Introduction to World University
Write about the Issues of Business for Computers and Education.
The main objective of the World University is to provide a universal education for all. In the concept it coveys that lecturers from different institutions around the globe. The job of the professors is they have to able to cater the students by providing online lectures for them (Wieling & Hofman 2010). The course would have to be diverse which are to be provided to the students. Since the university is online, the interaction between the students and the interaction between the staffs will be online (Croxton 2014). One of the highlighting feature of the university is to provide the students with the choice of selecting a country where they want to graduate from. The student who is residing from USA can choose to graduate from Australia because of the world university (Allen & Seaman 2013). Because of this university the geographical constraints can be removed in education. The report will emphasises on the model implementation properly. The process of the business are studied thoroughly in the report, there may be some issues arise after implementing the decision of the senior management and this will be further discussed in the report (Hammer 2015).
In the recent time online study becomes more popular than earlier. In the case of America, in 1986, a university in California first offered a degree online and after this the online education grows rapidly (Forbes Welcome 2018). On a survey it is reported that out of the twenty million students in America one third portion of students are taking the inline courses. In a research it has been said that the online study is that the online study is more ferior than the study in classroom. With the help of the Information technology the online study has gained a lot of potential. The feature of online study is basically the student can learn anytime from anywhere. The student will get the opportunity to study from home in his/her comfort zone. The main idea to build the world university online is to changing the format of the education. By this way the students concentration power will be increased. In the traditional education system the cost is high but in the online university students can save their time and cost. From the business point of view it will also beneficial as there is no need to build or rent any infrastructure only they need to buy a online server that can host the website.
Advantages of Online Education
Several steps have been taken by the senior management to help the World University in terms of business and education. The aim is to make the world university an interesting place to study as well as to gain certain amount of revenue. The upper management also introduced a scheme that is called “StudyTogether”. It is a loyalty scheme which is provided to the students for their loyalty. Students will be rewarded with fee credit when they refer any other student to take admission in the Wold University. The fee credit will depend as per the course in which the referred students takes admission. The application approval process is very fast as the approval came in less than 5 minutes. The management decided that the payments will be non-refundable. As the whole system is online so the payment of fees have to be online and the students have to pay the university fee by the PayPal or by credit card. In the course e-book and laptops are also included. The student have to buy the e-book and the laptop online. There is no option of opting out the student must have to buy the pre-configured laptops with e-books. The required software for the particular course will be provided by the management. Investments have to make by the management for the successful implementation of the model. In the web site the management must include a video presentation that what is the university and what are the objective of the company so many students will attract by this and take admission and it will be helpful as the business perspective. A model should be developed for the students that how they can refer and promote their university. A scheme can be introduced for them that if one student can give referral to the 10 or more students than the student will get 50% or more discount on their course fee. The successful application of the model can be effective for the university to grow faster and to gain more revenue from the students. Customer loyalty programme is a good option to implement. As many large organization provide rewards for their customers. A good loyalty programme will provide the business along tern sustainability in the current market scenario.
In the recent time social media is growing rapidly and billions of people are using the social media for various purpose. At first the social media came as a communication platform or rather entertainment platform but the tide has changed. Now the social media is used as a plat form of promotion business online. As the university idea is a start-up idea so it will need a certain platform for the promoting the university and social media is the best online platform for the promotion of the business. As the platform is broader so the chances are high for the business to grow faster than before. Huge amount of people will be aware of the business and many students will take admission in the university which will help the university to affiliate more student and from the business point of view it will help the business to earn huge amount of revenue. Additionally, in the social media the business can promote without investing a single penny to a certain level. If the business wants that more people will engage with the ads that are posted they have to pay a nominal amount of money for the advertisement (Cheung & Vogel, 2013). The social media promotion and advertisements are far better than the traditional advertisement and promotional method. The social media can do analysis which can be helpful for the business to know which people are really interested with their university and wants to take admission and which people are the spammers. In the social media the business is can see the actual amount that the ads are seen by the people and how many people open their page or the advertisement. The awareness of brand is the most important factor for the any business to grow. Social media is a powerful tool for the brand awareness ((Hutter et al., 2013).). The proper set of audience can be targeted using the social media the people whole are really need this kind of university they will be targeted as per the age group or by the qualification measure. The business must upload videos and post regularly to keep the audience updated with the surrounding of the university ((Rennie & Morrison, 2013).). One on one communication can be done by the social media, if a student have any query regarding the university the student can directly message on the university page and ask the queries.
Model Implementation Process
Conclusion:
From the above report it can be concluded that for an online business like the world university to implement such business plan that can help the business to grow and to provide the students with benefits as well. The first step toward the implementation of the model is the loyalty program where the loyalty reward is given to the students. Secondly, the implementation of promoting the advertisement on the social media will gain lot of revenue. There is various benefits for the students to half their course fee, to increase their concentration and awareness. And the most important is in the report the main focus is on the business side of the education not on the teaching side.
The issues that are generated in the model will be discussed here in the paragraph. The first flaw is the loyalty reward will be given as soon as the student give referral. The issue is if after the referral and the loyalty reward if the students does not takes admission. Fee credit must give after the referred students pay the full course fee and complete the total course. As the fees are non-refundable this can be an issue for some student if the student has any doubt and don’t want to do the course then the fee should be refunded to the student. There may be some students who afford to buy the laptop or the student already cannot have the laptop so it is a total waste of money to take another laptop. So there must be an opting out option so that they can opt out of buying the laptop. Some scholarship program if introduce so the needy students will afford to by the laptops. As the total process is based online so proper security regarding the website is needed (Alsabawy, Cater-Steel & Soar, 2013). The data must be properly sucured as in any case the data breach cannot happen. The data must be encrypted as the whole personal data of the student is given in the website and that can be hacked and exposed if the data is not encrypted properly
References:
Allen, I. E., & Seaman, J. (2013). Changing course: Ten years of tracking online education in the United States. Sloan Consortium. PO Box 1238, Newburyport, MA 01950.
Alsabawy, A. Y., Cater-Steel, A., & Soar, J. (2013). IT infrastructure services as a requirement for e-learning system success. Computers & Education, 69, 431-451.
Cheung, R., & Vogel, D. (2013). Predicting user acceptance of collaborative technologies: An extension of the technology acceptance model for e-learning. Computers & Education, 63, 160-175.
Croxton, R. A. (2014). The role of interactivity in student satisfaction and persistence in online learning. Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, 10(2), 314.
Forbes Welcome. (2018). Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/tomlindsay/2014/10/08/the-top-eight-things-you-need-to-know-about-online-education/#d21a62a6fd47
Hammer, M. (2015). What is business process management?. In Handbook on Business Process Management 1 (pp. 3-16). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.
Holzweiss, Peggy C., et al. “Online graduate students’ perceptions of best learning experiences.” Distance education35.3 (2014): 311-323.
Hutter, K., Hautz, J., Dennhardt, S., & Füller, J. (2013). The impact of user interactions in social media on brand awareness and purchase intention: the case of MINI on Facebook. Journal of Product & Brand Management, 22(5/6), 342-351.
Lee, Y. H., Hsieh, Y. C., & Chen, Y. H. (2013). An investigation of employees’ use of e-learning systems: applying the technology acceptance model. Behaviour & Information Technology, 32(2), 173-189.
Rennie, F., & Morrison, T. (2013). E-learning and social networking handbook: Resources for higher education. Routledge.
Wieling, M. B., & Hofman, W. H. A. (2010). The impact of online video lecture recordings and automated feedback on student performance. Computers & Education, 54(4), 992-998.