There is an ongoing debate in higher education when it comes to outsourcing: which services and capabilities are appropriate to trust to a third party, and which are not? This session explores the benefits and challenges associated with building capacity in online learning expertise, and features data, anecdotes and best practices.
How do academic leaders determine which programs, services and capabilities to outsource and which to develop and manage internally. Typically, outsourcing instruction and core academic functions such as advising are taboo, while administrative and operational activities, like payment processing, food services, facilities, and the bookstore, are deemed less sensitive. The conventional wisdom is that outsourcing is a good option to reduce costs, bridge resource gaps, and reinforce a focus on your own organization’s comparative advantages.
However, the ambitions and aspirations many institutions have around online learning often blur those distinctions. As online learning has entered the mainstream, many schools feel pressure to catch up with earlier entrants. Between the know-how needed to design, build, and launch successful online programs and the pressures of an intensifying competitive landscape, many colleges and universities are having difficulty determining how to prioritize internal resources, and where online learning fits into their institutional standards and mission.
Many third-party solutions address the need to provide operational, marketing, instructional design, and student support services to bring online programs to the market quickly. They generally succeed in this near-term goal, but ultimately they only exacerbate the larger challenge facing colleges and universities: how to build the capacity to deliver engaging, high-quality, effective, and financially sustainable online programs.
The reality is that online learning is becoming a core competency for most institutions. Even if face-to-face delivery continues to dominate the students’ experiences, technology-enabled learning opportunities are almost certainly a growing part of your portfolio. Whether as a way to support experiential learning, engage with students away from campus, gather and analyze student success data, orient and prepare students before they matriculate, connect with and provide value to alumni, or serve learners from audiences and populations you haven’t previously, technology-enabled delivery of educational experiences and support services will be critical to your ability as an institution to attract and support students, fulfill your mission, and remain financially sustainable.
The decision to rely on external resources to provide the capabilities essential to build and operate online programs may help you get to market more quickly and at greater scale. But, if it requires a long-term commitment and a hefty revenue share, the drawbacks over the medium and long term are considerable. When you work with an online enablement company that takes a share of your online revenue, it’s typically for a period of seven or more years, limiting your institution’s flexibility to capture and reallocate any efficiency and revenue gains to reduce tuition costs. Likewise, by outsourcing the delivery of any academic program, you lose touch with many key drivers of quality online and constrain your ability to differentiate your student experience in an authentic way that is true to your institutional mission and brand, ultimately putting you at a disadvantage to react and adjust to an increasingly competitive market.
These trade-offs will only become more detrimental to your institution’s success over time. And perhaps the most fundamental drawback of outsourcing is that it prevents your institution from building the organizational talent, managerial strengths, strategic experience, governance structures, recruitment know-how, processes and procedures, and operational infrastructure that will enable your institution to improve its online programs continuously, sustain and grow them financially, adjust to new trends and competitors, experiment with new models, and remain distinct and relevant to the market. Any new endeavor, especially one as multifaceted and transformational as online learning, will require an infusion of expertise and resources to get started. If fully outsourced, however, that knowledge never gets woven into the fabric of your institution and you’re left little capability to build on your initial success. Unless your institution is facing a near-term existential crisis, mortgaging your future in this way is shortsighted and success will be short-lived.
How do institutions strike the right balance? How do you decide how much of a premium to put on these capabilities? What kind of expertise should be developed internally and at what stage? What are the most common obstacles faced when building online learning capacity internally? This session will address these questions and more, and share data, anecdotes and best practices.