Khalid M. Dubas

The authors develop a conceptual model of a student’s course satisfaction based on several factors that influence course learning outcomes and student’s satisfaction. This model provides a general framework to guide course design and to influence students’ course outcomes. A Marketing Management course is a part of a typical MBA program. This paper presents ideas for enhancing the design and teaching of such a course in an online setting based on teaching experience at MBA programs at several universities in the USA. Suggestions are also presented for improving team productivity and the quality of team output in an online setting. As a case study, the authors discuss a graduate Marketing Management course that was taught at a private US university in spring 2016. They discuss the design, teaching and strategies for enhancing student learning outcomes in this course. Suggestions by students to improve this course are also presented.

Keywords: marketing, student’s satisfaction, higher education, universities.
JEL Classification: M3, M1, I23

This study presents an exploratory analysis of Quick Service Restaurants (QSR) industry in the US during 2015 by using publicly available data and open-source R software. The data analysis framework and tools utilized here were developed primarily by Hadley Wickham and are included in his tidyverse package in R. This data analysis framework consists of data import, data wrangeling, data exploration (tranformation, visualization, and modeling), and communication of results (Wickham & Grolemund, 2016). These steps are illustrated by exploring the relationship between sales, customer satisfaction, and other characteristics of 65 QSR restaurants in the US. In order to facilitate reproduction and replication of this study, the dataset as well as the R code are included in this study.

This study describes how Mount Olive College, a four-year liberal arts college in Eastern North Carolina, designed and successfully implemented an MBA degree program. This led to the establishment of a graduate school, change of status from college to university, and development and offering of additional graduate degree programs. The University of Mount Olive (UMO) started offering this MBA degree program in spring 2014. This online degree program has been offered in an accelerated one-year format and in a traditional two-year format. This program has been very successful and enrollment continued to grow. As of fall 2017, the UMO MBA program was the 9th largest MBA degree program in North Carolina.
A two-year assurance of learning and outcomes assessment was recently completed and the results showed that the UMO MBA faculty successfully aligned the course Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs) with the MBA program goals and Program Learning Outcomes (PLOs). This assessment provided valuable insights that are presented in this study. UMO has planned to soon offer a hybrid (face-to-face seated plus online) MBA degree program and a healthcare MBA degree program.