Process I

©2018 Class Notes Jan vom Brocke Peyman Badakhshan, All rights reserved.www.bptrends.com | 1

CLASS NOTES: Jan Vom Brocke

October 2, 2018

Where to Study Business Process Management

– An update based on the EDUglopedia.org

platform

Jan vom Brocke, Peyman Badakhshan

Abstract

This note provides statistical updates to a previous note, “Class Notes: Where to

Study Business Process Management - A global perspective based on EDUglopedia.org,” published in BPTrends (vom Brocke, 2017). This note investigates the

current status of business process management (BPM) education and lists where to

find BPM study programs, courses, and resources. After updating the statistical

results from the previous note and retrieving new data on May 7, 2018, we list the

BPM programs, courses, resources, and institutions that provide the BPM-related

content that can be found on the EDUglopedia.org platform. We also show updated

statistics and some of the resources in more detail. We find 323 such assets, an

impressive number of BPM educational resources, although we know that more

resources are still to be added to the EDUglopedia.org platform. The dynamic

development of the BPM field makes clear the need to continue to develop BPM-

related educational material, which we encourage all our colleagues to do.

Introduction

BPM is a matured discipline (vom Brocke et al., 2014a) that has been defined and

explained by many researchers. For instance, it is described comprehensively in

textbooks (e.g., Dumas et al., 2013) and handbooks (e.g., vom Brocke and

Rosemann, 2015). In addition, resources that demonstrate the role of BPM in its

various dimensions and illustrate its application in practice include references to the

contribution of BPM in driving digital innovation (vom Brocke and Schmiedel, 2015)

and the recently published book, Business Process Management Cases, which shows

the role of BPM in enabling digital innovation and business transformation in practice

(vom Brocke and Mendling, 2018).

©2018 Jan von Brocke Peyman Badakhshan , All rights reserved. www.bptrends.com | 2

The literature and practice have both demonstrated the role of BPM in the success of

business processes (Thompson, Seymour, and O’Donovan, 2009). BPM is an

important field for experts in both practice and academia, so it is necessary to pay

attention to the availability of BPM education and training. For this purpose, this note

updates the statistics presented in vom Brocke (2017) based on the EDUglopedia.org

platform. Preparation for this note began with a keyword search on May 7, 2018, for

“Business Process Management,” “BPM,” “Process Management,” and “Business

Process” on EDUglopedia.org, which provides a list of BPM education resources that

are available for teaching the BPM discipline.

BPM Programs

We found sixty-two BPM-related programs on EDUglopedia, 68 percent of which are

offered by European countries, while North America offers 11 percent of these

programs, and Australia and Oceania offer 10 percent programs (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Number of BPM programs based on region

In more detail, the highest number of programs are in Germany, which offers

fourteen programs, followed by the US, which offers seven programs, and Australia

with five programs. Figure 2 shows the top ten countries in terms of the number of

BPM educational programs offered.

Figure 2. Top 10 Countries in terms of the number of BPM programs

©2018 Jan von Brocke Peyman Badakhshan , All rights reserved. www.bptrends.com | 3

According to vom Brocke (2017), “Certain ‘spikes’ in BPM education occur where

there is a comparatively high density of BPM education programs (number of BPM

programs per country/population per country).” These “spikes” remained as in the

previous note, including in smaller countries, such as Liechtenstein, Estonia,

Slovenia, and the Netherlands.

Figure 3 summarizes the levels of programs (bachelor’s, master’s, Ph.D.) based on

region. For instance, 33 percent of the BPM programs in Europe provide education at

the bachelor’s level, 60 percent at the master’s level, and 7 percent at the Ph.D.

level. Figure 4, which summarizes the levels of study programs overall, shows that

34 percent of BPM programs are at the bachelor’s level, 50 percent are at the

master’s level, and 6 percent are at the Ph.D. level.

Figure 3. % of BPM programs in terms of study levels by region

Figure 4. Overall % of BPM programs in terms of study level

Figure 5 summarizes the program schedules (i.e., full-time, part-time, and mixed)

by region. For instance, 67 percent of the programs in Europe are scheduled as full-

time, while 23 percent of the programs in North America are full-time, and 50

©2018 Jan von Brocke Peyman Badakhshan , All rights reserved. www.bptrends.com | 4

percent of those in Asia are full-time. Figure 6 summarizes the program schedules

overall, showing that 63 percent of all programs are scheduled as full-time, while 27

percent of them are scheduled as part-time.

Figure 5. % of BPM program schedules by region

Figure 6. Overall % of BPM programs by schedule

The distribution of BPM programs can also be described based on the languages in

which they are offered. Figure 7 shows the top five languages in which BPM

programs are offered. The database allows to filter the search among programs

according to their language. For instance, English-language programs are offered by

institutions in North America (e.g., the University of Georgia and Stevens Institute of

Technology), Europe (e.g., The University of Liechtenstein and Vienna University of

Economics and Business), and Australia and Oceania (e.g., The Queensland

University of Technology and the University of Sydney).

