e-Programmes Service

Peregrine Academic Services provides instructional content, course guides, assessment plans, faculty training, and integration capabilities for universities to offer online or blended Master of Business Administration (MBA), Master of Philosophy (MPhil), and Doctor of Business Administration academic degree programs.

The service includes courses for the MBA (11 courses for 36 credit hours), the MPhil (4 courses for 12 credit hours), and the DBA (10 courses for 48 credit hours) academic degree programs.

Built in Moodle® with the option for hosted Moodle® site (although any LMS can be used with the service), the academic programs are branded and customised to your university. The university teaches the courses and awards the degrees and diplomas. The online programs are accreditation-ready, inclusive of the management curriculum, with dynamic and interactive content.

Although the emphasis is on program-level adoption, Peregrine also provides the service as standalone online courses and 3-course specializations/concentrations. 

You can also read what BLOGRIGE, the official Baldridge Performance Excellence Program blog, had to say about how we use the Baldrige Excellence Framework in our e-Programme service:

https://www.nist.gov/blogs/blogrige/more-value-business-students-application-knowledge-and-critical-thinking

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Although online education is relatively common throughout the world, school officials from campus-based institutions know that going online is much more challenging than simply taking a campus-based program and offering that same program online. There are far fewer online programs based outside of the US compared to within the US. Although the service is based on the US construct for the MBA and the DBA, the service was specifically intended for schools outside of the US to go from campus-based to online.

In developing the e-Programmes service, we reviewed dozens of US and outside US accredited MBA, MPhil, and DBA programs with online, blended, and campus-based delivery options. We also reviewed the accreditation standards for graduate business education. Additionally, we consulted with accreditation officials familiar with academic trends. 

The MBA/e-MPhil/e-DBA is a complete service package whereby schools need only to assign instructors and subsequently teach the programs after adopting the service and branding the LMS to the specific school.

The schools award the degrees. The school designates the exact degree or diploma title depending upon their specific requirements. The e-MBA consists of 36 credit hours (11 courses); the e-MPhil 12 credit hours (4 courses); and the e-DBA 48 credit hours (10 courses) for a total of 96 graduate credit hours.

A credit hour equals 15 contact hours. Course design is for an 8-week course; however, students can take courses concurrently, but in sequence. The e-MBA can be completed in approximately 12 months, the e-MPhil in about 6 months, and the e-DBA in about 24 to 36 months. Program completion depends upon school policies and student commitment.

Course content includes the integration and application of all of our services including ALC modules, academic writing style service, exam services, online leadership modules, leadership publications, and application activities based upon Bloomberg Businessweek. Collectively, we have designed a service that allows schools to easily and cost effectively add online degree programmes.

The e-Programmes service development team was led by:

• Olin Oedekoven, Ph.D.  Dr. Oedekoven had previously written doctoral online courses and programs teaching with a mostly online university. His doctoral is in business administration with concentrations in management and public administration.
• Krishna Venkatesh, Ph.D.  Dr. Venkatesh co-founded and subsequently led an Indian b-School that was first to receive internationally recognized accreditation.  He holds two doctorates, one in strategy and the other in project management.
• Doug Gilbert, DBA, J.D.  Dr. Gilbert was the business school dean for the University of the Rockies. He is also a certified Baldrige examiner.

Other personnel on the development team also included professionals with graduate-level teaching experience, former academic program managers, quality assurance officers, and accreditation examiners.

Design principles and considerations for the e-Programmes service included:

• Consideration for the programmatic accreditation standards and guidelines (AACSB, ACBSP, IACBE, AMBA, and EFMD) assuming that the adopting HEI would seek accreditation for the online program.
• Based on a US model for a 36-credit hour MBA and a 96-credit hour (total graduate hours) DBA. A credit hour is equal to 15 classroom/contact hours.
• Limit the use of textbooks as only supplemental materials for the courses.
• Imbedded learning activities with student-faculty interaction through discussion board posts and feedback on written assignments.
• The role of the course faculty is as a mentor for the students rather than as a traditional lecturer.
• The adopting HEI would have an online library for the students with access to peer reviewed articles and other academic resources.
• Consideration to offer as blended learning with on-campus requirements.

We built the service in Moodle (and offer it as a hosted Moodle site) because this LMS is widely used outside of the US. The service can be uploaded and integrated into most any other LMS.

Each course is divided approximately into thirds:

• The initial third pertains to developing knowledge.
• The second third pertains to fostering understanding of that knowledge.
• The remaining third pertains to applying that knowledge in the business context based on the course’s learning outcomes.

Course content is dynamic, interactive, and contemporary. Specific assignments include online learning modules along with short papers based upon the weekly news content provided by Bloomberg Businessweek. Students have access to Bloomberg’s resource center for literature-based research. The academic programme includes both course-level and programme-level assessments.

Most courses, particularly the core courses of the e-MBA, have two broad components: a knowledge-based component and a critical thinking/application-based component. Peregrine’s online learning resources focus on the knowledge-based component and the use of the BusinessWeek content is the critical thinking/application-based component.

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The e-Programmes service is designed to satisfy accreditation requirements. Each program has an assessment plan with measurable learning outcomes. We will assist you with your new program submission requirements for accreditation purposes.

The e-MBA consists of 11 courses (36 credit hours) and includes 6 core courses (business fundamentals, 18 credit hours), 3 specialization courses (business leadership, 9 credit hours), and 2 thesis courses (9 credit hours). The service is provided within Moodle and can be customized and branded to a specific school. The program has defined objectives and learning outcomes with both course-level and program-level assessment.

 The e-MPhil consists of 4 courses (12 credit hours) and fits in-between the MBA and the DBA as a part of a sequential program of study that culminates in the DBA. The e-MPhil can be a stand-alone degree offering for students who have completed an MBA and desire a more advanced degree, but may or may not continue onward towards a DBA. The e-MPhil courses represent the foundational courses required for the DBA. The courses are taught by the school’s faculty based upon a faculty guide that is provided with each course.

The e-DBA includes 10 courses (48 credit hours) (assuming completion of the e-MPhil or transfer credit of the 12 credit hours) with an emphasis on applied research and culminates with the successful defence of the DBA dissertation. A student who has the required graduate education can enrol directly into the e-DBA program; however, most students will normally start with the e-MPhil courses if they already have an MBA, or start with the e-MBA if he/she does not have completed coursework beyond the bachelor’s level.

The Value Proposistion for the e-Programmes service includes:

• Enable expansion and/or enhance current program offerings.
• Faster time to market for new academic programs.
• Economical to develop compared with using internal resources.
• Economical for students – no additional resources to purchase.
• Online programs => efficient use of faculty and administration. resources. e.g. not limited to resources at a specific location.
• Flexible and Scalable implementation – easily adopted to meet a broad range of needs.
• High quality program - “accreditation ready” when deployed as recommended.

Additional information about the assessment service, the application of the service for higher education, and information about integration of the service into the academic program is included within the service brochure.

More information regarding best practices and quality assurance in higher education can be found within the resources tab of our website. 

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