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Management consultants sit prominently on the leading edge of business — which explains why so many of them have implemented online learning programs.

Educational outreach that teaches basic and advanced business skills can not only be a profitable venture in its own right, but it can also help a consultancy to differentiate in the market, leverage their intellectual property or brand, generate new client relationships, and consolidate long-term relationships with existing clients.

Recently I was on a panel at the LearnLaunch Across Boundaries conference. The panel — titled “Outsourcing Online Programs: The Shape of Things to Come or a Bad Moon Rising?” — was moderated by Howard Lurie, Principal Analyst at Eduventures and author of a soon-to-be-released research report on the state of the Online Program Management (OPM) market.  

Your platform is the face of your online learning business. It is not just a place for learners to access stored content and videos — your online learning platform is essentially the product that you are selling.

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.

As 2017 has proven, online learning has been top-of-mind for many institutional leaders. Scaling offerings through online programs or courses has become an inherent part of growth for public, private, and non-traditional colleges and universities.

As an end of the year tribute to the evolution of online learning in 2017, here’s a recap of a few topics that resonated with us, our perspective on those topics, and a few topics that we hope to see discussed more broadly in 2018.