HBX Overview
HBX is Harvard Business School’s new digital learning initiative, designed to create transformational learning experiences in an online setting. In HBX the School has created an innovative platform to deliver distinctive online business-focused offerings that complement its on-campus programs and publishing products.
HBX CORe
The initial HBX offering, CORe (Credential of Readiness), is designed for college juniors and seniors, non-business graduate students, and those in their early careers. It will teach the fundamentals that are important in any business environment through three interlinked courses: Business Analytics, Economics for Managers, and Financial Accounting. Students will be immersed in the language of business in ways that help them understand how business theories apply in real business settings.
CORe is custom designed by Harvard Business School professors to incorporate the active, participant-centered learning model that defines the School’s MBA and Executive Education programs. It uses real-world case studies and interactive tools to engage learners. There is even a “cold call” feature that prompts students to think “on their feet” and answer instinctively, on the spot, while other students rate their response.
How is CORe different?
- A rigorous program designed for serious and committed learners;
- Mirrors the energy found in an HBS classroom;
- Active learning and highly interactive with fellow students;
- Participant-centered and focused on solving real-world problems.
CORe will launch in June to a limited cohort of rising college juniors and seniors in Massachusetts-based colleges and universities. It will be made more broadly available in the months to follow. The inaugural group will be charged a fee of $1,500. Need-based financial aid is available.
Other HBX Courses
Later this year HBX will introduce a series of specialized courses on topics such as entrepreneurship and innovation; disruptive innovation, growth, and strategy; and the microeconomics of competitiveness. Over time, HBX expects to roll out more such courses that build on the HBS faculty’s influential research.
HBX Live
“HBX Live” will be a virtual classroom that will enable participants worldwide to interact directly with one another and a faculty member in real time in the same way they would in a campus-based HBS class. Harvard Business School has partnered with the public broadcasting company WGBH to create a state-of-the-art space that will allow virtual engagement with up to 60 participants at a time. “HBX Live” will launch in Summer 2014 and be available initially on an invitation-only basis. Its early focus will include lifelong learning opportunities for HBS alumni and enhancing the School's modular Executive Education programs
Relationship of HBX, HarvardX, and edX
HarvardX and HBX are different approaches to achieve a similar goal of re-imagining online education in creative ways. HBX is one of many efforts that support Harvard University's overarching efforts in innovative teaching and learning. HarvardX and edX are others. The X in all of these initiatives underscores the intended synergies between them— namely best practice and research.
The HBX course experiences will be delivered on custom platforms designed specifically to support the Harvard Business School teaching approach. Because HBX uses technologies that complement the edX platform (and other platforms), they will be well positioned to share best practices going forward.
HBS faculty (for example, Prof. Regina Herzlinger, “Innovating in Healthcare”) are teaching open online courses through HarvardX, using the edX platform.
HBS professor Bharat Anand, the Faculty Chair of HBX, serves on the HarvardX faculty committee.
