"Technology-Mediated Learning: Enhancing the Management Education Experience" looks at six successful TML efforts by five business schools and a private business.

It lists key findings, identifying in detail why they are successful and offers valuable lessons learned by the institutions as they implemented TML.

The study is the result of a collaborative effort by AACSB and the American Productivity & Quality Center (APQC), an internationally recognized, non-profit center to help improve productivity, quality and decision-making in business.

According to Milton R. Blood, AACSB managing director, accreditation services, learning technology is one of the most critical items defining competitive strategy among schools. "It is an area usually associated with a major expenditure of money," he said. "Schools will want to have a comprehensive TML plan before they sink those kinds of resources into something."

"The purpose of this study was to identify and examine innovations, best practices and key trends in the area of technology-mediated learning, with the goal of enhancing management education," said C. Jackson Grayson, Jr., APQC chairman. The study focused on four areas: strategic and organizational issues, technology and the learning process, technology and the teaching process, and TML assessment and performance evaluation.

Maryam Alavi, an international authority on TML, said that while the study offers many good suggestions, it also acknowledges there still are important issues to confront as technology helps education gradually emerge from the classroom to the desktop, or even hand-held computer.

As many business schools and corporations reexamine business education, "most are viewing advanced information technology as a key resource in enabling innovative and effective learning experiences," said Alavi, the subject matter expert and academic advisor to the study and The John Cook Chair of Information Strategy at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School.

"For example, what role can or should information technology play in business education? How can barriers to change be reduced? To answer these and other pertinent questions and to avoid ‘reinventing the wheel,’ we can study and learn from effective and thoughtful technology-mediated learning initiatives. This benchmarking study is a step toward that goal," Alavi added.

Fifty schools/colleges, businesses, and government agencies were initially identified as the best-practice candidates. Six of the organizations were chosen as having exemplary technology-

The study offers 20 "key findings" that characterize the present state of TML in management education. For instance, the study concluded that:

• In most TML initiatives, intellectual property issues are not well defined or resolved.
• The use of technology in teaching is not mandated at most best-practice organizations.
• The evidence of the impact of TML on learning, teaching and behavioral outcomes is more often than not anecdotal.
• An up-front assessment and estimation of costs and benefits of TML initiatives rarely is made.

"Technology-mediated learning programs in the best-practice organizations are undertaken in support of specific organizational strategies and as a means of achieving an aspect of the larger organization’s strategic vision, such as globalization and enhancing brand image," Alavi said. "TML initiatives are not ad hoc projects undertaken for their own sakes.

"The best-practice TML programs provide outstanding levels of support for both faculty and students," she continued.

"Student support is provided before, during and after the TML programs. The required level of faculty and student support is non-trivial and requires a substantial level of dedicated organizational and financial resources," she said.

And, Alavi added, most institutions were not prepared for the price tag both in time and funding required to make TML successful.

"In this study, it became apparent that none of the best-practice organizations had quite anticipated the high level of resources and effort required for TML programs prior to undertaking these programs," she said.

"One of the major challenges at university-based programs is from faculty members and administrators who, for one reason or another, attempt to thwart the development of programs directed at new learning opportunities," Milter said.

"The internal struggle within universities dealing with disincentives from skeptical administrators, and lack of openness from faculty colleagues, could well lead to an inability to compete with non-university programs that supply a smorgasbord of learning platforms for adult learners," he added.

"It’s becoming a sticky issue," Alavi admitted, adding that the study suggests ways to confront the intellectual property dilemma. She cautioned that it hasn’t yet been resolved, and that "issues of who owns what, where and when need to be explicitly addressed in TML programs."

Associate professor Gordon McCray of Wake Forest University, one of the "best-practice" schools, thinks that a faculty reward structure poses one of the biggest challenges faced by schools implementing TML.

"The single most problematic hurdle is creating reward structures that allow faculty members — especially untenured faculty members — to pursue TML with reasonable expectations of reward," said McCray, the BellSouth Mobility Technology Faculty Fellow. "TML can be a black hole and a very significant risk as one works toward tenure."

One of the major challenges for the future of TML will be getting faculty to use the technology with students, said Michael Vertefeuille, director of technology at the University of Connecticut, a sponsoring school. "The technology itself is relatively easy to implement but the application, getting the faculty to actually use the technology with students, is harder," he said.

Robert Dauffenbach, business professor at the University of Oklahoma, another of the sponsoring schools, thinks students already have a comfort level with "technology," but by this he means using hardware such as hand-held and laptop computers and creating PowerPoint presentations.

