St. Aloysius Institute of Management & Information Technology
SCU's MOBI shares online courses with college in India and over 500 students earn Certificate of Completion
Location: Mangalore, Karnataka, India
Description: St. Aloysius College has offered a traditional Jesuit education in the port city of Mangalore since 1880. Known as an educational center, Mangalore enjoys a thriving economy with growing Special Economic Zones dedicated to information technology (IT) parks. Major IT and outsourcing companies have an established presence in Mangalore and employ many of the region’s best and brightest. So, it is not surprising that the specialty college, St. Aloysius Institute of Management and Information Technology (AIMIT), was established in 2009 to support this growing demand for professionals. AIMIT students pursue advanced degrees in Business Administration, Computer Applications and more. Today, 600 students are enrolled in the various Masters degree programs offered at AIMIT.
How it got started: Focused on building the qualities of leadership and entrepreneurship in their students, AIMIT Director Fr. Denzil Lobo, S.J. met with a number of American universities the summer of 2014 to seek opportunities for partnership and curriculum development. It was on this American tour that Fr. Lobo came to Santa Clara University and learned about the online coursework offered by My Own Business Institute (MOBI).
In Spring 2015, sixty of AIMIT’s MBA and MCA students successfully completed MOBI’s Starting a Business course. Taking a hybrid approach to teaching the curriculum, the professors supported the coursework with classroom lectures and discussions while the students went online to read the text and complete the quizzes and final exam.
How the My Own Business Institute course helped: Dr. Vincent Mascarenhas, Dean at St. Aloysius Institute of Management and Information Technology shares, “Our faculty has been keen on undertaking a hybrid pedagogy with the massive open online courses (MOOC) offered by MOBI. This is a great program for our students and faculty members to experience a new and different way of training.”
The MOBI course gained momentum quickly that semester amongst the faculty at AIMIT and by the summer of 2015, the number of students who had successfully passed the Starting a Business online course jumped to 185. Some students decided to pursue the second course, Business Expansion, on their own. Also available free of charge to anyone with Internet access, the students self-enrolled into the Business Expansion course, completed the curriculum and final exam at their own pace, and earned a second Certificate of Completion.
“The online courses offered by My Own Business Institute have added a great deal to our MBA and MCA departments,” shares Dr. Mascarenhas. “We emphasize the entrepreneurial spirit among our students, so we have made it compulsory for all students enrolled at AIMIT to complete the Starting a Business course.” Indeed, by Spring 2017, more than 500 AIMIT students have earned a Certificate of Completion and digital badge from Santa Clara University’s My Own Business Institute.
Website: staloysius.ac.in/
Facebook: www.facebook.com/SACAIMIT/