DATE: Monday, November 3, 1997              TAG: 9711030061
SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY MIKE ABRAMS, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                    LENGTH:  106 lines

REGENT COURSE PLUGS IN TO TECHNO-REVOLUTION COMPUTERS LINK GRAD STUDENTS FROM AFAR TO VIRTUAL CLASSROOM AND A TEXT ON THE WEB

Alan joined from his Maryland home. Russ checked in during his North Carolina business trip. Bob flicked on his computer in Richmond.

The others settled into this Regent University media classroom for a recent evening session of ``Marketing Management,'' a graduate-level business course busy breaking technological ground.

Some students will complete the course without ever having set foot in the classroom. Others will know their classmates by their electronic personalities - not from facial expressions or the clothes they wear.

But with microphones at each seat, wall-mounted speakers piping in voices from afar and the textbook appearing only on the World Wide Web, these students are collectively fulfilling the higher education promise of a techno-revolution.

Glitches and all.

For instance, one week earlier this semester, the group's major software program, TopClass, crashed. Students had to fall back on face-to-face talks, phone calls and e-mail instead of the long group discussions that the program fosters.

At other times, computer connections run slow and failure messages pop up.

``The excitement'' of leading such a course, professor Greg Stone explained, ``is tempered by the fact that you find out what doesn't work before you find out what does work. But if you have some persistence, you do get there and feel like a pioneer.''

The Web textbook is what truly has the course on the cutting edge.

``Advertising: Principles and Practice,'' produced by Prentice Hall Business Publishing, won't appear on college campuses in its fourth edition until the spring.

The Regent students, however, have read it on the computer at the same time the publisher is preparing it for printing.

Earlier this year, before the fall semester, Stone approached the New Jersey publishing division about bringing the book to the Web. Other publishers didn't know how to do it or weren't willing to try, Stone said.

Prentice Hall agreed to put the book on CD-ROMs, send them to Regent and let the school transfer them to restricted-access Web pages. The students can call up the pages via passwords. The general public can't.

Instead of paying in the mid-$50 range for the book, the students will likely receive a 25 percent discount. They can print out portions of the book, read chapters on-line or save the material on disks.

Don Hull, senior editor for the publisher's business division, said the venture could be replicated across the country.

``We're not making any money on this,'' Hull said. ``But that's OK. We've kind of taught ourselves with this small project how to do this on the bigger ones.''

Students say the Web book has its limitations. It's not as portable as a text, and it lacks some of the visual examples found in the bound version. Prentice Hall has been working to secure electronic rights to those images.

Still, Alan Kuyatt, the student in Maryland, said the Web pages are easy to read.

``I was excited to download it over the Internet,'' he said, ``instead of receiving it as a package in the mail.''

Russ Wendell, who was in North Carolina on the business trip, said his printer produces double-sided copies. That lets him save paper and take the book with him wherever he goes.

The new text aside, the students and their professor say it's the content that makes the course.

The 40 students - half are ``distance learners'' who don't attend physical sessions - are divided into groups that work with outside businesses.

One group is trying to turn some old cookie recipes into a bakery and distributor. Another group is promoting a Christian rock band from Minnesota. Another is working with a former Regent student to adapt a new technology in the marketplace.

Some of the fledgling ideas come through Regent's Center for Business Innovation, which Stone runs. The center promotes self-employment, especially among disadvantaged people.

The students use the technology to keep in touch with each other and their clients and to find creative ways to help their companies. The music group team, for example, has created a Web site profiling the trio and its songs.

Those are the very ideas that Gerald Celente, director of the Rhinebeck, N.Y.-based Trends Research Institute, said would make distance learning one of the top 10 trends of 1997.

``On-line education won't totally replace on-site learning,'' Celente's journal predicted last winter. ``But the interactive trend, now in its infancy, will increasingly transform the structure of schools, colleges and universities as the virtual classroom provides more cost-effective and higher-quality education than the conventional classroom.''

Out of Richmond, Bob Bush uses audio, video and cyber tools every day to balance surgical product sales for Johnson & Johnson and his role in the class group trying to start Miller Cookie Co.

The ``virtual classroom,'' he said, poses the same challenges people face in business, where key decisions sometimes occur through voice mail or e-mail.

With their command of the equipment, the students could one day turn the cookie recipes into a global business.

``I love the dynamics from it,'' said Susan Richmond, a fellow team member.

``The focus,'' she said, ``is on communication. We can feel connected to our counterparts all over the nation. The method of this class really pushes the students out of the box.'' ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photos]

D. KEVIN ELLIOTT/The Virginian-Pilot

Travis Wortinger discusses his ``Marketing Management'' project.

Half the class participates via the Internet.

Professor Greg Stone runs Regent's Center for Business Innovation.

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