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Distance Ed and Institutional Performance
7/20/2006
Real-Life Application of Flex Strategy
The goals for the Tennessee Board of Regents Online Degree Programs were precisely those described in scenario number two, and they have been substantially and measurably advanced through the flex program and service redesign strategy. Broward Community College (FL) and Ocean County College (NJ) now offer flex nursing programs and have reduced their backlogs of nursing applicants while increasing the supply of degree-holding nurses in their local communities, all in response to some of the issues in scenarios one and two. The University of Baltimore (MD) turned around a pattern of decreasing enrollments by offering one of the first AACSB-accredited fully online MBA programs. The university has met its financial and enrollment-increase goals, and is now offering additional flex programs. Benedictine University (IL) has similarly increased its profitable enrollments with a flex MBA offering. Both of these examples fit the framework of scenario number three. And finally, the Community College of Southern Nevada has had to cap enrollments in a number of common courses and turn away applicants to its associate of arts degree program and a number of other high-demand programs. In response, it plans to redesign these common courses and highdemand programs for flex delivery and for measurably improving learning outcomes and reduced direct perenrollment expenses. The college is going for the scenarioone jackpot by attempting to improve institutional metrics for all six performance obligations.
Now’s the Time
According to the latest report from Sloan-C, a consortium dedicated to quality online education, flex enrollments are increasing at nearly 20 percent annually—a much greater pace than for traditional enrollments. This elevated rate reflects student demand and preference for convenience of access. The time is therefore right to look beyond the demand for convenience. We need to look to the programmatic and goal-oriented strategies and practices recommended here and reported by the Alliance for Higher Education Competitiveness; these will be the keys to success in flex markets in which distance is less a focus than student convenience, student accomplishment, and institutional performance.
William H. Graves is senior VP, academic strategy, for SunGard Higher Education. He is professor emeritus at the University of North Carolina, the author of 80 articles on technology in education, a board member for the National Center for Academic Transformation and the Alliance for Higher Education Competitiveness, and a blogger on IT and performance in higher education.
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