Mar. 20, 2018 "Niche degrees allow grads to stand out": Today I found this article by Jennifer Lewington in the Globe and Mail:
Data analytics and artificial intelligence are among the hot growth specialties for business schools
In growing numbers, Canadian business schools are rolling out new specialty graduate degrees tailored to respond to financial, environmental and other global disruptions.
The new programs – from data analytics and artificial intelligence to public safety and environmental sustainability and resource management – illustrate a worldwide strategy by business schools to diversify offerings beyond their long-running workhorse, the master of business administration.
“The phenomenon is the differentiation of degrees,” says Patricia Bradshaw, dean of the Sobey School of Business at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, which offers specialty master degrees on credit unions and finance, as well as technology, entrepreneurship and innovation. “The MBA has a long product life cycle and it is at the mature end of that life cycle.”
She says business schools are “looking for the untapped niches.”
Two emerging niche topics are data analytics and artificial intelligence, with specialty masters that cater to applicants with no business experience (in contrast to several years of work required for an MBA) or to working professionals eager to enhance their managerial credentials.
This fall, McGill University’s Desautels Faculty of Management in Montreal introduces a 12month master of management in analytics, priced at $44,000, for those with no work experience but who are keen to tap into employer demand for expertise in this area.
“With all the recent developments in information technology, data, artificial intelligence and machine learning, we are seeing more and more in business the necessity for a new layer in the organization to bridge the gap between management and the technical side,” says Desautels dean Isabelle Bajeux-Besnainou. “There is a huge demand for this kind of graduate.”
Last month, the Smith School of Business at Queen’s University in Kingston won approval to offer a 12-month master of management in artificial intelligence for working professionals who want to understand machine learning and its impact on business decisions.
“We are just reacting to market demand and trying to stay a bit ahead of it,” says Elspeth Murray, associate dean of MBA and master programs at Smith. The new program, which kicks off this September, was developed in a matter of months based on advice from the school’s industry advisory board last November.
Employer demand is expected to be strong, according to one industry leader.
“One of the biggest challenges within organizations today is the gulf that exists between the leaders who are under pressure to drive the initiatives and the people who are sitting in the trenches doing the work,” says Mike Durland, retired chief executive officer and group head of global banking and markets for the Bank of Nova Scotia, an advisor to several AI-oriented companies and a member of several advisory boards at Smith.
Graduates from the new program, he hopes, “will act as conduits who can communicate between those two groups and also lead those change initiatives. ”
Like Queen’s, York University’s Schulich School of Business in Toronto moved quickly several years ago to introduce a specialty master in data analytics.
In 2012, the program opened with an initial cohort of four students but this year 275 applicants (who submit a GMAT or equivalent score) competed for 48 spots in the current class.
“We have 100-per-cent placement,” says Murat Kristal, director of Schulich’s master of business analytics program, which attracts qualified students from science, physics and the humanities.
This fall, the school plans to enhance experiential learning for students in a new “cognitive analytics and visualization lab,” developed with consultancy Deloitte, to work on real-world applications of big data.
“We are putting students in a situation where they are working like a consultant and they have to deliver,” says Dr. Kristal.
While tracking data in Canada is anecdotal, the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, a U.S.-based accreditation body, reports that masterlevel business analytics and data analytics programs account for 345 of 433 specialties at U.S. business schools in 2017.
That said, specialized graduate programs cut across most sectors of the economy. In some cases, Canadian business schools take advantage of their geographic location to raise their profile.
Last year, Thompson Rivers University’s business school introduced its first two specialty business degrees: a course-based master in environmental economics and management and a thesis-based master of science in environmental economics and management.
Given its location in the interior of British Columbia, the Kamloops-based business school decided to tap industry and student demand for a management program that combines natural resource development and sustainable environmental practices.
“Students are looking for a graduate program that will lead them to careers, and they are also looking to be more competitive in the marketplace in terms of differentiating themselves from an MBA,” says business school dean Michael Henry.
By design, the classes are small – about a dozen per cohort – but Dr. Henry says the demand is “exceeding expectations,” with students choosing the specialty degree even without a tuition subsidy by their employer.
