MIT, Targeting Talent Shortage, Plans Open Supply Chain Management Curriculum
By Dinah Wisenberg Brin
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Center for Transportation & Logistics is looking for industry help in developing an online curriculum to train future supply chain professionals.
An item posted on the center’s blog last month explained that the virtual classroom, called SCMx, could provide a solution to the industry’s chronic talent shortage, as it “has the scale and flexibility required to educate huge numbers of individuals worldwide in a single sequence of courses.”
Chris Caplice, MIT CTL’s executive director, wrote in the article that the online program “would expand the talent pipeline and provide a world standard for supply chain education.”
MIT aims to start the first module in fall 2014. It will take place on the broader edX platform, created by MIT, Harvard, Berkeley, the University of Texas and others, which “aims to revolutionize virtual education” by offering top courses from major universities in a variety of topics, Caplice noted. (Classes on edX generally are free to audit, although some charge a fee for verified certificates of achievement, the edX site says.)
MIT’s three envisioned supply chain and logistics management courses to be offered on edX each will take 12 weeks. The CTL has asked its 48 corporate partners to help craft the curriculum and is looking for involvement from other industry members as well.
