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In Line with Online Success
The Stevens Institute of Technology/WebCampus.Stevens
By Richard Skaare
Here are some numbers for a startup venture that would impress any business executive:
 That’s the success story of Stevens … no, not the corporation, the university; actually, specifically, Stevens Institute of Technology, and even more specifically, WebCampus.Stevens. The point is obvious: if it walks and talks like a business, well then, maybe, it could very well be a business of sorts while still being a university.
WebCampus.Stevens is the six year-old venture of the venerable 126 year-old school that is fast becoming as well known for its entrepreneurial online program as it is for its rock-solid, pragmatic technology curriculum. The bricks-and-mortar part of Stevens Institute in Hoboken, New Jersey educates about 1,800 undergraduate and 2,700 graduate students in a wide range of majors within technology, engineering, the humanities, and social sciences. The WebCampus.Stevens side of the school has enrolled 10,000 graduate students over the first six years, representing 41 states and 44 countries. Today, the accredited (Middle States Commission), online program offers 160 courses leading to fourteen masters -- including an MBA in Technology Management -- and 33 graduate certificates.
Intimidating? Yes, but the lessons to be garnered are not that complex for universities and colleges looking to step up their educational missions and financial fortunes, as well as for corporations searching for high-caliber learning opportunities for employees. CUX extracted those lessons from the experience of WebCampus.Stevens, and with permission from the school’s leaders, we offer them here for instruction and discussion.
Leadership experience, commitment, and enthusiasm are must-haves
A key propellant of the online engine was and is Robert Ubell, Dean of Online Learning at Stevens. Bob has a diverse and highly relevant resume, to say the least:
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executive positions in publishing -- vice-president and editor-in-chief of Plenum Publishing Corporation, editor of The New York Academy of Sciences Monthly, The Sciences, a publisher of Nature, and founding publisher of Nature Biotechnology. |
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senior posts in Internet and new media at BioMedNet and Marcel Dekker, respectively. |
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owner of consulting firm, Robert Ubell Associates, which included a roster of clients from large corporations (e.g., IBM), nonprofits (e.g., the American Cancer Society), and universities (e.g., MIT Press) |
 Striking as those credentials are, Bob would be the first to tell you that three major factors that have driven the success of Stevens are top-level endorsement, exceptional talent, and an unrelenting focus on the business of learning. The most important endorsement came early – from Stevens President Hal Raveché. Backing up the president’s commitment with enthusiasm and ideas has been Dr. Maureen Weatherall, Vice President of University Enrollment and Academic Services. Then there is Robert Zotti, the grind-it-out director, marketer, tactician, and director of WebCampus.Stevens. And, finally, WebCampus boasts a highly efficient core administrative staff of just six, with cross-functional support from graduate admissions, the Registrar, and IT.
Walk and talk like your customers
WebCampus.Stevens bores in on one customer: the distance graduate student who wants a quality, technology-related degree that will push him or her into new challenges and higher compensation. As with any customer, the product must:
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seem personalized, one-on-one (the great advantage on online learning) |
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easy to buy and use (online payment, a simple computer with a simple modem – even dial-up – and intuitive web conference software) |
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delivered when needed (24/7 anywhere in the world). |
One reason why WebCampus.Stevens is intuitive is because it mimics the familiar on-campus process of applying, registering, and the like. What’s more, the same faculty who teach on campus also teach online.
Undoubtedly, Stevens knows its customers, evidenced by the fact that 82% said in a survey that their online graduate learning is comparable to, or better than, their face-to-face courses, and 84% found that the online courses met their expectations. Additionally, the technology was not an impediment to their learning: 94% said the online software was easy to learn, or at least no more difficult than other software applications.
Know your market, and know where to find it
"... every class is
suited toward applying
the information to a job." |
Graduating students need jobs, which means you better know what employers need. Stevens has supplied educational programs and built learning relationships with Boeing and other Fortune 500 companies. Interesting, however, is that WebCampus.Stevens also tapped an invaluable source of market research, of sorts, and feedback: professional societies such as the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. IEEE was so convinced of the merits of the online program that the group contributed funds and its members became customers, along with about a dozen other professional groups. Funding also came from the Sloan Foundation, named after the former General Motors CEO and management maven.
The WebCampus.Stevens leaders knew something else about markets. They knew that lots of growth and lots of money could be found in China. Consequently, with the Chinese government’s encouragement in recent years of anything American when it came to education, Stevens exported a portion of its Hoboken telecommunications curriculum – two-third classroom, the rest web-based tutorials – to the Beijing Institute of Technology. The 18-month program cost each student $12,000, a significant premium over the standard two-year master’s programs in China. The price held primarily because of the prestigious advantage of an American degree when hunting for a job in a market glutted with technically trained workers. Another reason was the surge in telecommunications in that country. Fin ally, one student, quoted in last June’s IEEE Spectrum magazine, said, “Chinese education is usually very theoretical. But here, every class is suited toward applying the information to a job.” Stevens is expanding its China presence by linking with universities in Shanghai and three other campuses.
Continuously improve your product through innovation and training
 As noted, the same faculty who teach traditional on-campus courses at Stevens also teach in the online program. They welcome the opportunity to reach out to students around the world and to grow their own academic programs. But WebCampus means applying a new medium to teaching. How did Stevens convince faculty to undergo, what can be for many, such a significant change? Simple, the school gave them ownership; better yet, they made faculty independent business people. The agreement Dean Ubell struck with faculty was much like those in the publishing industry. Faculty who are asked to teach an existing course get paid, of course. Yet those who create courses get ownership and income. Faculty own the material and control its use; Stevens controls copyrights and manages distribution. When corporations buy their courses, faculty members receive one-third of the revenues. Should they leave Stevens, they can take their courses, but Stevens still retains licensing privileges and passes along fees to the creators when they use the courses or license them to third parties. In sum … well, that’s it, the sum: Stevens faculty are the highest compensated group of online teachers in the U.S.
Continuous improvement also comes from the work of two full-time Web professionals, who conduct training sessions – one full-day session or four, two-hour sessions -- for all participating faculty, as well as two colloquia where professors share their ideas and techniques. The one day seminar or four sessions is required, as is one of the colloquia.
If you have questions, comments, or want to share stories and ideas about university-corporate programs, send them along to research@corpu.com. We’ll share everything with the CUX community.
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