september 2009.pdf - CBS OBSERVER

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3 8 C B S u m m a r y e d i t e d b y b j ø r n h y l d k r o g New CBS e-learning platform in just one year By this time next year, CBS expects to have replaced the school’s present e-learning platform, SiteScape. SiteScape is the interactive teaching platform used at CBS – mainly for uploading reading lists, cases and course notes by the lecturers and for class discussions by most of CBS’ 16101 students. SiteScape was taken over by Novell last year, and CBS’ faced either paying five times as much in license-fees or facing the headache of implementing a new e-learning platform. The choice was fairly easy for University Director Peter Pietras who was of the opinion that CBS could get more for the annual about one million DKR that the school presently pays in license-fees. Most likely, SiteScapes successor will be a tailored Open-Source platform, and Moodle is the one being subjected to closer scrutiny at present. The decision about whether or not to go with Moodle will be made more or less simultaneously with CBS OBSERVER hitting the stands. With a timeline of just one academic year to check out, test, tailor and implement a completely new e-learning platform encompassing most of CBS’ study programs, CBS is facing a major challenge. CBS OBSERVER will be following the process closely. Ethical business setting the agenda 800 of CBS’ new students, amounting to about 40 percent of them, have been invited to attend a CBS Responsibility Day dedicated to introducing them to issues of responsibility, ethics and sustainability in both corporate and student life. This year also sees CBS launching a new elective on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) for 70 first year students, to be undertaken on top of the full first semester course load. Though it is the first time CBS has hosted such an event, the school’s research and study programs have maintained a strong focus on business ethics, CSR and sustainability since the eighties. This can to a fair extent be attributed to the influence of Professor Peter Pruzan, who was one of the business-researchers behind the development of social and ethical accounting and auditing. While CBS can be said to be a bit of a front-runner regarding CSR and business ethics, it is far from the only business school to stress its importance and maintain that CSR and business ethics are is not a matter of altruism, but og enlightened self-interest at profitability. This message seems to have reached this year’s Harvard MBA-graduates – who incidentally also feel the need to distance themselves from the unethical Wall Street players, much to blame for the present financial crisis. The Harvard MBA-students have instigated an MBA-oath of ethics in business, comparable to the Hippocratic Oath of the medical profession, that half this year’s graduates swore at a cer- emony before graduation. Several hundred MBA-graduates from business schools such as Yale, Stanford and Oxford followed up on the 400 Harvard-graduates’ initiative. Harvard Business School student Danial Moon wearing a sign reading “The MBA Oath” before a Harvard University’s 358th Commencement Exercises in Cambridge, Massachusetts June 4, 2009. Get a handle on your learning style If you’ve ever wondered why in some classes you simply ‘get’ the teacher and the subject matter being taught, while in others you’re left to flounder and witness your classmates thundering along, the answer might lie in your learning style. Now CBS Learning Lab has developed the means to uncover your learning style along with materials that can aid you to benefit from the insight. The first phase of CBS Learning Lab’s learning styles project has now been realized with a homepage – www.cbs.dk/learningstyles – which offers CBS students and teachers the possibility of taking a learning styles test (The Danish Self-Assessment Learning Styles Inventory, D-SA-LSI). Taking this test gives you knowledge about your personal learning styles, as well as different possibilities for using this knowledge to work with your own learning, get the most out of study groups made op of people with different learning styles. And yes, there is a body of materials that you have to absorb – learn that is – in order to facilitate your selfreflection and utilization of the insight. 1 c b s o b s e r v e r Next deadline: September 17th Unsolicited contributions: max. 1 A4 page Mail to: red.observer@cbs.dk 1 i n - h o u s e n e w s p a p e r f o r co p e n h a g e n b u s i n e s s s c h o o l Students give CBS good grades m o s t ly s a t i s f i e d By William Tylander Graphics: René Lynge High readings from the International Student Barometer indicate mostly clear skies for CBS exchange students with a slight chance of clouds on the horizon. CBS’ international exchange students have been surveyed . A 2008 report, issued by the International Insight Group (i-graduate), shows that CBS is on the right track when it comes to satisfying the needs and expectations of international students. The report was commissioned by CIRIUS the office under the Danish Ministry of Science and Technology in charge of internationalization and collected quantitative satisfaction survey results from international students in all of the Danish universities. - We wanted to find out what international student satisfaction was on the national level versus an established international benchmark. The survey confirmed our impressions that were based on the results of an internal survey in 2006 and served to highlight specific areas for us to work on and improve, reports CIRIUS representative Ken Thomassen. I-graduate is an independent research group based in the United Kingdom that has administered satisfaction surveys at over 160 educational institutions the world over. The study is one of the largest of its kind and over the last two years the International Student Barometer (ISB) has been used to gather feedback from over 250,00 students. The online survey gauged student satisfaction across several key sectors, including learning, living and administrative support. In all more than 3500 students responded across Denmark with some 220 of them from CBS. Overall, students ranked good teachers, employability and reputation among the most important factors for choosing their study in Denmark. Measuring up CBS In overall satisfaction CBS fared very well when measured up not only against the Danish universities as a whole, but also against ISB on average. When asked about studying in Denmark 74 percent of all international students responded positively, but when asked about CBS nearly 85 percent answered in the affirmative. Overall average responses in reception at arrival, learning and administrative support were significantly ahead of national averages. While responses to some key factors, such as teaching quality, lagged behind, ISB averages showing extraordinarily high scores on multiculturalism, library and learning environment were stand outs from the CBS report, which pushed the score ahead of the national average. Students also reported near total satisfaction with their reception at arrival and their further contact with and support from CBS’ International Office. Niels Henrick, Deputy Director of CBS’ International Programs, was understandably pleased with the findings. - This study confirms our hard work towards providing the top experience to our international exchanges here at this office. We know were up against some stiff challenges, especially on housing – the balance is in how we respond to and communicate with our exchange students by adding an individual approach and a personal touch. The report’s findings were not all rosy. Dissatisfaction with living conditions was high and on a par with Danish averages. Most common comments on living in Denmark centred on lack of affordable housing and the high cost of living. High marks on internet access and safety, however, bolstered results and showed respondents more or less satisfied overall and on level with national averages. Grapevine promotions The study also showed CBS’ exchange students more likely to recommend studying at CBS than was the case with respondents from other Danish institutions. The report remarks on how personal recommendations played a central roll in students choosing CBS. The marketing potential for this bit of news could explain CBS seeing a nearly 15 percent increase in international applications to both exchange and full time programs. This bit of good news does not come without its challenges though – especially on the housing issue. As of early August, all rooms offered by the International Office have been spoken for, and additional housing is being actively sought. Just a piece of the puzzle This report may only be painting part of the picture. 