Just about two years ago, Cornell University trustees created eCornell, a for-profit subsidiary to market distance learning under the Cornell name. So, what's happened since?
In case you haven't noticed the big neon sign on College Avenue, eCornell is alive and well and living in Collegetown. Like any good high-tech startup, it's expanding enthusiastically, but slowly, and not yet showing a profit, while working to position itself as a high-end provider in the fiercely competitive world of corporate training.
|
|
| Among those working at the eCornell production office at 840 Hanshaw Road Jan. 20 are Lisa Dundon, right, a program manager, and Mariann Carpenter, director of production coordination, on the phone in the background. Frank DiMeo/University Photography |
As was originally planned, eCornell was launched with courses offered by two of the university's professional schools, which already have some experience with online and correspondence courses. The first offerings, released in June 2001, were a six-course program in Human Resource Management from the School of Industrial and Labor Relations and another six-parter in Hospitality Management from the School of Hotel Administration. eCornell also picked up four highly specialized courses from the Hospital for Special Surgery, part of the university's Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City. A new course in Food and Beverage Management has just been added.
When eCornell was first proposed, there was heated debate about how distance learning might change the campus: Would an online Cornell degree have the same value as a resident one? Would its existence devalue a Cornell degree? Would the desire to appeal to a mass market squeeze out minority disciplines? Would faculty members become protective of their course materials? None of this has happened or is likely to, according to interim CEO John Neuman, because eCornell will offer no credit courses for the foreseeable future.
eCornell's target audience is the business professional seeking career advancement and, more recently, corporate training buyers who want to upgrade the skills of company employees. It's a tough market in which, so far, eCornell's market share is miniscule, Neuman said. Corporate trainers have a wide spectrum of alternatives, including live courses, video distance learning, online courses and courses on CD-ROM or video. What eCornell offers, Neuman said, is the Cornell name. "It's a big brand, and we are highly respectful of the brand," he said. "It should imply not only top-quality subject matter, but also that we teach it better."
The brand really matters, according to Robert Waitkus, a Florida resident who recently finished the program in hospitality management. Waitkus, who worked in the hospitality industry some 20 years ago, went on the Internet looking for a refresher course and was "slightly surprised, but pleased" to find an offering from Cornell. As an industry veteran, he explained, he knew Cornell's reputation in the field, so when it came to choosing a course there was no other choice worth considering.
eCornell courses draw first on the expertise of the university faculty, then on the expertise of eCornell's technicians, who put the content into a form that can be delivered over the Web. The first step in developing a course is often extended discussion with the faculty member, followed by perhaps several more months of technical development. It can take as much as a year to get a course up and running, Neuman said, but he's working to cut that down.
The result is a highly interactive, media-rich course, taking students down different paths depending on their responses at various points. While studying the online material, students have personal contact with instructors who work for eCornell but are selected under the supervision of the faculty member who developed the course. Each instructor spends about 30 hours a week interacting with students, Neuman says. The courses are asynchronous, meaning that each student can proceed at his or her own pace, but usually students are organized in "cohorts" of about half a dozen who start at about the same time. This allows the students to interact with one another as well as with the instructor. A typical cohort will be together for about a month, completing a single course.
Currently, eCornell is handling about 400 students per month. With some growth in existing courses and the introduction of new courses during the spring, Neuman projects about 800 or more students per month by mid-2003. Cumulatively, eCornell has served about 2,000 students since the first courses were offered 18 months ago.
Reports from students indicate the courses are "very difficult," as might be expected of a Cornell product. Paradoxically, this may explain why the completion rate is about twice the average for the training industry.
A typical course will cost the student -- or the student's employer -- about $1,000, with quantity discounts. At the beginning, Neuman said, courses were marketed primarily to individuals, but the emphasis has shifted to corporations.
On the Internet, that market is worldwide. One of the newer corporate clients is Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., which has put 20 of its managers through the Human Resources program in the past four months. "Asia-Pacific clients are very conscious of the need to upgrade their professionalism," said Thee Woon Goh, deputy director of organization development. "The prestigious American schools with good reputations and brands would be the preferred choices. In Taiwan, Cornell is a very established name." The president of the company, he added, is a Cornell Ph.D. graduate in materials science.
Most recently, Neuman has found that corporate clients are sometimes interested in only parts of the material in a course, so eCornell is starting to break courses into smaller chunks that that allow the buyer to customize.
Each unit of a six-part program is a course in itself, which Neuman said should take about 12 to 15 hours to complete -- the equivalent of about one-third of a semester of resident study -- which makes a six-unit program equivalent to a one-year course on campus. A person who completes the entire program receives a certificate of completion from Cornell, but not college credit. "We're not selling that," Neuman pointed out, adding that corporate buyers don't even care much about the certificate.
eCornell was launched with a $12 million investment from Cornell's endowment. Neuman expects break-even will come early in 2004, but in the meantime, he said, eCornell has returned many millions to the campus through fees and royalty streams to faculty course creators.
Success will depend on expanding the course catalog, and Neuman is reaching out to the campus community for more material, in particular discussing courses from the colleges of Agriculture and Life Sciences and of Engineering, the Johnson Graduate School of Management and the Faculty of Computing and Information Science, as well as the Computer Policy and Law program.
Neuman was named interim CEO of eCornell in November 2002, replacing Francis P. Pandolfi, who resigned for health reasons. A search is under way for a new permanent CEO, but results are not expected for several months. A graduate of the old five-year electrical engineering program at Cornell, Neuman was awarded a master's degree in electrical engineering in 1963. He also earned an MBA degree at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School in 1967.
Neuman has spent most of his career as a management consultant, working with almost every kind of business. Since he was already an Ithaca resident, eCornell's headquarters has been moved from New York City to its Ithaca offices, at least for the transition period. Neuman hopes the move will strengthen eCornell's ties to the campus. Meanwhile, eCornell has opened a new office in Village Green on Hanshaw Road to house its course development and instructional staff, separating them from the marketing operation in Collegetown.
| Cornell Chronicle Front Page | | Table of Contents | | Cornell News Service Home Page |