Papers in PDF format

Introducation
A Virtual Classroom in the Web
Otalora, German (gotalora@campus.mty.itesm.mx)
Herrera, Ramses (jherrer@campus.ruv.itesm.mx)
Monterrey Institute of Technology
Monterrey. Mexico
For the past six years Monterrey Institute of Technology's Virtual University has been developing a variety of
virtual and distance learning experiences and has experimented several ways to deliver education to the 26
campus located all over Mexico and to some sites abroad. One of these experiences is the capstone course for
undergraduates majoring in Business and the Strategic Management Course for MBA students.
This paper will discuss only the undergraduate course. During the current term, students located in six
different cities can get together in a virtual classroom constructed from a home page in the web.
The only paper materials for this course are the textbook (Hill & Jones. Strategic Management) and the
student’s manual for the simulation (Cotter & Fritzsche. Business Policy Game). All other course materials,
including syllabus, program, assignments, course policies and rules, instructions, etc., are provided by a WWW
server and a home page.
The Home Page
The whole learning experience has been designed following the analogy of a study trip. Therefore, the home
page shows an airline counter through which students document themselves and get their boarding passes.
This registration step allows the course administrators to have control of those entering to the links to the
pages where the course materials are placed. Once they have registered, after a welcome message, they get
access to the links in the home page. The first link leads to the calendar and schedules; the second, to the
syllabus (fly plan); the third, to the pages containing safety rules for the trip. Membership miles are computed
for each of the 117 students enrolled in the course.
A good performance deserves an upgrade to first class. There is a link to the first class passengers roster.
Finally, an authorized personnel door takes you to the pages reserved for the seven professors involved in this
course.
The Learning Experiences
The capstone course for Business majors has these learning experiences:
• Virtual groups, simulation, cases, discussion group, and face to face and distance classes.
• Virtual groups are small teams of three to four students, each from a different campus,
communicating by e-mail and exchanging documents by FTP. All of the groups have the same assignment.
The group's roster, assignment’s questions, a link to the FTP site, policies and procedures are all found in the
web. There is also a link to the company's pages which they are analyzing.
The Business simulation is run by our Simulation Master in a campus located at the Mexico City's
metropolitan area. Decisions are send by FTP and results are obtained also by FTP. These results are transfered
to the game's diskette from which students can run graphs, market and financial analysis.
One case is assigned for group discussion every week. The case questions and links to the company's pages are
provided in an specific page.