©2018 Jan von Brocke Peyman Badakhshan , All rights reserved. www.bptrends.com | 5

Figure7. Top five languages for BPM programs

BPM Resources

The various types of BPM-related resources, such as books, Massive Open Online

Courses (MOOCs), and slides, were introduced in vom Brocke (2017). The number of

current BPM-related resources is reported in Figure 8 based on the keywords

“Business Process Management” (51 resources), “Business Process” (61 resources),

“Process Management” (86 resources), and “Process” (51 resources).

Figure 8. BPM-related resources based on keywords

©2018 Jan von Brocke Peyman Badakhshan , All rights reserved. www.bptrends.com | 6

Examples of BPM resources based on type include:

BPM Books

iBPMS: Intelligent BPM Systems (https://eduglopedia.org/ibpms-intelligent-bpm-

systems-book)

Fundamentals of Business Intelligence (https://eduglopedia.org/fundamentals-of-

business-intelligence-book)

Managing Enterprise Information (https://eduglopedia.org/managing-enterprise-

information-book)

BPM Teaching Cases:

“The NESTT – Rapid process redesign at Queensland University of

Technology” (https://eduglopedia.org/the-nestt-rapid-process-redesign-at-

queensland-university-of-technology-teaching-case)

“Business process modeling of a quality system in a petroleum industry

company” (https://eduglopedia.org/business-process-modeling-of-quality-

system-in-a-petroleum-industry-company-teaching-case)

“Supporting process implementation with the help of tangible process

models” (https://eduglopedia.org/supporting-process-implementation-with-

the-help-of-tangible-process-models-teaching-case)

“Exploring the influence of organizational culture on BPM success – The

experience of the PERNAMBUCO court accounts”

(https://eduglopedia.org/exploring-the-influence-of-organizational-culture-

on-bpm-success-the-experience-of-the-pernambuco-court-of-accounts-

teaching-case)

BPM MOOCs:

“Fundamentals of Business Process Management”

(https://eduglopedia.org/fundamentals-of-business-process-management-mooc)

“Process Mining: Data science in action” (https://eduglopedia.org/process-

mining-data-science-in-action-mooc).

Figure 9 provides an example of a MOOC registered in EDUglopedia.org.

According to vom Brocke (2017), sharing does not require the resource to be

uploaded; instead, links to the original sources (e.g., the MOOC or a book) can be

placed. The usual terms apply to accessing the resource (e.g., access to digital

libraries or online shops), and each resource shared is given a unique identifier, the

EDUglopedia ID (EID). Further, a time stamp and a reference to the member who

shared the resource is provided, as is a recommended citation for using the

resource. Such mechanisms support intellectual rights and create a culture of

recognizing the contributions of others.

©2018 Jan von Brocke Peyman Badakhshan , All rights reserved. www.bptrends.com | 7

Figure 9. Example of a MOOC registered in EDUglopedia.org as a resource

Reflections on the current status of BPM Education

This note uses the EDUglopedia.org platform to characterize the BPM educational

sphere. Assets include 62 programs, 38 institutions, 87 resources, and 136 courses

related to BPM. Since the publication of the previous note (vom Brocke, 2017), new

assets found on the EDUglopedia platform include new institutions, such as Ghent

University and Moscow’s Higher School of Economics.

Universities’ and institutions’ approaches to BPM vary. In some universities, such as

the University of Liechtenstein and Queensland University of Technology, BPM is

considered a program in itself. In others, such as the University of Ljubljana, the

University of Tartu, Eindhoven University of Technology, Portugal’s University of

©2018 Jan von Brocke Peyman Badakhshan , All rights reserved. www.bptrends.com | 8

Minho, and Moscow’s National Research University Higher School of Economics, BPM

is considered a compulsory course or lecture within other programs, including

Business Informatics, Information Systems, Computer Engineering, and Computer

Science. In some universities, such as Stevens Institute of Technology, the

University of Groningen, and the University of Bremen, BPM is considered an optional

course within various programs.

BPM requires a broad set of skills that range from technical to managerial (Müller et

al., 2016; Weske et al., 2018). In an earlier note, we pointed to the importance of

developing the field to emphasize more explorative skills to support innovation

processes in organizations and digital innovation and transformation in particular

(vom Brocke, Seidel, and Tumbas, 2015). Most of the contributions are still

predominantly focused on exploitative BPM, which should not be surprising since few

extant methods and tools support explorative BPM. In order to bring some examples

from studies that worked on explorative BPM, we can point to Kerpedzhiev, König,

Röglinger, and Rosemann (2017) presented results from a Delphi Study on

capabilities that are supportive of digital innovation, and in the Business Process

Management Cases Book (vom Brocke and Mendling, 2018), seven of thirty-one

cases focus on exploration through BPM, and one focuses on both exploration and

exploitation. We hope to see more contributions to exploration in the future.

