First business course offered on Internet

The School of Business is launching its first Internet course, a class on management fundamentals.

Students who sign up for Professor Randall Dunham’s Organizational Behavior course can study the online material anytime and anywhere they have World Wide Web access – home computers, laptops in remote locations or university computer labs.

Dunham has achieved a national reputation for his innovative teaching of management issues as well as his pioneering efforts in instructional technology through CD-ROMs. The three-credit course, offered by the Management and Human Resources Department, is open to students who want to master the fundamentals of organizational behavior, managing people and groups in organizations.

The course can be taken in any sequence the student chooses. It is a rich mix of case studies including video vignettes, recorded interviews, self-assessment tests, online readings and research materials combined to help students identify and solve management problems.

Dunham said that his design of an “anyplace/anytime” web course is the result of a progression into instructional technology including a popular CD-ROM teaching program called The Manager’s Workshop. Market acceptance of that program, and his success in developing web courses for an international consortium, encouraged him to create this new course with state-of-the-art technology.

Through electronic discussion rooms, students can communicate with team members, classmates and instructors. The nonlinear nature of the course allows students to take the course material as they choose. “It’s not an easy course,” Dunham said, “but we have designed it so you can master challenging material and still have fun.”

Funds for developing the course came from the School of Business, the Division of University Outreach and the University of Wisconsin System.

A course sampler is available on the Web. Undergraduate and graduate students can register through normal touch-tone registration. Special students and those wishing to audit the class should contact Randi Huntsman at (608) 262-0891 or rhuntsman@bus.wisc.edu.