Friday Follow Up

Phil: Let's actually jump into our definition, because part of what we're saying is the definition in this case of Validated Insights was stretched to a ridiculous stage where it's not useful at all. In my mind, I like the term online program enablement.

I tried to argue for this, obviously it didn't win. OPM is really the nomenclature. But the reason I like to enablement is it captured the key areas. It's online education we're talking about. It's program based as opposed to institution based. It's targeted at a cohesive set of academic courses and a cohesive set of students. It's program based and it's enablement.

And enablement to me, and the reason I like think this is descriptive is because we're not just talking any vendor. Just because you have an LMS and it's supporting online education, you're not an OPM. Just because you're EAB and you do institution wide enrollment services, that's not an OPM. Enablement means it is taking a non-profit traditional school and enabling them to create an online program in a way that they don't feel they could do on their own. And it's got to be the primary partner. So if you went to a school and they said, Hey, you have an online MBA, you have an online this, how did you create and how do you run that program? And who's your primary source of help? They would have to say, this is the partner we're working with to do it as opposed to a laundry list of vendors.

And that, to me, is the key distinction that got lost in this report. Primary partner that enables the program to exist and ideally to be profitable. So personally, that's how I define it. I'm not arguing that everybody agrees with that. it's that partner versus vendor.

Neil: I the enablement one is an interesting one in terms of thinking about this. I still like the management thing, because I kind of think the enablement side of things, you're enabling someone to be able to do something. One of the facets for me around these relationships is actually the kind of long-term nature of them. And so that's what speaks to the management piece. So I mean, generally, I find this difficult year on year to kind of define, but I think generally it is that kind of managing more of a portfolio, I think more of a product focus around degrees and a kind of a broader set of services. So yeah, it is tricky but I think you know if I can put some kind of meat on the bones it's that 10-year relationship it's those suites of degrees, it's that bundle of services.

Morgan: It gets complicated with a company like Coursera, which is very much an OPM. I think it offers a much more limited set of capabilities. It's much less a bundle with its degree partnerships. it's like, when is a bundle a bundle? [snip]

It is not easily swapped in and out. We can argue about particular marketing agencies, but if you throw all marketing agencies in there, then 100% of places in the United States are working with an OPM, which is not true, because everybody uses some sort of service from somebody.