Food is Online with the 4th Bocconi MOOC
A 40 minute documentary shot in the Modena area in a five days span, a virtual study tour that describes the competitive advantage that comes from a particular geographical origin. It's one of the novelties of the fourth massive open online course (MOOC) that Bocconi and SDA Bocconi, with the help of the innovation lab BETA and the support of EXPO Milano 2015, are launching on the Coursera platform. Gabriele Troilo has structured the 'Managing Food & Beverage Companies' course (3 July to 7 August 2015, hashtag #befoodbocconimooc) in four weeks covering four managerial dilemmas that food and beverage companies face today: products vs markets; tradition vs innovation; local vs global; small vs big.
Bocconi is first in offering a MOOC on food & beverage companies. "The documentary is also something brand new", Troilo says. "It's a new learning format that conveys knowledge in a more immediate way compared to traditional lectures". The biggest challenge was to produce 10 minute clips with a clear message and a solid reasoning. "A traditional lesson is a time-consuming activity, you can't do it in a MOOC because of the users' low attention level in front of a computer screen". There will be twenty interviews with managers from Barilla, Berlucchi, Branca, Eataly, Grom Manpower, MasterChef Italia, Heineken, TRND. There will also be a live conversation with the US food blogger Katie Parla. The students themselves will provide business cases coming from their own countries.
The first Bocconi MOOCs were three largely positive experiences. The retention rate of Financing and Investing in Infrastructure and International Leadership and Organizational Behavior was double than the average, Managing Fashion and Luxury Companies even triple. The latter was reissued on demand. It has 20,000 new registrations which add up to the 30,000 of the original MOOC launched in 2014. Its community has remained active and members have volunteered to act as mentors to new users.
Last March, two Bocconi MOOC project managers Valentina Todoro e Chiara Moscardo took part at the Coursera Partner Conference 2015 in Newport Beach, California. "The universities are investing in MOOCs more than ever", Todoro says. "They are less and less skeptical. Once the talk was about risks and benefits, now it's about planning and management. Unlike many other universities, which produce MOOC massively by posting on line pretty average video lectures, Bocconi focuses on quality and aims to make each course unique and customized". Gabriele Troilo has appreciated it. "Now", he says, "I'd like to test blended learning during my traditional courses and manage the classroom according to the logic of the MOOCs communities".