Online Master in International Logistics: Methodology, Design

and Implementation

Jerzy Korczak

and Marcin Pawęska

The International University of Logistics and Transport in Wrocław, 51-168 Wroclaw, ul. Sołtysowicka 19B, Poland

Keywords: e-Learning in Logistics, Master Program, e-Learning Material Design.

Abstract: The article presents conceptual ideas as well as methodological approach to development and implementation

of a fully online international Master program. Master in International Logistics is being created by nine

universities from eight different countries leveraging the strength of each partner, while assuring uniformity

of the expected outcomes. The authors in this paper focus on global features and objectives of the program

which not only offers flexibility of deployment by the project partners but guarantees rigorous requirements

of didactic process as well. The paper also describes the principles of designing the whole course, individual

classes, along with the methods of knowledge assessment. The program has been fully accredited by Chartered

Institute of Logistics and Transport. The Master courses are already deployed by the International University

of Logistics and Transport in Wrocław, Poland; they will be initially offered in 2022/2023 academic year in

a mode of online and blended learning.

1 INTRODUCTION

The use of internet technology in distance learning

processes has a long tradition. The idea of distance

education itself is even older as it began to develop

together with radio and then television technologies.

The main foundation of e-learning is both the

physical distance between a teacher and a student, and

the time shift, while ensuring free, two-way

communication among all participants of the

education process (Caballe, 2021), (Elkins, 2015),

(Horton, 2014).

The current pandemic situation of COVID-19 in

the world proves that the use of online tools for

education becomes indispensable and vital.

Nowadays, owing to the access to e-learning

management systems such as MOODLE or

communication platforms like Zoom or Microsoft

Teams, not only online distance education is feasible.

It is commonly believed that academic e-learning

pursues much broader goals than just supporting the

educational process, notably experimentation,

simulation, knowledge discovery. It is expected that

the presented Master in International Logistics

program will meet these requirements by means of

http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6441-6126

http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6728-2423

preparing students to take key managerial positions in

logistics companies, as well as in logistics support:

logistics services of manufacturers and of

distributors, and also in transport firms.

The main objectives of the paper are twofold.

Firstly, to present a development methodology of

complex e-learning programs. Secondly, to publish

information about a new online Master in

International Logistics program at the International

University of Logistics and Transport in Wrocław,

Poland, starting in 2023. The online mode is targeted

at graduates and professionals who wish to attend

fully interactive classes at any time, any place at their

convenience. Therefore, special attention has been

given to the structure, organization and interactive

content of all courses.

Logistics has become one of the areas of greatest

interest in the academic world. Each year universities

and schools offer new programs and online courses

for candidates who are interested to master skills in

supply chain management, procurement,

warehousing, transport and distribution. The leading

countries in logistics training are the USA, Western

European countries, China and Australia.

Korczak, J. and Paw˛eska, M.

Online Master in International Logistics: Methodology, Design and Implementation.

DOI: 10.5220/0011107200003182

In Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Computer Supported Education (CSEDU 2022) - Volume 1, pages 427-435

ISBN: 978-989-758-562-3; ISSN: 2184-5026

427

One of the interesting reviews was published in

the USA where top-ranking Masters in Logistics are

presented

. Among the highly ranked universities

were: Michigan State University, Georgia College,

University of Southern California, University of

Washington. Most of them offer from two to four

semesters, 100% online programs. The tuition fees

are ranged from $1,600 up to $50,000.

In Europe there are more than 100 universities

offering Master’s degrees in Logistics; most of them

in the United Kingdom and Germany

. In the United

Kingdom among the leading universities are the

University of Salford, University of Hull, University

of Birmingham. They offer also 100% online Master

programs, composed of four semesters with the

tuition fees close to those of American universities. In

Germany

, the most recognized Master of Science

programs in Logistics can be considered those of

Technical University of Munich, Khune Logistics

University, International Śchool of Management in

Dortmund, SRH Berlin University of Applied

Sciences, Dresden International University. In

general, 4 semesters programs are common, with the

tuition fees from € 2,500 to 9,500 per semester.

In Poland, Master diploma in Logistics is offered

by only a few universities, located in Gdańsk, Poznań

Katowice, and Wrocław

. The courses are offered

usually in a form of blended learning because of the

government restriction of online courses to 50% of

the program contents. The duration of the study is

from 3 to 4 semesters. Currently, to our knowledge,

no university offers 100% online internationally

oriented Master diploma in Logistics. Therefore, the

presented project can be considered as the first 100%

online Master in International Logistics, accredited

by the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport-

UK; CILT(UK). The tuition fee is largely below the

announced fees of the above cited universities. This

is an important point in searching costless studies, in

particular by candidates from developing countries.

