CHAPTER 6

University of Liverpool

Online Degree Programs for Professionals

Murray M. Dalziel

Can you seriously learn in a completely asynchronous online environment? Over the past 10 years, the University of Liverpool has repeatedly answered this question: Yes, online learning allows working adults to deepen their professional knowledge as they apply their studies in their ongoing work experience. Until recently there has been a great deal of skepticism about nontraditional or non-classroom learning. While some suspicion of asynchronous, online education lingers, the debate has changed, and the University of Liverpool’s management programs are now accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB). While we are in no way advocating our method of teaching online for every student and program, we believe that for the population we serve—the working professional—this is a viable alternative that provides quality education for many more people than can be reached by traditional methods.

Background

The University of Liverpool started to develop online programs in 2000. Why would a research-intensive, highly regarded university make this type of decision that bucked the tradition of attending courses in-person? The reasons are important because they shape the whole approach to the venture to date. Unlike some competitors in the United Kingdom, the University of Liverpool had never engaged in any type of “distance learning” (usually a blend of classroom and remote, self-paced instruction). From the start, there was a strong belief that the university would lead the wave of a new generation of methods for delivering graduate education. Accordingly, the university made a huge commitment to the online delivery method. At the time only the Open University, founded by British Royal Charter in 1969, was engaged in delivering “distance learning” at any level of scale, and most of its programs included a mix of online and face-to-face sessions. Given the novelty of online learning, the University of Liverpool partnered with Laureate International, an experienced provider of online education.*

The university committed to this method, and continues to work with a larger private sector provider, for the following reasons:

• The university felt it was too dependent on undergraduate teaching and the then Higher Education Funding Council grant. Revenue growth would come from graduate education. The Management School had just been established, and although there were considerable expectations about the growth in the number of master’s degrees in business administration (MBA) that the school would award, undergraduates still dominated the revenue streams. Online provision that would be available globally and on a flexible basis would accelerate entry into the graduate market.

• Constraints of real estate expansion would be a barrier to growth. Online was an attractive alternative.

• There could be a different delivery method for a research-intensive university. On-campus academics would not have their research time constrained by rapid growth in numbers if the university developed materials that could be delivered under supervision through a network of other academics. Given the research objectives of the university, this was an equally compelling reason.

• These ventures and other ventures to expand higher education need more capital than either the United Kingdom Treasury was willing to underwrite or the university could sustain through regular cash flows. There was a belief, consequently, that more private sector providers would enter the market. The university believed that it was better to be on the leading wave of this movement rather than face competition from much better capitalized competitors later on.

The initial programs focused on business studies (MBA degree), public health (master’s degree in public health), and information management (master’s degree in information management). Subsequent programs have been added in law, and the portfolio within the original three areas expanded. Two professional doctorates have also been added. Today, more than 10,000 students are registered in degree programs.

Program Description

The University of Liverpool online degree programs are firmly focused on graduate education for working professionals and are based on the following pedagogical principles:

• Students are engaged in and responsible for their own learning, and they have some element of control over their learning environment. This is a principle that also applies to on-campus learning, but it is particularly relevant in an online environment and especially one that is targeted to professionals in the workplace.

• Relevance and authenticity: students learn better when the real test of their learning needs are the demands of their work. Therefore, students are encouraged to reflect on, test out, and apply their learning each week in their workplace setting.

• Co-constructed knowledge: there is group work and collaboration in learning. Classes are typically learning sets with an average of 14 students (and no more than 21), so that the work in the classroom is heavily interactive. In addition, students are geographically diverse, so they learn to collaborate on virtual, global teams.

• Learning is problem-focused and encourages reflection and application.

• Students follow a learning journey; learning tasks and assessments are appropriate to the stage of that journey. This affects program structure, and programs have a clear beginning, middle, and end.

• Students develop master’s/doctoral level learning skills with a clear statement about what master’s or doctoral level learning means. This is equivalent to what would be required on-campus.

Target Audience

Even though the mix of programs has expanded, the target audience is clearly defined as “professionals at work.” The average age of students is 39. Most students are looking to enhance their career (as opposed to changing industry or vocation). This drives the basic design of the curriculum (material has to be relevant to their working situations). The pedagogy has to respect the students’ desire for flexibility, given the full-time demands of their roles. The faculty has to be able to work with mature adults engaged in solving problems at work.

Exhibit 6-1.   Global participation in University of Liverpool programs.

The target audience of professionals at work is also geographically dispersed. Part of the mission is to make quality education accessible to a wide range of people who otherwise would not be able to take advantage of a purely campus-based experience. African and Middle Eastern countries send the most students because British institutions have already established brand reputations and the University of Liverpool has higher recognition there (Exhibit 6-1).