In Saskatchewan, the Levene Graduate School of Business at the University of Regina also aims to take advantage of its location to offer a new specialty MBA in public safety this fall. The university is home base for the Collaborative Centre for Justice and Safety, which examines financial and other issues related to public safety, Indigenous policing, cybercrime and first responders. A recruit training centre of the RCMP is also located in Regina.
“We have to look at what we have to offer that really takes advantage of our skill sets and resources,” says Marci Elliott, associate dean of Levene.
She hopes the proposed two year MBA specialty, a blend of residential and online program delivery, attracts an initial class of at least 10 working professionals from a cross-section of emergency response and crime fighting agencies.
"The classroom of the future, here today": Today I found this article by Peter Nowak in the Globe and Mail:
It wasn't so long ago that media was a one-way form of communication where television and newspapers reported information with only tangential input from the public they served.
The internet and especially social media upended that arrangement, making it more of a two-way street. News outlets are becoming increasingly collaborative and inclusive with their constituencies as a result, morphing from mostly a broadcast model into something closer to a network.
The University of Saskatchewan believes the same needs to happen in the education sector, which is why it recently opened the Allsopp Learning Lab at its Edwards School of Business. The technology-heavy classroom is designed to encourage networking internally between students and professors, as well as externally with businesses throughout the province.
"It's a different type of teaching," says Vince Bruni-Bossio, director of the experiential learning initiative. "We're no longer standing around and delivering a lecture. It's more of an experiential exercise where students are actually doing things."
The lab revolves around Sony Vision Exchange technology, which includes eight large touch screens situated around the classroom, plus one at the front. Rather than rows of desks, students sit in clusters around the screens.
The system encourages BYOD – bring your own device – so that students can mirror their own laptops, tablets and phones onto the screens to show their work and ideas.
The class instructor can project any of the individual group screens onto the main display and provide commentary and criticism.
Students have used the lab, which opened last September, to collaboratively work on projects, including pricing and marketing simulations. So far, their reactions have been positive.
"It's beneficial that we can touch the screens and be more interactive. We can communicate more easily with each other," says Brittany McIntyre, a fourth-year management student at the Saskatoon university.
"With technology being such an important way that we access information and collaborate with each other … more classes should switch to this."
The idea for the lab began in 2013 with Daphne Taras, who was dean of Edwards at the time. She saw the need for students to gain practical work experience, as well as a growing desire in remote communities for more access to educational opportunities.
She put a plan together for a technologically-enabled classroom that could forge closer connections between both students and those communities. In 2014, oil and gas industry veteran and Edwards alumnus Harold Allsopp helped make the project a reality with a $500,000 donation.
The next step will be to virtually include students throughout the province, especially in remote northern communities, in classes on the Saskatoon campus. They'll be able to participate from wherever they are via an internet connection, similar to telecommuting.
The set-up will also allow students to partner with and create business plans and strategies for companies and organizations located throughout Saskatchewan.
"You can see them, they can see you, you can show them your screen and whiteboard with them," says Noreen Mahoney, associate dean of students and degree programs. "We have to go to others if we want to make an impact. We can't expect them to come to us."
This sort of networked experiential and collaborative learning is an accelerating trend within the educational sector, experts say.
A growing number of institutions are adopting similar technologies and programs. Toronto's Ryerson University, the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Colorado in Denver are among the schools pressing forward with similar efforts.
"The concept of active learning is a theme that's really running through modern universities," says Nina Angelo, vice-president of product marketing at Toronto-based educational software maker Top Hat.
"Rethinking the spaces used in education is a theme we're seeing in both universities and K-12 [kindergarten to Grade 12]. It's about transcending the typical boundaries of a classroom."
The trend is being fuelled by both push and pull factors. On the one hand, students are increasingly asking for classes that are more involved and stimulating. On the other, employers are also wanting new recruits that have actual work experience.
Collaborative classrooms that network with businesses and organizations outside the academic world can bridge those needs.
"This is desired by all parties in the ecosystem," says Krista Jones, managing director of work and learning at MaRS Discovery District in Toronto. "We need as much of this as we can get."
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