highereddata/outsourcing-online-education

By Heather Daniels, Christian Smith, Laura T. Hamilton, and Charlie Eaton ** DATA: Online Program Manager Contracts DataHub Data * Online Program Manager Ownership DataHub Data

The For-Profit Side of Public U: University Contracts with Online Program Managers

By Laura T. Hamilton, Heather A. Daniels, Christian Michael Smith, and Charlie Eaton

Citation: Hamilton, L. T., Daniels, H., Smith, C. M., & Eaton, C. (2024). The For-Profit Side of Public U: University Contracts with Online Program Managers. Socius, 10. https://doi.org/10.1177/23780231231214952

Summary: We draw on a dataset of 239 public university contracts that outsource online education to for-profit Online Program Managers (OPMs). We code structural features of the contracts that have been identified as potentially predatory.

Data

• Online Program Manager Contracts DataHub Data
• Online Program Manager Ownership DataHub Dat
• IPEDS Fall Enrollment in Distance Education Survey (data dictionary here: https://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/datacenter/data/EF2022A_DIST_Dict.zip)
• IPEDS HD Directory Data

Over the last decade, public nonprofit universities have dramatically increased their online offerings. The COVID-19 pandemic has also triggered additional investment in online education. It has become commonplace for public universities to contract out some portion of their online services to online program managers, or OPMs. OPMs are private, for-profit companies that provide a broad range of services, from instructional design, to marketing, student recruitment, curricular provision, operational services, technological platforms and more. They have proliferated in the last decade. Only a couple of companies existed before 2008, but now there are numerous providers including: Pearson, Wiley, Blackboard, Emerge Education, 2U, Unicon, Comcourse, Kaplan, Keypath, Collegis, Orbis Education, Helix Education, Extension Engine, Coursera, Apollidon, Noodle Partners, iDesing, Synergis Education, Meteor Learning, All Campus, Hot Chalk, Academic Partnerships, CapEd, Learning House, AnswerNet, Everspring, Bisk, and Grand Canyon Education, among others. Yet, public-private-partnerships (or P3s) between public universities and OPMs remain little recognized and understudied. In these analyses we draw on a dataset of 239 OPM-public university contracts compiled with the generous support of The Century Foundation. We code structural features of the contracts that have been identified as potentially predatory including: paying the for-profit provider a commission as a share of all tuition revenue; giving the for-profit provider control over student recruitment; utilizing course or program content developed by the for-profit provider; assigning instruction to the for-profit provider rather than the college’s faculty; and including lengthy and/or complex contract terms that benefit for-profit providers. We also examine how many schools amend a contract over time to expand engagement with an OPM and assess the (in)visibility of for-profit providers to consumers through investigation of the university’s online program websites. Content analysis of the contracts, associated documents, and university webpages will be utilized to illustrate and address the study’s research questions.

Preanalysis plan: https://osf.io/524va