The Eduventures Online Higher Education Learning Collaborative (OHE-LC), of which I participate in, is a member-based research consortium designed to help universities and colleges grow their online enrollments, develop strategies for online higher education, and make their online operations more efficient and effective. Eduventure’s new study, to be released in October, will provide unprecedented benchmarking data about operational issues and processes that affect online degree and certificate programs, including program marketing, curriculum and program development, academic and student support services, faculty training and development, IT support services, and enrollment management.
What will this mean to the online student or prospective student considering online educational options? It will be the first report of its kind that will hopefully analyze operational data, provide concrete evaluations of best practices, and allow students to evaluate online schools that have implemented these best practices.
For those of us in this space, maybe it will jump start a move toward — what I have been advocating as this space becomes more competitive – ”enhancing the online student’s experience.” I really think that the foundation to all of this is very simple but, at times, hard for those in academic circles to comprehend. That is, “IF YOU CAN’T MEASURE IT, DON’T DO IT.” It is tempting to add these ancillary programs with hopes of improving retention, experience, and enrollments or just keeping up with what other schools are doing. But if we are not committed to measuring the effectiveness of these programs, we shouldn’t do them - period.