Archive for the ‘Management’ Category

Digital Transformation Signals: Is Your Institution on the Journey?

Digital transformation is a journey, not a destination. The digital transformation signals listed in this article indicate progress along the way and provide guideposts for the journey. Educause Review

A Tour of Open Universities Through Literature: A Bibliometric Analysis

Since open universities can adapt to students’ work schedules, personal preferences, age, and so on, they have facilitated access to education for a large group of people. The open university phenomenon, which arose in the 1960s, fostered countries’ cultural growth; higher education was now longer exclusively for a privileged few. This paper presents a bibliometric […]

Rethinking Open Universities: What Makes Them Unique?

This paper considers the current state of the United Kingdom Open University (UKOU) and the implications for the evolution of higher education, whether through open or traditional institutions. Although 50 years have passed since the establishment of UKOU, the first open university, such institutions seem to be losing their ground, notably because they face challenges […]

Professional Development Support for the Online Instructor: Perspectives of U.S. and German Instructors

With the increase in number of courses being offered online, there is an increase in the need for professional development support for instructors to teach online. The purpose of this study is to examine faculty perceptions on professional development needs for online teaching, specifically in the U.S. and in Germany. Based on a qualitative open-ended […]

eCelebrations: Virtual Graduations to Celebrate Online Students

Online students are often short-changed when they reach their most important milestone—graduation. For many institutions, virtual graduation has proven to be a holy grail of sorts—critically important to student experience, but illusive in form and difficult to achieve.   This article explores several existing models of virtual graduations, and proposes a framework to evaluate the quality […]

What is an ID?

Instructional design positions in higher education require greater depth and breadth of knowledge, far beyond the bulleted qualifications found in typical job descriptions. The eDesign Collaborative Research Team wished to explore the discrepancies that exist between commonly identified competencies and those deemed necessary by instructional designers (IDs) actively working in postsecondary education. This study identifies […]

Student Retention in Online Courses: University Role

As the growth in technology enables academic institutions to offer online courses to students globally, it is essential for universities to provide quality services to meet the needs and expectations of learners. Student retention in online courses is one of the challenges facing universities today. This is an important concern and should be addressed. The […]

Digital Transformation in Higher Education—Buzzword or Opportunity?

Various institutions and scholars have proposed lists of skills likely to be needed in the next decade and beyond. [1, 2, 3] Interestingly, they do not include purely technical skills like programming but thinking (sense making, computational thinking, creativity, critical thinking), specific attitudes (design mindset, cognitive flexibility, adaptability, perseverance, agile working, ethics), and interaction with […]

Impactful Leadership Traits of Virtual Leaders in Higher Education

Universities are increasingly leveraging virtual teams into the organizational structure and strategic framework for many functions including academic administration and faculty leadership. One benefit of a virtual workforce is the ability to hire the most qualified individuals regardless of where they are physically located. As the virtual workforce expands, leaders may intuitively rely on traditional […]

Organizational Sustainability in Online Higher Education: Reframing through the Viable System Model

Higher education remains embroiled in transition driven by cost of attendance, technological advances, globalization, hyper-competition, and stakeholder expectations. Concurrently, advances in online education have prompted increased integration within the educational enterprise.  Not only are modern institutions faced with the necessity to respond to the changing educational environment, they must establish capabilities to sustain online education […]