Personal Perspective Paper

Abstract

This article discusses the various attributes of the University of Phoenix in general as well as how they relate to the University's MBA program. In particular, its three primary components of rEsource, its online database, the learning team environment, and the problem-based learning approach, are all discussed from a personal perspective related to the author's participation in the MBA program.

Personal Perspective Paper

Overview

From a personal perspective the University of Phoenix MBA program is effective not because of a single component but because of the combined effect of all its various components. Although each separate component of the University of Phoenix MBA program: the online rEsource database, its learning team structure, and its problem-based learning methodology, are intrinsically related to the University's success, how the University has managed to build a cohesive program based on these unique structures is an established benchmark in the education industry. It is the kind of value-added approach that many of the organizations, which are the topics of its courses, have taken to build cutting-edge operations and establish differentiation in the marketplace.

The Value of rEsource

The University's online rEsource database is invaluable to the student as well as the instructor. Current research indicates that while most education systems recognize the need to migrate libraries and information to Web-based platforms, most are struggling to finalize a strategy much less execute a plan to do so (Information, 2006). Yet, the University of Phoenix has had its online education model in place for many years and its current structure is leading the education industry by its effectiveness and degree of penetration. Personally, this author conducts almost 99% of research via the online rEsource interface to the various databases that the University has integrated into its online information services. The speed, convenience and international access to this data and information are services that only the top corporations have been able to offer consistently to employees and the University of Phoenix has provided much of the impetus for this migration to web-based information services across both the education and corporate world.

Learning Teams

The University of Phoenix has long held to the belief that teams and team management form the nexus of reality based education. Team concepts and team management have taken on a new importance since the major push for increases in productivity began during the 1980s and the University's MBA program and other educational programs have mirrored this growth and development. Teams more effectively and efficiently complete a set of tasks than if one simply throws a series of tasks to individual employees. Team management has become a science in itself and is often the subject of intensive training in the workplace and certainly given a great amount of attention in the academic setting as well, as the University's reliance on team learning indicates. Recently, the topic of teams has even morphed into the study of virtual teams where not a single member of a team or workgroup may actually be in the same geographic location and are left to manage their projects through the auspices of technology: "...a virtual environment, created through