The challenge
Alliance Manchester Business School (AMBS) is a prestigious global institution – one of the 1% of business schools with the ‘triple crown’ of accreditation by EQUIS, AMBA and AACSB.
MBS embraces an ‘Original Thinking Applied’ approach of turning theory into practice. To achieve this, it has to find ways to connect classroom lessons to real-world examples, bringing learning to life and encouraging independent thinking.
The solution
As part of the AMBS’ FT Professional Subscription, two senior members of faculty had one of the Integration Solutions, the FT Headline API, installed in their Blackboard virtual learning environment. This allows users to choose the FT’s most relevant content and integrate it with their own applications and workflows.
Dr Matthew Allen (Senior Lecturer in Organisation Studies and DBA Director) and Jiajia Liu (Lecturer in Asian Business and Organisation Studies) use this FT API widget because it offers students:
- Quick access to the most relevant FT content for them, in-class and off-site
- Extensive knowledge and perceptive analysis
- A broader understanding of industries, companies and sectors
- A realistic overview of business implications from an accurate source
- An interactive learning environment that’s more appealing, relevant and up-to-date
The benefits
The senior lecturers find that FT content served this way supports AMBS’s ‘Original Thinking Applied’ approach by encouraging independent research, enhancing course understanding and making students more ‘corporate-ready’.
- Gives students access to specialist information tailored specifically to their discipline(such as biotechnology or manufacturing in China)
- Sets news and information in a global context, for ‘big picture’ understanding
- Enables students to apply theory to the real world, strengthening their arguments and theirbusiness acumen
- Meets the ‘instant accessibility’ expectations of today’s students
- Provides lecturers with original and illuminating teaching material
FT HEADLINE API: Integrate content into courses
The FT Headline API tool allows faculty and staff to feed specific FT content into university systems such as Blackboard or Moodle. The tool builds customised RSS feeds and produces an FT branded widget that can be easily placed into most systems.
Benefits include:
- Saves professors and students time by delivering relevant content to the users
- Allows for FT content and links to be placed amongst other course resources
- Content is updated in real time as articles are published
- Provides real-world context and course discipline relevance