Open University Business School Program

Open University

1. Open University is the biggest university in Great Britain, with over 220 000 students, and is a leader of the quality of the educational activity, which places it amongst the world’s elite "mega-universities".
2. It inspired and offered support in the creation of a university family in the "open-learning" system and it developed partnerships in numerous countries in Europe, Asia, Africa and, recently, in the Middle East.
3. It created a global study community, with approximately 70 000 Open University students outside Great Britain. Many of the Open University courses can now be studied online almost everywhere in the world – "the university comes to you".
4. It helped more than 2 million people obtain over 675 000 qualifications.
5. The number of available courses grew to 570, covering 70 study areas with 250 possible qualifications, amongst which are: human arts and sciences, business and management, IT&C, engineering and technology, education, environment and development, health and social security, foreign languages, law, mathematics and statistics, psychology, sociology.
6. It helped over 10 000 people with disabilities to attain their study objectives.
7. It made higher education accessible to several thousand people that, due to various reasons, lost that chance; it is "the second chance university" because it allows access to people that do not meet the required conditions to access the courses of a classical university.
8. Open University established itself, in the last three years, in the top when it comes to student satisfaction due to flexibility, the skills obtained and the teaching process.
9. It made possible the work and learn factor; 70% of Open University students are employed.
10. It became the biggest European management training supplier through its Open University Business School.
11. It inspired more than 55 000 employers to sponsor the Open University courses that their employees were attending.
12. it broke the traditional age barrier in the higher educational level – Open University has students ranging from adolescence to 90 years old.
13. It is the first university in Great Britain that created, starting with 2008, free study materials of the best quality, available via iTunes U, and it’s about to establish a new world record, registering over 20 million downloads through iTunes. It concerns a series of elements that complete the available courses and offer materials, including video, audio and tutorials. They are available to students, as well as to the public.
14. The university has now 525 courses available on the Internet. In any 24-hour interval an average of 45 000 Open University students access the online courses.
15. It became an excellence research center, drawing, in 2009, over 12.6 million pounds for research only from subventions.
16. The values that Open University promotes are:

Open University Business School

Open University Business School represents one of the most successful universities of the Open University consortium, with its own dynamic and modern identity.

1. It became the biggest business school in Great Britain – one out of five MBA students in great Britain studies at Open University Business School
2. It is the biggest business school ion Europe; due to the quality of the course materials, the innovating capability and the high qualification of the academic personnel and trainers it places itself amongst the elite of the most prestigious business schools, being accredited by the three main institutions in the field: Association of Masters of Business Administration; European Foundation for Management Development si The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business - AACSB. The Open University Business School MBA is amongst the 41 MBA programs out of the 12 800 registered throughout the world that there three institutions accredited. In Romania only the Open University Business School MBA has all three accreditations.
3. It has a global approach:
   
   o 50 000 students from 107 countries
   o 18.000 managers have obtained the Open University Business School MBA
   o 14.000 organizations have sponsored their employees
4. It is present in Romania through its partner, CODECS; in the 17 years of partnership 16 000 Romanian managers followed a course provided by the Open University Business School; 5 000 graduated the Professional Management Certificate; 1.700 graduated the Professional Management Diploma; 266 are MBA graduates.
5. Over 800 Open University Business School tutors; the tutors are not only academic people – they are professionals with a relevant professional experience; in Romania there are around 80 active tutors within the programs of Professional Management Certificate and Professional Diploma Management.
6. The Open University Business School is also the first business school that received the Certificate for e-learning (CEL), proving the innovative quality of its courses and the performance quality of the used technological platform.
7. In its programs Open University Business School promotes ethical standards, the sustainable development of the surrounding environment and the corporatist social responsibility.
8. The professor James Fleck, the dean of Open University Business School, utilizes the "4R" acronym when he refers to the defining elements of the business school:
   
   o The launching ramp in a management career at international standards.
   o The relevance of offered programs through their practical composition; the students are able to immediately apply the new lessons learned at their work place.
   o The big penetration radius – the important number of students from all over the world.
   o The business school’s reputation – it is a leader amongst world’s business schools.