A Learning Mindset Needed from Faculty in Online Program Management and University Partnership Business Model

Abstract

Many universities are getting into online education, and the trend is expected to continue. These universities often have their faculty work with instructional designers (ID) in-house or, at times, from outsourced online course development through an Online Program Management (OPM) provider. The ID process involves course development where the faculty and instructional designer (ID) work together to build the online course. A gap exists in the literature around how faculty interact with such IDs provided by OPMs and what impact the ID process has on their teaching design and their pedagogical knowledge and development. This research uses a Case Study to analyze how the nature and dynamics of the ID process in a business partnership between a non-profit (research university) and a for-profit (OPM provider) influence faculty. This case study included a private R2 research university that had recently joined a partnership with an Online Program Management Provider (OPM) to develop and offer online Master’s degree programs. The Activity Theory conceptual framework guided the inquiry and analysis of the collected data. Results show that the impact on faculty pedagogical knowledge and development is different for each faculty and is dependent on faculty assumptions, personality, attitudes, training in pedagogy and technology, and past online teaching experiences. A learning mindset from the faculty side is very important to get the best of this relationship. This research supports e-learning practice by guiding that faculty should not be participating just due to the pressure by their upper-level management but because they really want to teach online. Faculty should be ready to check their own assumptions and knowledge they have about pedagogy before getting into this process. This study is a novel approach to understanding the impact on faculty teaching design using the Activity Theory framework. It shows how Activity Theory could be a useful technique to solve problems in e-learning research and practice