The paper is divided into five sections. The next

section gives the goals, structure and constraints of

Master in International Logistics project. The third

section describes the methodological rules for

development and implementation of the Master in

International Logistics courses. It also enumerates all

principles of designing the whole course, individual

classes, but also the methods of remote verification of

students’ progress, including final grading

procedures. It is worth to mention that the project

https://www.bestcollegereviews.org/best-online-masters-

in-logistics-and-supply-chain-management-degrees/

https://www.educations.com/search/masters-degree-tran

sport-logistics-europe/

follows the legal, organizational and technical

requirements of higher education in Poland and the

European Union. Section 4 provides an example of

course description included in the Master of Logistics

program. Section 5 presents the design solutions

extracted from the program. The conclusion ends

with a summary which refers to the conditions of the

Master in International Logistics project realization,

and implementations at the International University

of Logistics and Transport in Wroclaw and at the

universities of the project partners.

2 THE IDEA, STRUCTURE AND

CONSTAINTS OF THE

MASTER IN INTERNATIONAL

LOGISTICS

The goal of the Master in International Logistics

project was to create new e-learning materials and tools

for online education at the Master’s level in the domain

of logistics. The lectures for students are delivered by

internationally recognized lecturers, company leaders

and practitioners. The courses are presented online,

using various educational forms namely lectures,

computer laboratories, simulation games. E-learning

materials include complete elaboration of 22 courses

of the Master level logistics programs.

The project was carried out from January 2020 till

December 2021 as part of an international

partnership. The role of the project leader is

performed by the International University of

Logistics and Transport in Wroclaw, with the

following universities as partners: Universiapolis –

Université Internationale d'Agadir (Agadir,

Morocco), National Aviation University of Ukraine

(Kiev, Ukraine), University of Economics and

Management (Prague, the Czech Republic)

University of Žilina (Žilina, Slovakia), Slovak

University of Agriculture (Nitra, Slovakia),

University of Leipzig (Leipzig, Germany), School of

Business of Belarusian State University (Minsk,

Belarus) and University of Niš (Niš, Serbia). It is

expected that the project will contribute to

strengthening the current educational and scientific

activities, and will also help to develop long-term

partnership cooperation, including undertaking tasks

relating to future joint e-learning projects.

https://www.mygermanuniversity.com/

https://www.masterstudies.com/MastersDegree/Logisti

cs/Poland/

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428

According to the Polish Qualifications

Framework, the program of Master of Logistics has

been divided into four semesters - a total of 120 ECTS

credits, with duration of 720 hours. The first three

semesters are of theoretical and professional studies,

while the last one is practical (internship and Master

thesis preparation).

It is important that the

accreditation of programs was carried out by the

Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport, UK,

which is an organization that sets logistic education

standards in the whole world, for all partners. The

accreditation requirement of the course content

focuses on the importance of the balance between

transferable workplace skills across the profession,

coupled with knowledge of specific technical areas at

the appropriate level, in the field of supply chain,

logistics and transport. The accreditation also requires

confirming that the university's faculty potential is

capable of implementing the program being

developed. According to both European and Polish

Qualifications Frameworks, the Master in

International Logistics is awarded with qualifications

on the seventh level. For this level, the universal

characteristics have been defined in the categories of

the theoretical or factual domain knowledge, mental

or cognitive skills, and social competences.

The program of Master in International Logistics

contains 22 courses and computer laboratories that

were developed and assigned to elaborate to the

project partners. The course topics, the hour load,

ECTS points and partners in charge of design are

given in Table 1.

Each course has a uniform structure and respects

a unified format of a graphical presentation. The

following general assumptions of the methodology

for designing the content of e-learning course

education were adopted::

1. The courses are entirely made using e-learning

techniques in a way that enables remote teaching

in both synchronous and asynchronous modes.

2. The duration of each course (30 or 60 hours) is

interpreted as 30 or 60 lesson units. Each lesson

unit is planned in the following way:

─ 30 minutes should be allocated to the course

content (not exceeding 0.5 Gb),

─ 15 minutes should be assigned to specific

batch of material, didactic films or

consultations.

