These are tough decisions.


The trendy apparel-store chain you work for has fought hard to secure a lucrative relationship with a popular recording artist, and the exclusive line of clothing that bears his name is sure to be a hit with young consumers, driving much-needed profits back to the chain. But there are issues: Critics say the high cost of the lines leather trench coat will trigger a crime wave similar to one in which kids were beaten up for their hip tennis shoes, while others say his lyrics are offensive and dangerous to society.


Do you cave to public pressure and sell the coat for less, or even sever the relationship with the singer? Are there other options? Its your call.


Its also a simulationone of many included in the highly computer-based curriculum of the University of Phoenix, which has a Spokane campus and serves more than 200,000 students at 150 centers nationally.


Most colleges and universities today offer significant computerized resources to students, but because of the way the University of Phoenix provides instructionsometimes completely online and often with limited classroom timeit invests heavily in educational technologies.


Weve moved from a textbook environment to an online resource, says Paul Green, director of the Spokane campus, which opened here in 2003 and now is having a new building constructed for it in Spokane Valley.


The universitys extensive Web site allows students to do much of their required reading and research online, talk with instructors and classmates electronically, do exercises online, and turn in papers and other homework via the Web, among many other functions.


The universitys online library has more than 20 million full-text articles from 14,000 journals, records on 10,000 public companies, and the full texts of 750 books and 600,000 dissertations, as well as online versions of encyclopedias and dictionaries and access to vast research databases.


When students log in to their personal areas within the site, they can view the entire contents of their past and current courses, as well as future ones planned for them under their specific degree programs. Each courses content is displayed on screen like a very detailed, week-by-week syllabus that includes links to required readings, as well as assignments, discussion points to be covered by class members via e-mail or chat room, electronic versions of handouts, and links to various required simulations.


Like the marketing ethics scenario described earlier, the universitys online simulations ask students to make decisions based on information provided to them in the simulation and on the knowledge theyve gained through reading assignments and group electronic discussions. Each simulation has several pages of background information on a potential problem, often includes software that analyzes the potential effects of a students decisions, and walks students through a discussion of their decisions.


For example, a process control and capacity planning simulation asks students to optimize the efficiency and profitability of a hypothetical pizza parlor. It provides background such as customer volume, buying habits, and the time customers have to wait for service, as well as industry norms. Students then key into the simulation changes they would make in the operation, such as how many wait staff and kitchen workers to have on duty at once, and what mix of two-person and four-person guest tables the restaurant should have set up, among other things.


Based on the costs associated with the changes the student inputs, and the wait times customers typically would endure, the simulation returns predictions about the expected utilization of the restaurants resources, anticipated profits, and potential lost sales. It then discusses the pros and cons of the students decisions, before moving on to the next challengedeciding what kind of ovens should be used.


When you work these simulations, you really have to think through whats happening, Green says.


Applying knowledge


Another part of the schools Web site has a portal to internal Web sites of a group of fictitious organizations, including businesses, schools, health-care institutions, and government agencies. Each of those sites includes extensive information about the organizations operations and finances, presented in the form of an in-house intranet site, and students often are asked to find problems within those organizations and draw up plans for correcting the problems, Green says.


One computer-information student, for instance, found that a faux businesss marketing department had no way of tracking its customers and devised a plan for implementing a system that would fit the businesss needs.


The system also has an area dedicated to helping students write better, Green says. That site includes tools that will check student papers for grammar and spelling, as well as plagiarism. Students also can transmit their papers to a University of Phoenix tutorial team that will provide suggested changes and feedback within 48 hours, he says.


We try to make each course a writing course, so when they come out, they are great writers, great communicators, he says.


The overall site also includes tutorials in such subjects as math, with the intent of giving students a refresher on concepts they havent seen in a while, as well as more intensive training modules similar to those an employer might offer to workers for continuing professional development.


The site also allows students to register for classes, check their grades, pay their tuition, and perform a number of other more conventional student-services type functions.


Also, students can continue to use the site following graduation, and even can refer back to content they had seen while in school.


The University of Phoenix uses three different teaching methods throughout its system: a traditional classroom setting, a completely online course offering, and a hybrid of the two called FlexNet. With FlexNet, students meet together with an instructor and their classmates during the first and last weeks of their five-to-six-week course, and learn online in the weeks between.


Green says having such a bent toward online learning is one reason the school must invest heavily in educational technologies, but the other reason is that it makes financial sense because the materials can be shared electronically throughout the far-flung system.


Its cost-effective for us and its extremely cost-effective for students, who otherwise would be spending upwards of $150 per class for textbooks, Green says.


The school uses the FlexNet method in Spokane, where the 2-year-old campus serves more than 200 students and employs 14 staff members and about 40 adjunct faculty. The Spokane learning center currently is located in the Rock Pointe Corporate Center, but a new structure is being built for it at 8775 E. Mission.


That 12,000-square-foot building is expected to be ready for occupancy in April, says Green. It will include seven classrooms, study and computer labs, and more space for its growing staff and faculty, he says.


In terms of technology, the building will include computers that students can use while there, as well as high-speed wireless Internet throughout the building for students who bring their own laptop computers to class.


So far, the Spokane campus offers bachelors degrees in business administration and information technology and a masters degree in business administration. Nationally, the university offers a host of baccalaureate and graduate programs in business, information technology, education, social and behavioral sciences, and health sciences. Its students are considered nontraditional students and have an average age of 34.


The school was founded in 1976, and is a subsidiary of Apollo Group Inc., a Phoenix-based publicly traded company that also owns three other educational institutions. It is not affiliated with Apollo College.