19NtQdt

Outsourcing Online Learning
Figure 5. An Online Case Study from
the USC Price School of Public Policy’s MPA Online Degree Program
marketing services for the USC Davis School of Gerontology and the USC
Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences’ Geographic Information Science
and Technology (GIST) program. USC developed, delivers, and maintains these
online programs in-house. EmbanetCompass conducted market assessments
and, based on their findings, rebranded and repositioned the programs, resulting
in significant increases in enrollments.
Challenges
Outsourcing online learning is not without its challenges and detractors.
There are tensions between the seemingly entrepreneurial goals of the administration
condoning new kinds of partnerships and traditional academic values.
The university leadership has met with faculty and alumni to address concerns
ranging from instructors being replaced by technology to traditional on-campus
programs degrees losing value.
Another problem that surfaced was the need to quickly identify and hire
highly qualified instructors to teach in online programs that were expanding
much more rapidly than the university and vendor partners ever anticipated.
249