3. From the allocated number of lesson units, 50%

i.e. 30 units (for a 60-hour course) or at least 16

units (for a 30-hour course) should be allocated to

the presentation of the new knowledge. The

remaining part should be intended for shaping the

desired new social skills and competences.

4. The knowledge presentation can have the

following forms:

─ e-lecture - it consists in recording and then

reproducing the content of education in the

form of a lecturer's videos with recordings of

his/her face and voice,

─ slide presentation - it is a slide show on the

educational platform with the possibility of

being played at a given pace, or according to

the needs of a student,

─ presentation of excerpts from textbooks,

scientific articles, monographs, etc.,

─ presentation of the results of computing

(including also animations).

5. The detailed criteria for the performance are

accepted by all partners of the project.

Table 1: Master in International Logistics – Courses.

Semester/Course

Hrs ECTS Partner

Semester 1

Foundation of Internat. Logistics

60 8 UIA, Agadir

Logistics Mgmt. and Marketing

60 8 UEM, Prague

Designing of Logistic Inf. Syst

Information Systems

30 4 UL, Leipzig

Logistics Processes

30 3 UL, Leipzig

30 3 IULT, Wrocław

Data Science in Logistics

30 4 UL, Leipzig

Semester 2

Informat. Systems and Services

60 8 UZ, Zilina

Artificial Intelligence

60 3 IULT, Wrocław

Operations Research

30 4 UIA, Agadir

Supply Chain Management

60 8 UIA, Agadir

Sustainable Logistics

30 3 NAU, Kiev

Warehouses and Distr. Systems

30 4 BSU, Minsk

Semester 3

Organ. and Mgmt of Transport

Processes

60 8 UN, Nitra

Law, Insurance. and Ethics

Logistics

60 8 UN, Nis

Organization of Product. Mgmt

Management

60 8 IULT, Wrocław

Intermodal Logistics Concepts

and GIS*

30 3 NAU, Kiev

Transport Safety*

30 3 UZ, Zilina

Applications in Logistics*

30 3 IULT, Wrocław

Negotiations*

30 3 UEM, Prague

City Communication*

30 3 NAU, Kiev

Humanitarian Logistics*

30 3 IULT, Wrocław

Aviation Logistics*

30 3 NAU, Kiev

Semester 4

Internship

30 Enterprises

Legend: *Elective courses

Online Master in International Logistics: Methodology, Design and Implementation

429

The basis component of a course is a topic.

However, a topic is related to a particular e-learning

course, but it may be also used in another e-learning

training. It may be also a part of a blended learning

course which combines online educational with

traditional place-based classroom methods. In the

next section, the rules of development and

implementation will be presented, followed in the last

section by an example of some course materials.

3 DEVELOPMENT AND

IMPLEMENTATION RULES

The realization of the project by many authors from

various international universities required the use of

uniform criteria for the implementation of the task,

i.e. developing a course in the form of an e-learning

educational package. Uniform and agreed project

activities are the basic formal criterion for developing

a new course in the form of classes conducted

remotely at the required education quality level.

Schematically, the process of the course development

is shown in Figure 1.

Step 1 starts with a course content specification

which is finally detailed in a course syllabus. It should

contain information about the course content,

objectives, topics of all lectures and laboratories,

effects of acquired knowledge and skills, assessment

rules, references and the list of lecturers. An example

of a syllabus is given in Appendix (Table 2). The

detailed course syllabus is verified by experts and a

person in charge of Master of International Logistics.

The detailed course syllabus is verified by experts and

a person in charge of Master of Logistics. Moreover,

in the project, each course syllabus was evaluated by

the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport

(CILT), UK. After a positive evaluation of the course

content, the authors could start to design a course.

Two approaches to the course development are

possible (the first one contains steps 3, 4 and 5, and

the second one - step 6). The choice of the approach

depends on the skills and technical competencies of

authors involved in designing and editing e-learning

materials. The sequence 3-4-5 is recommended for

beginners or authors without experience in authoring

interactive materials (green rectangles in Fig.1). In

this case, they should provide two documents to the

Centre of E-Learning: first, the PowerPoint slides of

lectures with exact indications of interactive parts

(.ppt file) and a specification of quizes and

interactions in the required format. Based on these

two documents, the technical staff integrates the

PowerPoint presentation with quizzes, tests and

exams. It is important that the author collaborates

with the technical staff in the process of interaction

implementation.

The next important step concerns recording

audio/video of lectures integrated with the slide

presentation. Recording is conducted in a dedicated

studio and mounted by the Centre of E-Learning

technical staff.