"I think all of us are coping with just how this computer technology fits into the teaching and learning components," Dauffenbach said.

"I find my ability to communicate material to students to be aided by PowerPoint presentations. It allows me to get through material faster and more effectively. But, how do you go beyond that," he wonders. "Where do you go from there? Ultimately, it means confronting issues about how people learn.

"I don’t think we talked about it enough, but I am not certain how I would have done it differently. There was not enough discussion about how you use this technology to advance the learning process. Until we know how people learn, we are not going to have a full understanding," he said.

Dauffenbach’s school is confronting another real-world, dollars-and-cents problem posed by rapidly advancing technology. His university is spending $14 million on a new building for the business school, and it won’t be completed for another three years.

Results of the study became available in October 2000. The comprehensive project was launched in March 1999 when AACSB and APQC announced that the two organizations were uniting to help schools meet the challenges posed by TML.

AACSB educational institutions were invited to become sponsors, and they helped set the study’s strategic direction.

The study participants included a project management team of individuals trained in benchmarking, a subject matter expert (Alavi), 20 sponsoring organizations to fund the study, and six "partners," chosen by the sponsors for their "stellar or innovative practices" in TML.

The selection process involved evaluating the responses from all organizations that completed a study screening survey and comparing their technology-mediated learning initiatives with the best-practice criteria.

As part of the study, the sponsoring organizations visited the partner institutions where they could network and learn first-hand what made TML programs successful.

Being one of the sponsors was "very much worth it," said Oklahoma’s Dauffenbach. "I was able to find some common themes among the benchmarked institutions."

Even though his school, Wake Forest University, was singled out as one of the institutions to be benchmarked, McCray still felt they benefited by participating.

"We were able to get a firm sense of the ‘state of the art,’" McCray said. "There generally isn’t terribly efficient communication among those of us in higher education on leading uses of technology in teaching and learning."

Milter’s program at Ohio University also was "benchmarked," but he, too, said being part of the study will pay off for his program.

"The MBA Without Boundaries Program had been recognized at AACSB workshops and conferences for years before the benchmarking study," he said.

"Now other associations and organizations are beginning to take interest in the value of combining project-based action learning approaches with technology-mediated learning," he continued. "The interest level in the learning architecture used by the MBA Without Boundaries Program has been heightened by the study."

For Don Simons, head of the MBA program at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, one of the benefits of participating was that he went to Ohio University where he was able to see the MBA Without Boundaries Program in action.

"We learned valuable things by being part of the study," he said. "Some of it wasn’t specific to our interests. But, we had an opportunity to learn about what was happening at other schools."

Simons, a professor of accounting who has taught three courses through distance learning, said many schools will face TML issues at the strategic level.

"Right now schools are trying to figure out where they can compete and how technology can help them," he said. "Are they planning to compete at the classroom level, the local level or the worldwide level?"

He thinks the information provided by the study will be helpful as schools ponder their decisions.

"TML is very important. Even if you are offering classes in person and not on the Internet, you must think about the technology you are using," he said.

"I think there is a lot of useful background information contained in the report. It is a very inexpensive way for a school to learn a lot about what is happening with TML today," Simons said.

Alavi offered a final summary of what she hoped schools that are dealing with the demands of new technologies would take from the study.

"The focus of TML should not be on technology but on learning and education. It is critical to develop a sound vision and strategy for TML initiatives.

"In the absence of a clear TML strategy, the rapid rate of change in technology can lead to considerable confusion and waste of resources. The best approach to developing a TML strategy is a collaborative process involving faculty, students, administration and technologists," Alavi concluded.

APQC is a nonprofit source for performance improvement and decision support — information and knowledge, networking, research, training, and advisory services.

In 1992, APQC and 86 leading companies designed APQC’s International Benchmarking Clearinghouse to help managers and leaders find and adapt best practices.

The complete results of the study and a free executive summary are available via the APQC Web site: http://www.store.apqc.org.

Taking part in a recognition awards ceremony for best-practice study partners are (l-r) Maryam Alavi, business professor and The John Cook Chair of Information Strategy at Emory University; Marisa Brown and Darcy Lemons, benchmarking managers at APQC; Valeri Perotti, assistant dean for undergraduate core curriculum and professor of management at Ohio University; Jay Kridel, AACSB director of member services and the project’s coordinator; and Rick Milter, director of the MBA Without Boundaries Program at Ohio University. Alavi served as academic advisor to the AACSB/APQC study on technology-mediated learning. Ohio University’s MBA Without Boundaries Program was one of six organizations identified as having exemplary technology-mediated learning initiatives.