Recruiting Students

The Internet largely drives the marketing of these online programs worldwide, although there is more emphasis on those countries where the University of Liverpool has a brand presence and where online degrees are accepted by employers. Although many potential students in India or China tend to eschew online degrees, we do have students from these regions and we are actively recruiting in these large higher education markets.

Program Admissions

The entrance criteria are similar to those for campus programs. Students must have good academic preparation that will enable them to study at a master’s level at a world-class, research-intensive university. Many applicants do not have traditional academic backgrounds, so their work preparation has to be significant, and they must demonstrate that they have both the discipline and the aptitude to take these courses. There is considerable room for innovation in serving nontraditional students. When we embarked on these programs, the academic community as a whole was quite skeptical of wholly online degrees, so to date our approach to recruiting and admissions has been very conservative.

Scale in this operation involves both geographic coverage and overall student numbers. Our belief is that the processes required to run an online operation differ in several respects from campus operations. The University of Liverpool does not have the core competencies to exploit large online operations. This is particularly true in marketing (to a large population of adults in several regions who want to study parttime) and in student administration (counseling large numbers of applicants, managing students in and out of small classes that are opening and closing each month, keeping track of part-time students, and having instructors available around-the-clock on a flexible basis). These functions are assigned to Laureate Education (Baltimore, MD).

In addition, to build online programs requires considerable capital. That is another reason that the University of Liverpool chose to partner with a for-profit company for this type of activity. Over the last 10 years Laureate Education has invested over $77 million in capital on these programs.

Program Design

Students work in small, interactive, virtual teams. We believe that this corresponds closely to the reality of working in global enterprises and global markets. Consequently, we embed key skills for the global marketplace and establish communities that are able to work across geographic boundaries. Students often report that this is one of the benefits of the program that they did not anticipate when they joined; working in small cross-cultural teams every day is challenging and sharpens their learning.

In addition to mirroring the work environment of the 21st century, the program is also driven by the following principles:

• Co-construction of knowledge: We use technology to create learning communities that collaborate in bringing their experiences to life. Discussion and sharing of information are equally important for these experienced professionals, as it helps them shape their own learning.

• Learning not teaching: We expect that instructors will facilitate learning rather than teaching from the “front of the classroom.” We are gradually adding video and other segments as technology improves, but we see these as “add-ons.” Traditionally, we have avoided “beaming in academics” from the classroom. While we have no difficulty seeing the potential benefits from MOOCS (massive open online courses), we take an approach in which the student is at the center, not the instructor.

• Experience as a source of learning: We do not believe that learning is achieved by accumulating experiences, but rather that these experiences are essential to the learning process. We help students to question traditional and commonly held beliefs. This is particularly important in subjects such as management, in which there is any number of popular fads that constitute part of the body of knowledge that our students must sift through.

• Critical reflection: This can take a number of forms. We encourage students to become much more self-aware. The nature of the basic pedagogy where students are in constant interaction with each other provides an important source for having them discover more about the relational aspects both with learning and with their actual work.

Another key competency that all the programs nourish is how to work interactively across cultures. Many visitors to our programs are skeptical that we can create the depth of discussion that they would expect to see in conventional classroom situations. However, both observers and students report that many times these discussions are as deep as and as intense as what happens in a classroom or indeed any work-based co-located team.

Finally, one of the fundamental competencies of the program is the discipline of self-directed, lifelong learning. Anecdotally, although most students are pleased to graduate, many report having developed a discipline that they wish to keep going. (This is one reason we introduced professional doctorates.)

Program Structure

To earn credits toward their degree, students enroll in a series of modules. Each module typically lasts 8 weeks (in the MBA program the introductory module, “Learning to Be a Leader,” lasts 10 weeks). The modules are organized to provide one-to-one and one-to-many interactions. A range of learning devices are used, including the following:

• Group discussions: Each week the instructor poses a discussion question that requires students to elaborate on a problem. These discussion threads form the core of each week’s seminars and are open for the whole of the module, so that students can use them as a basic referral resource and can see how learning is advancing.

• Group projects: Groups work together on a specific project. The work is largely asynchronous, although students can opt to conduct live conference calls as part of their preparation. Special spaces in the virtual classroom are designed for them to store discussions, and folders are available in which to post specific materials. Instructors are encouraged to enter this space and offer formative feedback.

• Individual assignments: These are completed independently and sent directly to the instructor.

• Informal discussions: There are spaces online for students to interact with each other and to contact their instructors “outside” of the formal classroom.

Throughout their program, students on average spend 15 to 20 hours a week in the classroom. Their time is divided equally among the following activities: reading and assimilating the week’s content, readings, and lecture notes; participating in the weekly discussion; and completing and submitting assignments. The instructor gives continual formative feedback (summarized once a week), and submits grades at the end of each week for each assessed element. There is therefore a continual process of assimilation of theory (from the weekly content), creation of new knowledge through discussion, and the improvement of performance through formative and evaluative processes.