Figure 1: The process of course development.

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The result of these operations, a prototype of an e-

learning course is uploaded on the “development

portal” and passed to the author and then to experts to

verify and validate according to the approved syllabus

and Master of International Logistics (MIL) curricula

(steps 7-8). Once positively evaluated, the e-learning

course will be published and finally available to the

students of MIL.

The presentation of teaching materials is based on

the MS PowerPoint, using the provided template, but

designers were free to use more sophisticated editors

such iSprings, Thinkific, LearnWorlds,

uQualio,…(Bean, 2014), (Kapp, 2014). The rules for

creating presentations are strictly defined, i.e. the

minimum and maximum number of slides allowed,

the maximum length of a lecture unit, the size and

colour of the font in the main content of the slides, the

size and colour of the font in the title of the slides,

numbering of the slides or its absence, arrangement

of permanent graphics (the university logo, the

project logo, a project partner logo etc.)

(Methodological Guide, 2020) The format of the first

opening slide of presentation and the second one with

the structure of the lecture has been predefined. The

subsequent slides have only predefined settings

reduced to the header contents and the footer. The last

slide should contain a few control questions or

problems, and the list of references.

To evaluate the knowledge of students quizzes

and tests are defined. A teacher determines the

number and the time of conducting all tests in the

course, and their scores in the final grade. In general,

student knowledge should be tested after each

learning block (topic) using short tests (3 - 5

questions) or longer tests (10 - 15 questions). A large

final test (20 - 30 questions) is suggested at the end of

the course. In order to automate the assessment, it is

agreed that each test may only consist of closed

questions. To implement the questions on an e-

learning platform a few formats are available, notably

Aiken, GIFT, Blackboard, WebCT (Bean, 2014),

(Clark, 2016).

The method of assessing participants is based on

a score. The project assumes that each participant can

get a maximum score of 100 points during the course.

A teacher independently determines what activities in

the course are evaluated and how many points can be

obtained for their performance

The minimum score necessary to pass the course

is 51. Each teacher can set his/her own way of

converting points into the scale of grades used in

his/her organization. For the needs of the IULT, the

following system of converting the number of points

into assessment is proposed:

 from 92 to 100 points - very good (5.0);

 83 points to 91 points - good plus (4.5);

 from 73 points to 82 points - good (4.0);

 from 62 points to 72 points - satisfactory plus

(3.5);

 from 51 points to 61 points - satisfactory (3.0);

 50 points or below - unsatisfactory (2.0).

Exams and credits ”had defended” themselves for

a long time against using distance learning

techniques. In the general opinion of academic

teachers, only the personal participation of a teacher

and a student in the evaluation process at the same

place and time gives the guarantee of objectivity and

fairness of assessment.

On the other hand, the crisis

situation that we have been facing during the COVID-

19 pandemic, and the need to remain at home for

both students and academic teachers, have forced the

need to solve the way of conducting the diploma

exam at a distance.

4 AN EXAMPLE OF A COURSE

DESCRIPTION

To illustrate the content of a course description, a

syllabus of the course on Artificial Intelligence (AI)

is given in Table 2 (see Appendix). The objective of

this course is to present the foundations of AI to be

applied in logistics and transport. To understand the

underlying ideas many examples and case studies are

given, in particular related, knowledge representation

and reasoning, to graph and network searching and

computational intelligence. They combine in-depth

treatments of basic and advanced concepts along with

required explanations. Algorithmic issues, tools and

systems are also provided to help students gain

insight about AI perspectives.

The program of the course was divided into seven

chapters (topics). To provide a practical view of AI

and its applications in Logistics six last chapters are

complemented by computer laboratories. During

some laboratories, students are asked to install

software tools available for different platforms (

Microsoft, Apple, Linux) and/or connect through the

Internet to professional platforms and databases. The

assessment in this course is composed of four

integrated parts namely: 1) three pre-tests to

preliminarily check the student’s knowledge, 2) three

graded quizzes, 3) one assignment (a project) which

can be done in pairs, and 4) one class exam.

Online Master in International Logistics: Methodology, Design and Implementation

431

5 A DESIGN OF STUDENT

INTERACTION AND

ASSESSMENT

Quizzes and tests are an essential part for knowledge

evaluation, engagement and assessment of students in

e-learning (Clark, 2016), (Nariman, 2021). They can

be run not only before and after each training, but also

during a course. The reasons to include quizzes and

tests are multiple. One of the first ones is to keep track

of students’ progress and get information what has

been learned and what hasn’t. Quizzes enable

students to retain new information and knowledge.

