Harvard Business School (HBS) and Stanford's Graduate School of

Business have announced that they will jointly offer business management courses online, a decision they say will create the "world's premier source of online management education."

Entering the intensely competitive market for e-learning, the schools will develop a system to develop and distribute non-degree courses for business executives.

The announcement follows a period in which Harvard has been hesitant to join other schools in the provision of online education programs.

In the meantime, commercial organizations and other universities--such as Columbia and NYU--have developed their own web-based programs for training professionals. Harvard and Stanford's entrance into the market, the schools say, will not only meet a growing demand for on-line learning, but will also encourage the development of better programs.

"The worldwide need for management skills has never been greater, and the demand for innovative approaches to management education is high," said Robert Joss, dean of Stanford's Business School in a press release. "We believe partnership with Harvard Business School offers good prospects for developing new models in both educational content and delivery."

Both schools will leverage their current offerings to provide research articles, case studies and other programs for the venture.

Although the partnership with Stanford is a new development for Harvard, HBS Director of Communnications Loretto Crane says e-learning has been used extensively at HBS for several years, especially through the school's publishing division.

"For example, [Harvard Business School Publishing's] e-learning division has offered comprehensive sets of personalized, multimedia courses like Harvard ManageMentor, which is on a million corporate desktops," Crane writes in an e-mail message.

Although much of the school's efforts have been geared toward the corporate market, Crane says HBS' courses for incoming students--in areas such as basic accounting and finance--are also provided online.

The web is such a highly desirable market for courses because of the

potential profits it promises.

According to a Goldman Sachs report, online distance learning is expected to generate $1.1 billion in annual tuition revenue from 500,000 students by 2002.

But Harvard has been reluctant in the past to take part in alliances with other universities to provide distance learning for several reasons.

Last spring, Harvard spokesperson Joe Wrinn told The Crimson that from an institutional perspective, Harvard was unprepared to get into the e-learning market.

"As a University we are still trying to organize ourselves to consider these things in a way that can properly address these issues," he said.

Harvard's decentralized structure has meant that only some schools in the University have been able to successfully provide distance learning programs.

And the issue had also been complicated by the drive for profits-- Carnegie Corporation President Vartan Gregorian, a former president of Brown University, has questioned whether universities should use e-learning to become "profit centers."

Despite Harvard's history of nonparticipation, HBS has taken a huge step with Stanford, planning to "share a common mission [of] educating leaders around the world," Clark says in a press release.

However, many questions arise from the decision.

For example, Gregorian told The Crimson last spring that he does not think distance learning is going to be a great success because the medium does not allow human interaction.

"Our institutions are social institutions, not just educational

institutions," he said. "There's no

substitute for that."

Integrity and copyright issues might also highlight the flaws of online learning, considering the increased challenge of monitoring who has access to the programs.

Earlier this year, Harvard opted out of a distance learning alliance with Yale, Stanford and Princeton. The proposed alliance would have allowed alumni to access online resources at each university.

Under this alliance, member schools would have jointly supported technical development, but actual material content would be the responsibility of each school.

With Stanford and HBS's new e-learning partnership, the two schools will offer lectures and case discussions with top-notch business personnel

online, perhaps revisiting the distance learning proposal that Harvard chose not to accept a year ago.

Stanford's School of Engineering will also play a role in the initiative. The school currently grants 25 percent of its masters degrees to students of distance learning.

But for the time being, at least, any plans for distance learning will not affect Harvard College.

Currently, "there are no near-term plans to develop courses for undergraduates [at Harvard]," Crane said.