This note uses the EDUglopedia.org platform to derive information on the current

status of BPM education around the world. Clearly, more BPM educational resources

are yet to be registered and presented to the wider educational community, but the

platform also contains a plethora of educational assets that contribute to the BPM

body of knowledge, even though they not labeled BPM. These educational assets

include those related to supply chain management, customer relationship

management, digital innovation and transformation, the internet of things, and data

science, to name a few. It would be useful to see how these assets relate to and

contribute to BPM.

References

vom Brocke, J. (2017) Class Notes: Where to Study Business Process Management? - A Global

Perspective Based on EDUglopedia.org. BPTrends, 2017.

vom Brocke, J., Schmiedel, T., Recker, J. C., Trkman, P., Mertens, W., & Viaene, S. (2014a).

Class Notes: 10 Principles of Good BPM. BPTrends, 12(10), 1–12. Retrieved from

http://www.bptrends.com/10-principles-of-good-bpm/

Dumas, M., La Rosa, M., Mendling, J., and Reijers, A. H. (2013). Fundamentals of Business

Process Management: Springer.

vom Brocke, J., and Rosemann, M. (Eds.). (2015). Handbook on Business Process

Management 1 - Introduction, Methods, and Information Systems. International: Springer.

vom Brocke, J., & Mendling, J. (2018). Business process management cases. Digital innovation

and business transformation in practice. Cham, Switzerland: Springer (Management for

Professionals). Online verfügbar unter http://www. springer.com.

©2018 Jan von Brocke Peyman Badakhshan , All rights reserved. www.bptrends.com | 9

Thompson, G., Seymour, L. F., & O’Donovan, B. (2009). Towards a BPM success model: An

analysis in South African financial services organisations. In Enterprise, business-process and

information systems modeling (pp. 1-13). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

vom Brocke, J., Schmiedel, T., Recker, J., Trkman, P., Mertens, W., and Viaene, S. (2014b).

Ten Principles of Good Business Process Management. Business Process Management Journal,

20(4), 530-548.

Rosemann, M., & vom Brocke, J. (ed.) 2015. The six core elements of business process

management. In Handbook on Business Process Management 1: Springer Berlin Heidelberg.

Müller, O., Schmiedel, T., Gorbacheva, E., & Vom Brocke, J. (2016). Towards a typology of

business process management professionals: identifying patterns of competences through

latent semantic analysis. Enterprise Information Systems, 10(1), 50-80.

Weske, M., Montali, M., Weber, I., & vom Brocke, J. (2018, September). BPM: Foundations,

Engineering, Management. In International Conference on Business Process Management (pp.

3-11). Springer, Cham.

vom Brocke, J., Seidel, S., & Tumbas, S. (2015). The BPM curriculum revisited. BPTrends

(April 2015).

Kerpedzhiev, G., König, U., Röglinger, M., & Rosemann, M. (2017). Business Process

Management in the Digital Age, BPTrends. BPM Analysis, Opinion and Insight.

Authors

Jan vom Brocke

Jan vom Brocke is head of the BPM group in Liechtenstein. He is Professor of

Information Systems, the Hilti Endowed Chair of Business Process Management, and

Director of the Institute of Information Systems. He is Founder of the award-winning

Master Program in Information Systems with Majors in BPM and Data Science and

Director of the PhD Program in Information and Process Management at the

University of Liechtenstein (see: www.uni.li/mis). Jan has BPM teaching experience

from 24 universities including many of the FT 50 top Business Schools such as the

University of St.Gallen in Switzerland and the Smurfit School of Business at

University College Dublin in Ireland, and he has been awarded e.g. the AIS

Innovation in Teaching Award (2015) and the AIS Outstanding Contribution to

Information Systems Education Award (2017). Jan has published 34 books, including

the BPM Handbook (with Michael Rosemann) and BPM Cases – Digital Innovation and

Business Transformation in Practice (with Jan Mendling), and he is author of over

400 papers in, among others MIS Quarterly (MISQ), the Journal of Management

Information Systems (JMIS), Communications of the ACM (CACM), and MIT Sloan

Management Review (MIT SMR). Jan is an invited speaker and trusted advisor on

BPM serving many organizations around the world, and he can be contacted via his

website: janvombrocke.com.

©2018 Jan von Brocke Peyman Badakhshan , All rights reserved. www.bptrends.com | 10

Peyman Badakhshan

Peyman Badakhshan is Research Assistant and PhD Candidate at the Institute of

Information Systems, the Hilti Chair of Business Process Management at the

University of Liechtenstein in the Business Economics program. He holds a Master

degree in Information Systems from the University of Liechtenstein and a Master

degree in Industrial Engineering from the University of Tehran. He is a program

committee member and reviewer of BPM international conference within the

management track. You can contact Peyman via mail at peyman.badakhshan@uni.li.