Israel’s Council for Higher Education has approved the Tel Aviv Online MBA program at the Coller School of Management at Tel Aviv University (TAU). This is the first time the Council has approved an entirely online degree taught by a research university, with no requirements for on-campus presence.

All the residential MBA programs at the Coller School of Management are accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), placing it among the top 9% of business schools worldwide, and the Coller School is the first business school in Israel to be awarded Eduniversal’s 5 Palmes of Excellence. The Online MBA program will allow the Coller School to continue positioning itself on the international scene, targeting outstanding international students from all over the world and competing with online programs offered by other leading universities worldwide.

The approval of the pioneering program is a significant step forward in the implementation of the Council of Higher Education and TAU’s plan for promoting online learning and strengthening internationalism in order to globally enhance the reputation and competitive standing of Israeli academia. The degree program has two specializations: in technology and information management, and in marketing management. The new program will enable international students with global business experience to enhance their education and professionalism in business management within the entrepreneurial context, an area in which the Coller School of Management is a world leader.

The Online MBA is a two-year program, and students will be required to meet the Coller School’s high academic standards. Students will have the flexibility to study from anywhere in the world and earn their MBA while maintaining their current work schedule.

The Coller School’s lecturers will teach via high-quality digital courses produced at a high international level, similar to that of leading universities worldwide and emphasizing the quality of teaching and learning. The courses will be developed using best practices in learning design and through strong collaboration between faculty lecturers, technologists and instructional designers. The learning experience will be interactive in nature, with a variety of learning tools used throughout the program. These will include video lectures, presentations, animations, discussion boards and other online elements to create an engaging course focused on learning outcomes and student success.  Lecturers will also be available for questions and will hold synchronous lessons to monitor students’ progress and follow the learning process.

Students interested in getting to know Israel closely will be able to join an optional 1.5-week campus residency, to experience the dynamic start-up nation and gain firsthand knowledge of the Israeli entrepreneurial ecosystem.

When applying for the Council’s approval, the Coller School of Management noted that the program would make Israel’s academic knowledge accessible to the world, serving as an important channel for establishing and strengthening the standing of Israeli academia in the global arena.

“Recent years have seen significant transformations in the worlds of higher education, with an emphasis on far-reaching technological changes, and consequently online programs are becoming more prevalent all over the world,” the Coller School says. “Following a thorough examination of the topic, we believe that the strong reputation acquired by the Coller School around the world enables us to compete globally with the world’s best business schools, and allows the finest foreign management talents to be trained at our School. In addition, we believe that the past year and a half, during which we all had to learn how to work from afar, will increase the demand for this form of teaching.”

“TAU is currently making a push to enhance its international character,” says TAU President Professor Ariel Porat. “To this end, we are increasing the number of programs for international students, promoting collaborations between TAU units and their counterparts at leading universities overseas, inviting pioneering researchers from academic institutions worldwide to teach and do research at TAU, and more. The present initiative of the Coller School, offering students all over the globe a full online MBA in English, will further enhance the prominence of TAU in general, and our excellent School of Management in particular. The School and its leaders deserve all the praise for their groundbreaking academic initiative.

“We are very pleased that the program has been approved, and we thank the Council for Higher Education, the Senate, and TAU’s management for their support in its establishment,” adds Professor Dan Amiram, Vice Dean of the Coller School. “The Online MBA is the product of a strategic move that began two years ago, in which we gave a great deal of thought and effort to formulating the right ways for teaching our innovative content, while maintaining the high academic standards of the School’s existing programs. The new program will enable global dissemination of the advanced academic knowledge coming from our School, draw excellent students from all over the world, and help in the production of international-level digital study materials that will be used in different programs at the School. Through this program we wish to expand our global activities, adapting ourselves to the changing world and the dynamic, fast-developing job market. We identify a similar trend in the world’s leading universities, and aim to bring the quality, and the academic and practical knowledge of our outstanding researchers to the forefront of the international stage.”

“Our program is designed for students who want to learn at a leading university with high academic standards and seek a flexible learning experience,” says Dr. Shai Harel, Academic Director of the Online MBA Program at the Coller School. “We have developed our courses at the highest level, using the most innovative technologies, with the aim of producing an applied degree that will contribute to students in their professional lives. The degree itself will combine asynchronous online learning and synchronous weekly sessions that will support students and enable them to successfully complete their degree. We are looking for students from all over the world who wish to study for an MBA in technology and information management or marketing management within the context of entrepreneurship — a field in which Israel is a world leader.”