Every program ends with an independent piece of research or consultancy project. This occurs after students have successfully completed eight modules of instruction. To graduate they need to submit a dissertation or, for some programs (for example, MBA), a consultancy project. There is a dedicated online space to support this work, and students have access to their supervisor as well as to informal peer support groups as they progress in their work.

Neither part-time education nor online learning are a good fit for every student. Many students have difficulty with the self-discipline required to benefit from online learning. Inevitably, many students are unrealistic about their time commitments to work and to their personal lives, and they do not realize that they may have to change their priorities in order to accommodate the new program. In addition, our program is typically a student’s first experience with online, asynchronous learning. There are variations by program, but generally about half of the students who enroll in an online course soon realize that an online degree program is not for them and they drop out. Therefore, the initial module is a key experience for students taking an online degree program, and students are not billed until the end of the second week; this is the case only for the first module. We also run “taster sessions” to encourage students to discover for themselves what is required. This is an area where there is considerable room for innovation, and over the next 5 years we will develop a program to test different approaches to preparing students for online learning.

Program Quality

All programs have defined learning goals and competency statements. The business programs have developed assessment of learning processes as required by the “assurance of learning” processes of the AACSB. Each program’s learning goals are divided into observable traits that are measured in each of the core modules (Exhibit 6-2). These traits are assessed across a sample of students each time the module is taken. Modules that are not contributing to the learning goals are discussed at an annual program review and revised.

Academic Integrity

The maintenance of academic integrity is a central tenet of our online model, oriented primarily to educate, but ultimately to sanction unethical behavior. Students complete a number of assignments in their first module oriented to educating them about the principles and mechanics of academic integrity, and they sign an Academic Honesty Declaration at the beginning of every module. All online faculty members attend obligatory training in the detection and handling of plagiarism; all student assignments have to be submitted through matching software (Turnitin, iParadigms Inc., Oakland, CA). The university delegates the role of assessment officer to the senior Laureate academic, who recommends appropriate sanctions to the plagiarism subcommittee of the board of examiners (chaired by a University of Liverpool Management School faculty member). Additional protection is provided by the continual monitoring of the classes by University of Liverpool faculty, who identify and submit any suspicious assignments to the assessment officer for investigation.

Exhibit 6-2.   Example of assurance of learning.

GOAL 4: Students will demonstrate that they are able to perform effectively within a team, selecting an appropriate leadership style for different situations

• Objective: Students will meaningfully contribute to a team demonstrating the ability to recognize and utilize individuals’ contributions in group processes and to negotiate and persuade or influence others, leading to a decision on a management problem.

MAPPING:

DESCRIPTOR:

Program Impact

Surveys of participants report the most satisfaction from work-related outcomes. For example, in an in-depth survey of 145 MBA students graduating in 2012, 76% reported career or job improvements that they attributed to the program. For many students there are multiple outcomes. According to the survey, one third of participants received salary increases. One year after completing the program, among those in the 2012 cohort who received a raise, the median salary increase was 20%. One third of respondents credit the program with helping them achieve a desired change in their professional career. Although most do this within their own organizations, about 20% switched organizations. Almost half of those were in a new organization that they had created themselves. One quarter of survey respondents believed that they are able to better contribute to societal issues.

Many employers value degrees from a university brand that they can trust. But for most employers the largest benefit of online learning is the flexibility it provides employees to continue working full-time. A wholly asynchronous online program provides even greater flexibility than other part-time options where students must be released for specific time periods. The University of Liverpool’s online programs allow students to study at their own pace and in their time. But they continue working on job-related problems through the lens of their postgraduate studies.

Conclusion

Since 2000, over 7,000 students have graduated with degrees from the University of Liverpool’s online programs. We have no doubt that online learning that is 100% asynchronous works. There are, of course, competencies that are harder to develop online as compared with in a classroom setting. For example, verbal presentation skills are quite hard to cultivate in an asynchronous, online program, although not impossible as advances in technology increases. On the other hand, the ability to work in global virtual teams, an increasingly common experience in today’s corporate world, is very hard to foster in a classroom. As in any pedagogy, there will be trade-offs. We believe that for this group of students this trade-off is worth it.

Learning to be adaptable is highly correlated with effective work performance. Corporate training departments can foster some of this, but individuals globally have a great appetite to enhance their own learning. There is no reason to dream about one day visiting a campus and taking time off to do that. They can do that now—on planes, in hotels, in cafes, and in their own homes. Online programs at the University of Liverpool demonstrate that the quality of that experience can be high.

* Initially, the University of Liverpool worked with KIT E-learning, which is now part of Laureate International Universities (Laureate Education, Baltimore, MD).