Yesterday’s eCampus News reports on a growing trend away from higher education institutions working with online program management (OPM) companies and towards more of a fee for service model where they can source and use best of breed services when/where needed. Handling upfront costs may become a challenge in this emerging model as OPM’s would typically front that cash in exchange for long-term deals with 50+ percent tuition revenue share but institutions gain more control over the design and development of their online programs.

The new unbundled, fee-for-service model for online program development is emerging, and it focuses on pedagogy as the driver for technology decisions rather than the other way around.

Why would that be the case? The author does a good job of explaining it here:

Either adopting standard LMSs or working with OPMs whose very business model is based on reuse results in an online program having limited differentiation from its competitors.

Now amongst us here, the reality is that the majority of value from OPM’s comes from their expertise in marketing and recruiting, not pedagogy, instructional and curriculum design. From the piece, that area in particular – driving learning performance gains – is one major factor driving the unbundling opportunity.

Bonus points! One hidden nugget:

…enrollments in online graduate programs are expected to surpass 30 percent of all graduate students

Major shift in online learning sees pedagogy in driver’s seat – eCampus News

Unbundled online program model focuses on pedagogy as the driver for technology decisions rather than the other way around.