Online Teaching in a Large, Required, Undergraduate Management Science Course

This paper describes how a required management science course is taught online to a large number of undergraduate business school students. The paper describes the design of the online course, how online documents are created, testing, student effort and performance, and student evaluation of the course. Some of the insights are as follows. (i) In a large, required, undergraduate business school course, many students seek a shallow rather than in-depth understanding of the course material. Doing the course online makes it easier for these students to acquire this understanding and achieve a good final course grade. (ii) The online course works well for about 85% of the students and for the university. It works less well for about 15% of the students who procrastinate, then fall behind, and cannot catch up. Improving the course design for these students is a priority. (iii) When the amount of online video material increases, students value the course more and value the instructor less. Consequently, an instructor contemplating online teaching should think very carefully about how student evaluation of instructor effectiveness will be done.