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The pandemic has challenged higher education institutions to move their courses online quickly. The varied status of each school prohibits a one-size-fits-all prescription for how to move forward. Extension Engine has created an Online Learning Response Team (OLRT) to work with schools with varying needs to define (and help execute) an efficient, holistic, adaptable approach to getting online. In this article, I describe our approach, highlight our work with two vastly different schools, and then provide a quick description of next steps to determine if this would work for you.

Schools are preparing to launch the Fall 2020 semester under a cloud of uncertainty over further COVID-related school closures. 13% of US higher ed institutions have announced that they will either be fully online (6%) or have proposed various hybrid models (7%). Students suffered through the hastily cobbled-together Zoom lectures when schools first closed but they will not want to continue college if the Fall semester was a repeat of the remote learning model of the second half of the Spring 2020 semester. 

This last entry of the strategy series both highlights important points from the series and also lays out the decisions that must be made to carry out the strategy during and after the pandemic. I start by laying out the assumptions that I make about the reader, her organization, and the operating environment. Next, I highlight some important point about management of changing expectations.

Higher Education Strategy Series: This is the 15th and last entry of this series. This page describes the whole series and provides links to all of the articles.

Questions: Why and how will the institution obtain sufficient returns to undertake this effort? Will it be through scale advantages (either per program or investments that pay back across multiple programs) that are going to lead to lower costs? Will it be through premium prices due to a difficult-to-match learning experience (via technology, pedagogical approaches, community building, student service provision, etc.)? Will it be through superior marketing strategy and insights (and appropriate execution) that allow the institution to significantly affect the value profiles of prospects?

Higher Education Strategy Series: This is entry #14 of this series. This page describes the whole series and provides links to all of the articles.

Questions: What will be the speed and sequence of moves? Which programs will be built, and in what order? Will non-degree certificate programs roll out after the degree programs? What will be the rate of these moves? Will the focus be on one school at a time or rotate among several?

Higher Education Strategy Series: This is entry #13 of this series. This page describes the whole series and provides links to all of the articles.