The Faculty of Business and Economics (FBE) has renewed its partnership with learning experience platform insendi, to continue FBE’s commitment to offer high-quality online and blended business education in collaboration with fellow members of the Future of Management Education (FOME) Alliance.
The five-year renewal of the partnership with the London-based online education company insendi, a Study Group company, will ensure the Faculty continues to accelerate and innovate its digital learning options, to complement its highly ranked on-campus programs.
FBE Deputy Dean, Professor Nasser Spear said he welcomed the extension, saying the insendi platform was key in facilitating the aspirations of the FOME Alliance members to advance digital education and student experience to the next level.
“The Alliance is a group of high-quality business schools that share a vision, and part of that vision is to develop collaborative and joint programs, share courses, develop virtual exchange and face to face exchange, and enhance student learning experience” he said.
“To facilitate that, we needed a custom-built learning platform to suit our needs and meet our aspirations. What insendi offers is a vital part of being able to offer innovative business education.
“But most importantly, the ability for students to study at Melbourne and other institutions at the same time, to have seamless exchange, online or face-to-face, to access learning experiences in other institutions, and – as a University – the chance for us to broaden the diversity and quality of our student body is possible because of the partnership with FOME and insendi.”
While COVID has been the catalyst for an urgent switch to online learning in many educational institutions around the world, FBE and the rest of the FOME Alliance had already begun working together on innovating their digital education offerings in 2019.
Professor Nasser said COVID hadn’t created online education, it had accelerated the pace of adoption of blended and online learning.
“COVID prompted more investment in innovation regarding digital learning and analytics, and it provided the opportunity and urgency for people to think out of the box,” he said.
“It brought up serious challenges though, too; the landscape has changed globally – which means we have to shift the way we work. Blended learning means we have to shift the way we look at assessment practices and student experience, but we were well-placed to begin making these changes.”
FBE offers its Master of Supply Chain Management and the Master of Professional Management via insendi, and will further expand its offerings in 2022.
Looking to the future, FBE is working with the Alliance on making subjects and courses from its members’ programs available to students across all member institutions via insendi.
“By mid-2022 that should be in place. If you’re going to have that sharing of study options, it’s important to have a common platform in the background,” Professor Nasser said.