97 percent of the international students who responded from CBS were from exchange programs and only three percent were full-degree students. While the survey’s 200 CBS-respondents does make it statistically representative, is does only make up 20 percent of the total number of exchange student that come to CBS in a given year. But most of all the notable absence of international full time students in the survey makes it difficult to gauge how the international student satisfaction rate actually is as a whole. 1
c b s o b s e r v e r 6 s e p t e m b e r 2 0 0 9 3 9 Global student recruitment gets serious After tentatively dipping a toe into the warm sea of international student recruitment, CBS is about to get seriously active and plunge right in. Till now, marketing CBS abroad has been somewhat of a standalone activity. September 1st sees the launch of a new unit, designed to consolidate CBS’ global marketing f o l l o w i n g t h r o u g h By Chris Day Photo: Rie Neuchs CBS is consolidating and professionalizing the schools’ international student recruitment. The whole international student supply chain from sourcing to course completion and beyond is now to be given a holistic considered approach, spanning from marketing, following up leads, finding course placements, providing support whilst at the school and even creating poststudy networks when students have long since left. Although the unit is so new it has yet to be given an official name, the “international marketing and recruitment” unit will be working in close coordination with CBS’ International and Admissions Offices. The remit is both immensely challenging and very clear; to raise the profile of the school internationally and turn interested ‘would-be’ international students into CBS international students. CBS already receives a huge amount of both European and non- European students every year, so the term ‘international student’ in this connection refers to anyone coming from outside the EU and thus paying tuition fees. Closing the deals A team comprising of Director of International Marketing and Recruitment ‘We want to make CBS a global business school, and we want to see how many fee paying students we can attract. It is crucial that we have the diversity than ensures that our Danish and EU students get to work in close collaboration with students with a completely different perspective. Janie Huus Tange Director of International Marketing and Recruitment Janie Huus Tange and Recruitment Manager Candice Progler have been given the task of getting the unit into action and ramping up the international student intake. Janie explains that up till now her job was done as soon as leads were produced, and that just didn’t give the desired results. The organizational change is there- fore an acknowledgement of the fact that the initial act of marketing cannot be conducted in isolation. - I realized that we had been spending money on marketing and making people make the initial call, but no-one was following these calls up. We ended up only accepting two percent of the leads we got as students, Janie Huus Tange explains and goes on, relating the situation to external business practices: - There are not too many companies out there that do great marketing and then don’t open the door because they are too busy. We need to think of the programs as commodities. We need to sell them. An emphasis will be placed on securing the link between marketing and admissions and making sure that once at the school, an international student will leave with a good impression to pass on to others and so create a network of goodwill. All-round networking A fundamentally important aspect of CBS’ future strategy is related to the internationalization of the school’s student and researcher intakes. Although it is true that a non-EU student provides a good source of income to the school as a fee payer, the key driver behind this process remains the belief that a campus rich in diversity is incred- ibly helpful to the learning environment. - We want to make CBS a global business school, and we want to see how many fee paying students we can attract. It is crucial that we have the diversity that ensures that our Danish and EU students get to work in close collaboration with students with a completely different perspective, Janie clarifies the objective. With a current fee-paying international student count of 35, the hope is that there could be as many as 100 in two summers’ time. With as many as 17,000 students at CBS in total, the eventual target is to have between five and ten percent of these coming from outside the EU. For the time being, there will be a slow and steady approach as the infrastructure is put into place to ensure international students’ welfare. - We want to take better care of them and do things slowly at first to make sure they are also cared for when they leave. People pick CBS because we have a strong brand, but they don’t just pick the brand; they also define and spread it afterwards, Janie explains. Based on that insight, the strategy will be to follow a network approach rather than throwing large sums of money at advertising. - We will use our own networks. International marketing of and student recruitment to CBS is being upgraded with Janie Huus Tange appointed Director of the new, so far unnamed, unit. We have as many as 1500 bachelor exchange students who consider coming back and paying for a full degree. We need to make sure that the people who are here have a good experience. We will also work on marketing and networking with our 400 partner universities. We are the selling point The new international recruitment unit will be a fundamental player in attempting to turn CBS’ internationalization strategy into a reality. For Janie Huus Tange, the project is not just about recruitment and marketing, but also about integrating communications with a need to get researchers and other media into the mix as well. The emphasis is on creating a quality of service and strong network links to woo the would-be international student. - Other European schools spend a lot on advertising. I really believe that we are going to network CBS to achieve better results than that approach; get the product to sell itself through CBS’ students and researchers. I also hope we get to the point where we can follow up on some of the leads we have within 24 hours of them coming through, asking; “What can we do for you to make the choice of coming to CBS?”, Janie Huus Tange sums up the task ahead. 1
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