About Michael

Mike leads Acxiom’s efforts in the Higher Education industry, focusing on how corporate solutions can provide value in a variety of higher education markets such as identity verification. Prior to managing Higher Education, he managed Acxiom and D&B’s sales and marketing relationship for business to business marketers.  

Before joining Acxiom in 2005, Mike was a senior solutions consulting manager for Siebel. He was responsible for CRM solution business cases, solution design and architecture, and customer satisfaction.  

Mike has a bachelor’s degree from Marquette University in Milwaukee. He lives in Chicago and volunteers for Junior Achievement.

About Acxiom

The global leader in interactive marketing services, Acxiom connects clients with their customers through deep consumer insight, powering effective and profitable marketing initiatives and business decisions. Our consultative approach spans multiple industries and incorporates decades of experience in consumer data and analytics, information technology, data integration and consulting solutions for effective marketing across digital, Internet, email, mobile and direct mail channels. Founded in 1969, Acxiom is headquartered in Little Rock, Ark., and serves clients around the world from locations in the United States, Europe and Asia-Pacific. For more information about Acxiom, visit www.acxiom.com.

Here's the Highlights of what Mike and Craig talked about

Why is distance education getting so much attention these days?

• 4 to 8 million online students a year now.
• Kids learn with iPods. Tech revolution in retail, credit, banking just now being experienced and understood in higher and k-12 education.
• Nothing done w/o computer, network and internet Discuss DL growth and comparisons to online retail and online banking.
• New focus comes regulations.
• New official definition of distance education from DOE.
• 50 states have 50 definitions

If Distance Education about being "Distance" or delivered over the internet, why do so many schools force a student to show up face to face for an exam?

• There are identity concerns in distance education Proctors serve a purpose, but it’s inconsistent with the value proposition of distance learning
• Single mother who wants to complete a degree online … forced to find child care, time off work, just to show a picture id to a proctor 50 miles away in the hours they are open.
• This adds up in the costs of higher education Like online retail not being allowed to return product at the local mall…it’s inconsistent so students / consumers, the buyer, forces change in a competitive education market.
• Discuss travel costs, test center costs, process flow, and “distance” learning
• Web proctoring now starting to come onboard. Took great ideas from various industries to make a solution

The internet is based on anonymity yet we now rely on it for taxes, credit, insurance, retail, banking and online learning. How does online identity work?

• Discuss random challenge questions…random when, where, who, what
• Discuss shared secrets vs. Acxiom challenge questions Asset protection to prevent identity theft vs. asset access  - share a password to get a good grade.
• We ensure academic integrity by helping faculty know who is taking their online exam.

Seems that a User id and password would work? why not rely on this commonly used method?

• Discuss online banking: when do people share credentials to protect them selves
• Online learning, people share passwords/keyboards