The University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business set out to create the most engaging and visually stunning online MBA program in the world – and succeeded.
This program mirrors the on-campus MBA experiential opportunities such as intensive residency weekends and the challenging Multidisciplinary Action Projects with real companies. In addition, faculty wanted to replicate their engaging class sessions online – and they didn’t want to look like a talking head on a webcam while they did it. So, this project engaged a truly astonishing crew of designers, developers, and filmographers to create instructional videos and synchronous class experiences of a quality rarely seen in education. Videos were shot in studios, on-site within the business school, and on location in a variety of businesses to bring students into the workplace.
My roles in this project were varied. I provided instructional design on four courses, helping faculty decide how to convey their content in a meaningful way. I developed a number of tracking tools and workflows to help us organize the astonishing number of pieces to each course. The simplest course I managed had 21 videos and 21 Storyline interactives, all of which I proofed 3-6 times. My most complex task was to help set expectations and facilitate communication among our team of 30+ education and creative professionals comprising internal staff, university personnel, and staff from three separate contracting firms.
Emily Springfield 