Online program managers (OPMs) are third-party companies that work with colleges and universities to develop, launch, and deliver online learning. Despite the prevalence of these companies in higher education, cost details are often buried or asserted with legal protections as trade secrets or business models unavailable for public review.3…

Based on a review of 48 online program manager (OPM) contracts and 44 chief online learning officer (COLO) interviews, this policy brief highlights potentially problematic contract provisions between colleges and OPMs, raising concerns about their effects on federal compliance, students' learning, and openness about government contracting.…

Between 2003 and 2016, the percentage of undergraduates taking at least one course online nearly tripled, increasing from 15.6 to 43.1. Initially, that enrollment was concentrated in the proprietary, or for-profit, higher education sector. In response, and to make up for declining numbers of "traditional" college students and the…

An organization's ability to accomplish its mission is often contingent upon its collective capacity to execute projects and/or initiatives in a timely and organized manner. Project management has a critical role in the delivery of projects within designated timelines, budgets, and defined quality. Duke University, in its entirety, comprises both…

Getting it Right from the Start (GIRFTS) is a research study that aims to implement a response to intervention (RTI) framework in early primary school (Foundation and Grade 1) to improve oral language and reading. RTI is a multi-tiered conceptual framework that supports student learning through delivery of high-quality classroom instruction, early…

White-label programs in higher education, designed and supported by online program management (OPM) firms, pose unique challenges to current policy. In part this is because OPM firms and services are either exempt from policy or fall into a gray area that policy has not yet considered. Policymakers, however, do not need to develop entirely new…

The Maine Department of Education (MDOE) leveraged the U.S. Department of Education's Rethink K-12 Education Models grant to provide significant funding to districts to support innovative solutions to persistent problems of practice--particularly those heightened by the pandemic. MDOE's grant began in fall 2020. It prioritized innovations focused…

The University of Louisville guided the development of community engagement plans by its academic and administrative units to strengthen their ability to assess and improve their partnership, outreach, and engaged scholarship with community partners. Using a common template, each unit developed a process for engaging with the community, building…

The Professional Project Administrator Program (PPA) is an employment-focused online program offered in partnership with Indigenous communities in Western Canada. Based on the findings from the research conducted after the program completion, we discuss two key components that contributed to a meaningful learning experience and to the success of…

This case study describes a collaborative process by various teaching and distance support units to create and run a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) in the subject of Leadership. Whereas typical collaboration arrangements in the literature involve partnerships of various teaching and support units, the collaboration of course developer,…

Clemson University Cooperative Extension Service has developed and is implementing a statewide population health management model aimed at leveraging key partnerships in South Carolina. The model delineates roles of key partners needed to operationalize statewide initiatives and drive the delivery of health extension in the state. Clemson…

One goal of the NIH SEPA (Science Education Partnership Awards) program is to create partnerships among biomedical researchers, teachers and schools. The MSOE Center for BioMolecular Modeling (CBM) has leveraged the support from a series of SEPA awards to create a multifaceted outreach program that connects biomolecular researchers and their…

Librarians are excellent research collaborators, although librarian participation is not usually considered, thereby making access to research funds difficult. The University of Michigan Library became involved in the university's novel funding program, MCubed, which supported innovative interdisciplinary research on campus, primarily by funding…

The community engagement professional (CEP) plays a critical role in engaging faculty, staff, and students with communities. In order to do this in the most effective way, this essay advocates for CEPs to become familiar with the Cooperative Extension system and develop competency for engaging Extension personnel, even when those personnel are not…

This chapter describes a framework to guide collaboration between institutional research and other campus offices. Three examples are then provided to illustrate how the framework was applied successfully to actual projects.