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It used to be simple. If a university wanted to create an online program, they had two choices. One was to outsource to an Online Program Manager (OPM). The other was to do it in-house. Neither was perfect, but both had advantages.

I have the unique privilege of viewing the development of online learning from three different lenses — as former faculty and program head at the Michigan Ross School of Business, as former dean at Babson College, and now as Principal Learning Strategist at Extension Engine.

Recently I have had separate in-depth talks with high level administrators and faculty leaders at multiple schools—public and private, large and small, coastal and middle-of-the country—where the obvious conclusions, usually unspoken, were reached by all in the conversation. The difference was, each of these times the conclusions were spoken out loud:

One said “A school can work with a traditional revenue-sharing OPM if its goal is to simply get online. But given the financial implications of such a partnership, it would be just as effective but faster and put much less of a burden on faculty for the school to simply pile up a bunch of money in the middle of a room and light it on fire.”

ExtensionEngine was one of two sponsors of the Learning with MOOCs 2017 conference, held October 8–10, 2017 in Austin, TX. Furqan Nazeeri, Partner at ExtensionEngine, participated as a panel member in the session “What should drive the design of MOOCs? What is driving current trends?”, where he discussed how online learning has evolved to be more adaptive, customized, and engaging.

The value of online program management (OPM) companies is much debated these days. The piece at the top of everyone’s minds is a highly critical report produced by The Century Foundation which suggests these profit-driven companies “present potential risks to quality and value in the education.”