have to go to the library, find the additional documents and check them out. But if all this is available on the Internet, I can just sit in front of my computer and click my way through it. The cost of getting the information is so low in terms of my cognitive investment, I can explore much more of it in a lot less time."
For providers of information--particularly professors--building a body of information which others can access becomes very easy with Mosaic.
"I can compose information services that have links to all sorts of other services," says Gallagher. "For example, professors in other business schools may be willing to provide course notes on topics relevant to mine. I can put hypertext pointers in my own work pointing to their work. I can literally build my own library."
In a computer-mediated learning environment, Gallagher explains that students and faculty will be connected to one another other via networked personal computers in their homes and offices. Faculty will post homework assignments and relevant background material on the network. Students will team up on assignments without having to meet at the same place (distance learning) or even the same time (asynchronous learning).
Students and faculty could also access and contribute to any of the more than 8,000 bulletin boards and discussion groups on the Internet. In addition, Fuqua would probably create some of their own bulletin boards within the Duke domain.
"An instructor may post a topic and have people comment on it," says Gallagher. "It's an excellent way for students to discuss topics outside the classroom."
But wouldn't a computer-mediated learning environment undermine the face-to-face interaction that is a crucial part of the Fuqua experience?
"We're trying to enhance the learning process, not replace face-to-face communication," says Gallagher. "We would still have classes and other in-person activities. But we could make such better use of peoples' time with this new technology."
Gallagher and McCann also see the CMLE working hand-in-hand with Fuqua's mission to expand its programs overseas. Thanks to the Internet, information can be shared across continents almost as quickly as it can be exchanged across campus. Blair Sheppard, associate dean of executive education, thinks the same advantages that apply to global programs could benefit executive education as well.
"There are some marvelous things we can do with computer-mediated instruction that we can't do with any other medium," Sheppard says. "For one thing, we can have working groups of people from around the world. They can work together in real time or asynchronous time. We can help companies like Ford implement a global strategy using this technology.
Sheppard says the nature of teaching in a computer-mediated environment is also different in that you have more time to think about issues. "When I present a case in class, the length of our discussion is limited to an hour or two, and that limits how deeply we can think about the issues," he notes. "But in a computer-mediated environment, you're not so constrained by time. You can post a business problem on a bulletin board, and people can think about it and respond to it on their own time. That allows one to address issues more deeply."
Sheppard also feels that a CMLE will allow professors to individualize programs to a greater degree than has previously been possible. Executives enrolling in a program can describe their particular needs via computer in advance of coming to Fuqua. In that way, time spent face-to-face can be made directly relevant to them. Likewise, professors can follow-up with particular executives easily via networked computer.
New communications technologies could also make it possible to draw upon resources one might otherwise not be able to access. Sheppard explains: "I had lined up Bob Rohe of Ford to come down and close out one of our programs here this spring, but he ended up having to cancel to attend a meeting in Detroit. If we had interactive television, it might have been possible for him to devote an hour giving his speech and talking with the class from up there."
Last but not least, in Sheppard's mind, a CMLE will allow executives, and MBAs, to learn in the medium that they will likely be using as part of their business. "The hardware and software that we will be using is the same stuff that is being used in the work environment," says Sheppard. "If you learn one or two programs in a Windows environment, you can do almost anything--cruise the Internet, exchange E-mail, participate in bulletin boards, whatever."
So who are these faculty members helping bring about Fuqua's technological transformation, and where did their inspiration come from? John McCann, 54, is a professor of marketing and is regarded by many as the father of computing at Fuqua. McCann was responsible for establishing the school's first computing program with a grant from IBM in 1983. He chaired the committee to find a director of computing education at Fuqua, and eventually hired John Gallagher, then a faculty member at Cleveland State University's School of Education.
Together, McCann and Gallagher have collaborated on a number of projects related to computing at Fuqua. One of these was the Marketing Workbench Laboratory, a joint study program with IBM to explore the feasibility of using experts to analyze the voluminous marketing data generated by computer technologies and have those experts write computer programs that replicated these analyses. During the 1992-93 school year, McCann took a sabbatical to study how computers and other communications technologies are affecting management and professional work.
