MIT Expands Virtual Classes For Execs

8 MOOCs Transforming Education

In a baby step toward a more virtual education experience, MIT's Sloan School of Management will expand use of a virtual platform, AvayaLive Engage, in its executive education program.

"I'd like us by this time next year to say we're running five or six of our courses using the platform," said Peter Hirst, executive director of executive education at Sloan.

Other universities use AvayaLive Engage, but Sloan is the first to integrate it into a live class environment. (Full disclosure: I am a contributing editor to the MIT Sloan Management Review.)

Sloan professors Erik Brynjolfsson and Alex "Sandy" Pentland have twice used AvayaLive Engage to teach a two-day executive education seminar on big data. In October, the two professors will reprise their big-data seminar with a majority of students attending virtually, rather than in person. One other executive education program also has been taught in AvayaLive Engage.

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Beyond adding courses, Hirst said the Sloan School's executive education program was working to find new ways to work with students and companies within AvayaLive Engage. Among projects underway or being discussed are ones that will:

-- expand use of the platform to do follow-ups with executives who attend the seminars;

-- develop special class sessions for a 16-week program run for Indian executives, who after returning from an opening session at MIT will use AvayaLive Engage for weekly 90-minute sessions;

-- use the platform to create preparation sessions, so executives attending seminars are more likely to have done their prep work ahead of time;

-- create online-only versions of the executive education courses;

-- and build a version of the MIT Beer Game, a supply-chain simulation, inside the platform, providing a more immersive experience for executives.

Hirst said that the IT demands of the platform were minimal. MIT is not hosting its own platform, so it has "no Sloan IT needs at all," he said. IT did need to step in to help with browser issues because some students' work computers would not accept the browser plug-in needed to run the application. IT also had to help with firewalls, some of which blocked ports needed to run the platform.

The Sloan School's executive education program originally used the AvayaLive Engage platform to run follow-up sessions, where executives checked in with an instructor for advice on how to incorporate techniques presented in a seminar into their jobs. That was the primary use of the platform, Hirst said. "One of the problems I was trying to solve is, to parody the experience of executive education, you come for two days, you get exposed to all these great ideas, it's all fantastic, and you get back to the office and you try to implement the ideas, and it doesn't quite work the same way."

Using AvayaLive Engage for teaching came about when Hurricane Sandy threatened what was supposed to be a two-day seminar with Brynjolfsson and Pentland. Instead of canceling, MIT used the platform to teach a hybrid online-offline version of the seminar. "Nobody has done what we did, which was connect a virtual classroom and a real one in real time," Hirst said. "I don't know if we would've tried it, either, except for there was a hurricane."

Peter Hirst

It helped that Pentland and Brynjolfsson are cutting-edge faculty members, comfortable with technology. About 50 people attended in person, and a dozen online. Online attendees were screened ahead of time, so they knew how to use the system.

There were problems, most notably a five-second delay in the audio on the first day. Hirst and other staff from MIT and Avaya read out email questions to the professors, or reported results from breakout sessions on behalf of virtual attendees.

But by the end of the first day the most significant audio problems were resolved, and participants both physically present and online wanted to talk to each other directly. By the end of the second day, virtual students were able to ask questions directly, though their audio still had a slight lag. But the potential was clear, and Brynjolfsson and Pentland were willing to try another session with AvayaLive Engage.

They adapted the course material to include interactive segments every 15 minutes or so, to help keep online viewers engaged. It seemed to work. Hirst said data from the system showed that online attendees of the April big data seminar stayed engaged, even when they were in time zones 12 hours removed from the class sessions. Hirst said the live classroom feel probably helped; he thinks online-only classes would have to be run in shorter segments, spread over multiple days.

Although most virtual attendees told MIT they found it effective, if not as good as being there, some said that it was better for them than coming in person. Many Sloan school students travel from outside the U.S., creating both large expenses and the problem of taking a two-day class while jet-lagged.

Although those helming the Sloan school executive education program are enthusiastic about using the virtual platform for education, it is unclear whether it represents a viable option for mainstream courses. Executive education sessions are short compared to full-length courses, and involve people who hold full-time jobs, giving them unusual time constraints compared to most students. Even so, people who sign up for executive education at MIT "want to come to campus," said Elizabeth N. Cliff, group director of the office of executive education.

Adults, meanwhile, tend to learn best when they need to know something, and when it is presented in small chunks over short periods of time.

Cost is also a question. Although MIT is not required to pay the $600 per user that Avaya charges for the software, the cost of using such a platform in a MOOC course from EdX would certainly be substantial. Also, while MOOCs are struggling to keep the bulk of students engaged through an entire course, it's unclear whether Avaya's platform would mesh with the purpose of a MOOC, which are set up so students can take them at their convenience, rather than live. Avaya's platform is not open source, which might also give EdX pause.

Hirst says he has talked about AvayaLive Engage in front of an MIT task force on the impact of a more digital world on the university. He thinks it could help students remain connected to campus while on study-abroad programs. It might also address the unnaturalness of conference calls.

Not a bad set of possibilities for something that was supposed to solve one small problem.