Go to biz school via modem - online education - Internet/Web/Online Service Information

Home Office Computing, Oct, 1997 by Matt Lake

But while it's hard to fault the massive resources that @Brint collects, they are, academically speaking, recommended reading and not an education by themselves. They are wide-ranging and handy, but they are more like a visit to a library than a stint in the classroom.

The Virtual University The Altos Education Network is a different case altogether. An entirely Web-based teaching facility, Altos (www.altosnet.com) provides self-paced courses in subjects as diverse as raising capital, avoiding sexual harassment claims, the basics of finance, starting a business, and franchising. Moderately priced (between $50 and $300) compared to formal university courses, Altos's offerings have one thing I hadn't found anywhere else on the Web -- a completely free course on entrepreneurship.

Entrepreneurship A-to-Z consists mainly of a lecture notes-style outline, but it also provides links to well-rounded articles on key topics and interactive questionnaires designed to see how your personality matches entrepreneurial styles. (Was I nervous about learning about myself through HTML? Sure... but I discovered, through taking the questionnaire, that I'm a risk-taker.)

To dig into the subject further, Altos's Entrepreneur Support Group meets in a posting forum every Tuesday between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. Pacific time. After registering at the site, I brought my questions, answers, and other issues to the forum. Like any public forum, I found it to be a mixed bag of interesting and irrelevant information -- but that's no different from any classroom (except for the online class's higher proportion of interesting material, that is).

The best news of all, Entrepreneurship A-to-Z had no homework assignments. Naturally, the fee-based courses have a homework component, but I hadn't committed to one of them yet.

Face-to-Face One thing I've discovered by being in business for myself (and from Altos's entrepreneurship course) is the importance of personal contact. So maybe, I argued, it would be better to find a training course or seminar that I could attend in person. As expected, there's a Web site dedicated to finding just such courses -- the Training and Seminar Locators, or TASL (www. tasl.com).

I picked keywords from my areas of ignorance and pumped them into TASL's search form. Among the videotapes and stand-up lectures in hotel conference rooms were several references to computer-based training. These included a reference to Altos Education Network. Ever get the impression the Internet is trying to tell you something?