The Yale School of Management (SOM) last week announced that it will offer two new virtual courses to its students as well as to students from the 22 other schools within the Global Network for Advanced Management. The courses, one in competition law and another in mobile banking opportunities, are an example of the growth of small online private courses (SPOCs), which some schools are beginning to offer instead of or in addition to massive open online courses (MOOCs).
Yale SOM faculty will teach the two new digital courses, and their lectures will be streamed via the web. Participating students will collaborate on virtual project work as part of teams with students from other schools around the globe. Madrid’s IE Business School, a member of the Global Network, will provide and manage the technology platform to support the courses.
“All of our graduates will be operating in a global marketplace and working with people from other parts of the world,” David Bach, Yale senior associate dean, said in a statement. “They need to understand how markets and organizational dynamics vary across countries.” Students will also develop virtual teamwork skills and the ability to collaborate across time zones, he added.
Fiona Scott Morton, Yale SOM professor of economics, will co-teach one of the new courses, “Analysis of Competition Law and Enforcement across Countries,” which will involve student teams analyzing real-time legal and enforcement issues in various countries in North America, South America and Asia. “I’d like students to develop a clear understanding of the law and the economics underpinning it in their own jurisdictions and in other important jurisdictions,” Scott Morton said in a statement. “If you are going to run a firm that has any operations outside the country in which you’re living, then this is going to be an issue.”
As part of the second course, “Mobile Business Opportunities,” students will work in global teams to study mobile banking practices around the world and identify potentially successful business models.
“These are both courses where students working in teams across geographies can make a big contribution to our understanding of what’s happening in these areas,” Bach stated.
Yale SOM Dean Edward Snyder established the Global Network for Advanced Management in December 2011 with INSEAD and the National University of Singapore as founding members. The consortium now boasts 23 international business schools – including schools in China, Turkey, Israel, Chile and Ghana – working to improve business education in an increasingly globalize world.
Learn more about Yale SOM’s new Global Network virtual courses.