"Going into the sabbatical, my experience in research had been on how computing technology was impacting business in general, and marketing in particular," says McCann. "Coming out of it, I had a much better sense of how communications technology could combine with computing to greatly accelerate the impact."
Upon returning to campus, McCann joined John Gallagher in developing a series of new courses called Managerial Informatics. These courses drew upon the lessons the two learned from the former's sabbatical and the Marketing Research Laboratory. First offered in the 1993-94 academic year, the courses are designed to help managers and professionals learn how to master the changes taking place in the Information Revolution.
Together with faculty members Arie Lewin and Nancy Keeshan, McCann also helped organize the January 1994 Integrated Learning Experience (ILE), "Information Technology and Business: Challenges and Opportunities." The week-long program examined how computer-mediated technologies are radically transforming the way business is being conducted within organizations, between organizations and at the individual work level. Representatives of 15 companies participated by presenting interactive case sessions or giving plenary addresses.
"During this time, I began to see how these technologies might impact education," McCann says. "I realized it wasn't enough to study how business was changing. I realized we had to change as well."
McCann logged countless hours on his computer and poured through all the readings he could find on where the technology was going and how it could be used in education. Throughout this research period, Gallagher acted as a sounding board for McCann, helping him figure out what was practical out of all the things that were possible.
In a series of memos entitled "Do The Right Thing," McCann tried to impress upon his colleagues the urgency of developing and expanding a computer-based learning environment at Fuqua, even if it meant sacrificing his marketing research activities.
"To properly attack the information revolution, to do it right, means that I must give it all my energies," McCann wrote. "It cannot be a hobby or a sideline that I do because it is fun, or as a change of pace from my other activities."
Wes Magat, senior associate dean for academic programs, was suitably impressed with McCann's proposals. In December, 1993, Magat formed a distance learning committee, chaired by McCann, to consider what technologies could be used in the various programs, both existing and proposed, at Fuqua. The committee met weekly until February, when it issued its recommendation that the School implement what is now referred to as the Computer-Mediated Learning Environment. In June, approval was granted to fund the initial stages of Fuqua's CMLE implementation in time for the fall 1994 semester .
Gallagher and McCann have no illusions about the difficulty of having the CMLE in place for the fall semester.
"It's a huge undertaking for our group," says Gallagher. "We've got 750 students plus the faculty we'll have to get software to, train, etc. It's new, untested."
The first step is to provide the proper hardware connections to the faculty and make sure they have Windows-based machines. Then they will add the software to connect to Fuqua's internal network and the Internet.
The second step is to set up E-Mail and bulletin boards for faculty and students. Currently, the faculty are on a mainframe E-Mail system. They will be put on LAN-based E-mail, which will integrate with other computing tools such as the bulletin boards and the Internet. Eventually, Fuqua administrators and staff will also be brought on-line.
Establishing a CMLE is likely to result in a significantly greater demand for computer access than currently exists at Fuqua. The School currently has some 85 personal computers in laboratories on campus, with an additional 25 in teamrooms and breakout rooms. McCann and Gallagher would like the school to provide additional computers in the student lounge, lounge mezzanine and other locations with network connections.
Even with new machines, student demand for computers will likely exceed capacity on campus. Therefore, the school will be encouraging students to purchase their own computers and modems with which they can access the Duke network via telephone.
In addition to making sure students and faculty have access to networked computers, the school will have to prepare additional materials to make use of the equipment as simple as possible.
"Given the potentially large number of students and faculty with these needs, we must develop a 'kit' of software, installation programs, installation documentation and on-line help to minimize the problems and maximize the likelihood of success," says McCann.
Of course, a computer-mediated learning environment does not exist simply because one has the proper hardware and software to access the network. The biggest task will be to train faculty and students in the use of these tools.
"First, we will identify the faculty members whose courses and research can make the greatest use of this new technology. Then we will help them and the students through some of the early experiences," says Gallagher. "There is not yet an accepted model and vision for all the ways to apply these technologies. Fortunately, or unfortunately, nobody is very far ahead of us in this regard."
Gallagher doesn't worry that the School's final destination along the Information Highway is not yet in sight. For now, what is important is the commitment to new technologies as a means to enhancing the quality of the Fuqua educational environment. "It's a phenomenon whose time has come," he says, "because the technology has made it possible."