Future Trends in Online Learning for Project Management Professionals
The increasing demand for education on project management and its applications, and the remarkable expansion of information and communications technologies (ICTs) and online/distance education (DE) technologies have led to an explosion and exposure of interest in distance education in the field of project management. These factors have also enhanced the opportunities for delivering such educational programs throughout the world.
The development of competence in the profession of project management requires the individual to gain a mixture of knowledge, skills, attitudes and behaviours to be able to deliver consistent, quality and desirable results.
This online review provides the main issues in distance education in the field of project management describes and compares experiences with this technological and pedagogical development at major UK and U.S. universities and discusses the importance of current and emerging trends in the field of learning and education.
Institutions of Higher Education (IHEs) due to the increase in demand for online/distance education courses and programs consider distance education to be any educational arrangement in which the instructor and student are not in the same place at the same time, however, transferring and impacting the students with the required knowledge to enhance their skills in different fields of endeavour.
Interest in education and training in project management has been growing at an extremely rapid pace. The growing recognition of the important contributions of project management to an organizational competitive position in the marketplace, individual career progress, economic and societal development, and remedies for shortcomings of project outputs and outcomes is propelling this interest. Opportunities for delivering project management education and the availability of academic programs in project management have been steadily increasing through research, applications, and the development of courses, curricula, and degree programs in this field. The growing interest in education, globalization, the opening of political and virtual boundaries, developments in Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), and expanding distance education technologies have strengthened these globalizing tendencies.
Course deliverables, including examinations, are generally handled through Blackboard for on-campus and distance education students. “Take-home” assignments are posted with a due date often a week later. Academic integrity appears to be well respected and no difference in the seriousness of students about academic integrity issues was observed between on-campus and distance education students.
Graduating students in the UK and around the globe often say that they were pleased and that enhanced their educational experience and ability to work together effectively with both instructors and peers. Distance education needs to stress content quality instead of emphasizing the latest technological advances and ICT innovations. The technology is admittedly important, but the basic functions it must carry out are providing the ability for learners to access course documents and other resources independently, permit successful collaboration with instructors and peers, and maintain a focus on achieving the learning objectives of each course and the educational goals of the program. The social aspect of learning is carried out throughout the program virtually through teamwork and extensive communication with instructors and peers. The cyberspace collaboration of virtual student teams is particularly significant to the field of project management
Innovations in ICT have helped distance education/online learning to become ubiquitous, but in opposition to the obvious quantity of options, questions remain about content and quality. Distance education programs have responded to market pressures and consumer demands for greater flexibility, students’ ability to structure their own time, and the need for new qualifications for the knowledge economy.
Source: Project Management Institute
