Counting the Net value

This autumn, a small group of students, mainly from Asia, are starting an online MBA programme from a new global university. The venture, known as Universitas 21 Global, is the long-awaited product of a partnership between online publisher Thompson Learning and 16 universities in 10 countries. They include respected names like McGill University in Canada, the National University of Singapore and - from the UK - the universities of Glasgow, Nottingham, Birmingham and Edinburgh.

Despite modest beginnings, with 50 students in the first round of applications, its founders hope it will be the gateway to millions of students who would otherwise find it hard to study for an MBA. "There is a huge gap between supply and student demand," says Dr Don Babcock, who is spearheading the global university's attempt to recruit MBA students. "We think a large segment of the market for this kind of education can't leave their country to study abroad, or even leave their job to attend a campus. This venture is designed to attract students like this, especially in countries like India, China and the Asia Pacific region."

He may be right. Business schools in the UK are already inundated by applications from Chinese students willing to sink their family savings in a British education and many institutions attract large numbers of students from the Indian subcontinent. There must, so the wisdom goes, be an equally large number who would be willing to study online at home as long as they thought the qualification was validated by an internationally recognised university.

Not everyone in academia, however, is convinced that UK business schools can benefit from exporting their services jointly through the online market.

"The need to feel associated with one place, and to have face-to-face contact is very strong," argues Professor Stephen Watson of Henley Management College. Around 7,000 students are now enrolled on Henley's distance learning programme, but the management college has always combined online experience with face-to-face contact and has taken the decision not to go into partnership with other organisations to offer its distance-learning MBA.

"Biggest isn't always best," claims Professor Watson. Any MBA awarded by Universitas 21 Global will display the logos of all 16 partner universities, but be awarded by the new virtual university itself.

Again, Professor Watson is sceptical that the members of the consortium will gain much from this arrangement. "The idea of joining with other institutions to create a global consortium may seem attractive, but there is bound to be a problem with identity and branding," he says. Professor Anthony Hopwood of Oxford University's Said Business School is also wary of alliances. "We would always ask whether or not our own brand will benefit from any alliance, online or otherwise," he says.

Herriot Watt University in Scotland has run a successful online MBA for several years in partnership with Pearson Education. Imperial College in London also launched an online MBA without any face-to-face contact and the Open University Business School (OUBS) has over 13,000 MBA graduates throughout the world.

Their programme, which include course conferences and local study groups, is one of the most successful. Yet even the Open University got its fingers burnt when it tried to enter the US market in the late 1990s, only to withdraw after a mixed reception.

Other, wealthier institutions saw their global online ambitions falter. In the heady days of internet ambitions, business schools were among the first to use the virtual world to expand their empires. A long list of commercial partners was lined up to provide technology which would take business degree courses to millions of students across the globe and bring in much-needed revenue. But things didn't go according to plan. A couple of ventures between American universities and online technology companies failed to deliver results and were shelved, while others were scaled down amid the realisation that many students did not have access to the technology needed.

"The message from the Nineties seems to have been that online learning has to be mixed or blended with this in order for it to work best," says Richard Garrett of the online education think-tank, the Observatory for Borderless Higher Education.

Belief in the ability of the virtual world to offer business education - whether in a "blended" or purely computer-based form, appears to be strong despite past difficulties. Thompson Learning invested $25m in the Universitas 21 Global venture, and its partner universities stumped up a similar amount.

The British government has also put £62m of taxpayers money into the UK e-University (UKeU) - which acts as portal for distributing online courses from British universities. The UkeU acknowledges that students will be attracted by the reputation of individual universities rather than the new, virtual university brand itself.

Dr Mukesh Aghi, the Chief Executive of Universitas 21 Global, is unperturbed by the fact that its name is, as yet, so little-known. "We want to reach students across the world, and we are primarily concerned that they should have access to high-quality education." Dr Aghi expects about half the MBA class to come from sponsored organisations, especially in Asia. And, while face-to-face contact is important, it isn't the priority.

"We realise the value of communication, but we also want to offer an equitable learning environment for students who may come from very different circumstances."

At $10,000, this is certainly a cost-effective way to study for an MBA. Only time will tell whether students from Singapore to Shanghai are more willing to put their faith in this new virtual university than in older, more established names.