They motivate and create deeper engagement of

students in e-learning. Finally, for course designers

and lecturers, they provide data to identify gaps in an

e-learning program and help to improve its content.

This section is focussed on rules and techniques

to design e-learning materials, in particular quizzes

and tests using iSpring Suite platform. In general,

there are two types of quizzes: reinforcement quizzes

and assessment quizzes. Reinforcement quizzes help

consolidate and force a review of the training

material. They are usually performed at regular

intervals (e.g. end of topic) for practice and data

collection. There are no time limits, no penalties for

wrong answers, several attempts can be allowed. On

the contrary, assessment quizzes help evaluate

students’ knowledge. In terms of constraints, one

attempt to answer is allowed, no explanation for

errors.

A popular platform to develop student

interactions within the PowerPoint presentation is

iSpring Suite, offering editing facilities for various

types of questions that can be designed. One of the

interesting but less used types of questions is a

Hotspot question. In this type of question, a student

must point out to one or more designated areas in the

image attached to the question. To implement the

question one should add the intended image where a

students will mark the correct areas (see Figure 2). An

author may also add feedback in case of a correct or

incorrect answer, and also indicate the score.

The efficacy of a quiz greatly depends on how well

the questions are formulated. If a student does not

understand the questions, he or she has little choice

but to begin answering them at random, rather than

relying on his or her knowledge. This will ruin

students chances of getting an accurate assessment.

There are a few more issues while quiz designing.

To prevent cheating in an iSpring Suite an author may

define time limits for taking a quiz and randomize the

selection of questions. If we want to conduct a

comprehensive “diagnostic” of students’ knowledge,

it is possible to set a quiz to “one attempt”. Then it

will be more difficult to guess the correct answer.

Another important issue to reinforce students:

branching. It is particularly useful to learn the

material better. The feedback, especially after a

wrong answer, is very important and has to be given

to each incorrect answer. Therefore, when students

make a mistake, they are directed to an additional info

slide. If the answer is correct, they pass to the next

part of the course.

Figure 2: Indication of the Hotspot area.

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6 CONCLUSIONS

Summing up, the project of online Master in

International Logistics has found a favourable climate

both among the University authorities, lecturers and

partners of the project. The complexity of this project

was tremendous: 800 hours of effective classes,

lectures and computer laboratories, designed by over

30 lecturers from 9 universities from 8 countries. It

has resulted in several thousand hours of recordings

teaching materials, and finally many hours devoted to

making the entire program available on the e-learning

platform. A large part of the courses is already

positively evaluated, and some of them will be

initially offered in 2022/2023 in a mode of blended

learning at the International University of Logistics

and Transport in Wrocław, Poland. According to the

schedule, the project will be terminated in December

2021, so the project partners could offer the Master in

International Logistics program in 2022.

The high level of education and the attractiveness

of the program have been assured by:

 designing a modern and compacted curriculum

of the Master of International Logistics with a

teaching load limited to four major courses per

semester,

 including a large number of practical case

studies in supply chain management,

warehousing, logistics technology, distribution

and transport,

 integrating the advanced Information

Technology, computer networks, the Internet of

Things and artificial intelligence with the

lecturing materials,

 respecting the National and European

Framework of Qualifications and CILT

accreditation criteria to stimulate and guarantee

the educational and professional outcomes

resulting from different subjects.

Two years to design and fully deploy such a

complex e-learning program is obviously not enough.

Ahead of us there is still enormous time-consuming

testing and evaluation of the program

implementation. Among the urgent tasks, we are

going to continue work on increasing the interactivity

of lectures, extending the use of multimedia

technology and modularity of the program contents to

adjust the offer to the profile of future candidates.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

This research was partially supported by the National

Agency for Academic Exchange (Narodowa Agencja

Wymiany Akademickiej, NAWA), Poland, project

number PPI/APM/2019/00087. The authors grate-

fully acknowledge the team of the Centre of E-

Learning of the International University of Logistics

and Transport in Wrocław for their support in

implementation of e-learning courses and case

studies.

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APPENDIX

Table 2: Syllabus of the course “Artificial Intelligence”.

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Table 2: Syllabus of the course “Artificial Intelligence” (cont.).

Online Master in International Logistics: Methodology, Design and Implementation

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