Internet Learning Volume 3, Number 2, Fall 2014 | Page 22

Internet Learning Volume 3 Number 2 - Fall 2014
Positioning for Success in the Higher Education Online
Learning Environment
Jeffrey McCafferty
As colleges and universities explore how to approach online learning in a manner
appropriate for their own specific objectives, they face an evolving environment
shaped by a variety of demographic, technological, economic, and competitive
factors that add opportunity, uncertainty, and complexity. This paper
examines many of those factors and what institutions interested in developing
and expanding their online learning can do and are doing to be successful,
however they define success, in this environment. Analysis of the current online
learning and higher education markets is provided as well as recommended
questions that institutions should address when forming their online strategy.
Keywords: online learning, business models in online learning, online market
environment, higher education, engaging and effective, branding, differentiation,
value, global, student support
Introduction
The current online learning market
is in a transformational period.
Against the backdrop of increasing
innovation in content design, delivery, and
support has emerged a diverse array of traditional
and non-traditional educational
institutions and companies seeking to meet
demand. These organizations are engaging
in a higher education market defined by expanding
acceptance of online learning and
growing competition for credentialed and
non-credentialed learning shaped in part by
high-profile activities that have been long in
the making such as Massive Open Online
Courses known commonly as MOOCs (AL-
ISON in 2007), Open Educational Resources
(OERs) (MIT OpenCourseWare in 2001),
and Competency-Based Education (CBE)
(1970s).
For colleges and universities trying
to navigate in this environment, the range
of engagement in online learning is often
defined by how an institution is positioned
on the higher education landscape. It is also
a function of what an institution considers
the primary reasons for developing online
courses and programs, some of which are
learning-driven, some operations-driven,
and some market-driven (see Figure 1 below).
Learning-driven
• Providing educators with and training
them on a variety of tools and approaches
to present course material more effectively
to enhance student learning.
• Using technology to enable faculty members
to better meet the unique needs of
individual learners.
• Creating real-time interventions where
the student can quickly obtain necessary
help and the instructor can readily track
student progress more closely, which can
benefit all students, particularly those
requiring remediation.
• Implementing OERs into the classroom
to both “flip” the classroom and to lower
the cost of education to students.
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