Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/58916
DATABIT Rising Interest in Online Ed A recent survey indicates that adults may be turning to online education in greater numbers. High Volt- age Interactive, a California-based marketing firm, surveyed 1,000 adults, most ranging in age from 24 to 65, regarding their attitudes about online education. Of those surveyed, 74 percent indicated they would consider taking classes online. Moreover, when respon- dents were asked to choose among 27 online degrees, business was the most popular option, with nearly 50 percent expressing interest. Forty- two percent were interested in edu- cation or human resources, and 36 TOOLS OF THE TRADE Hyperion Offers Software Grants to B-Schools Hyperion, a software company in Santa Clara, California, recently announced that its Academic Alliance Program will offer software grants to business schools worldwide. The grants will provide Hyperion's Business Performance Man- agement software and enable its integration into business and business technology curricula. The grant program will make available case-based Business Performance Management instructional materi- als; demos and tutorials; computer-based training courses; and white papers on the use of business performance management and business intelligence tools. In the future, the program also will provide hosted online access to more tools, applications, and resources. To that end, Hyperion will begin testing remote, hosted access to materials, in which faculty and students can use its query, analysis, and reporting tools. With these tools, users can develop custom, personalized "dashboards" over the Internet and use them to control and monitor their individual projects. A growing number of companies are using business intel- ligence and performance management tools to manage their businesses, says Valter Cantino, a professor at the Scuola di Amministrazione at the Universita di Torino in Italy. Hands- on experience with these tools helps students learn "to draw information from various managerial systems and processes, including financial consolidation, enterprise resource plan- ning, and auditing and compliance," he adds. Current recipients of the Hyperion Academic Alliance Program grants include the Universita di Torino, Chulalong- korn and Rangsit Universities in Thailand, and the Univer- sity of Baltimore's Merrick School of Business in Maryland in the U.S. To learn more about the Academic Alliance Program, visit www.hyperion.com/services/education_services/ academic_alliance.cfm. BizEd MAY/JUNE 2006 49 percent were interested in accounting. According to the survey, 42 percent of respondents expected online education to be supplemented with face- to-face meetings. In addition, when it comes to taking a course that combines online and face-to-face interactions, respondents preferred to meet in person once a week (43 percent). Fewer were interested in courses that met in person only once a month (31 percent) or once a semester or quarter (17 percent). Only 9 percent preferred courses that included a one-week intensive The number of public wireless "hotspots" recently surpassed 100,000, up from 57,000 just a year ago, according to JiWire, a California-based company that helps mobile users find access and connect to wireless Internet service. Which country has the most hotspots? The U.S., with 37,073. Which city? Seoul, Korea, with 2,056. classroom session with the rest of the course given online. Respondents also were asked whether they preferred to learn online or in the class- room, and why. When presented with seven possible reasons, those who preferred to work online ranked the ability to "work at my own pace" and "work on my own time" as their top two reasons for prefer- ring online courses. Reasons such as "cost tends to be less" and "usually takes less time" ranked last. Those who preferred to work in a physical classroom presented