what would you do if you were starting an online program from scratch?

huge question … Some small suggestions:

• Make it part of the strategic mission and vision of the institution.
• Think strategically about what you are doing and why.
• Start small.
• Target online programs, rather than courses.
• Think about this as an institutional initiative to further specific institutional goals and the mission/vision.
• Library, bursar, advisors, etc. … – all student services and support have to be involved in the cultural change.
• Support. support. support.
• Think about faculty and students as customers and make sure they are always happy.
• Collect data and use it to prove things, to improve things, to document impact, scale, growth, and success, and to justify things, etc.
• Build on success and word of mouth.
• Build it one instructor at a time. Build/cultivate trust among the faculty.
• Use your faculty to spread the word.
• Use faculty (and their course designs) as examples.
• Use them to mentor or train for you.
• Create a community of practice for faculty.
• Base your approaches, program, process, recommendations on research.
• Contribute to the research, or get your faculty to.
• Turn theory into practice.
• Quick start faculty with flexible effectively design course templates that incorporate research-based effective practices.
• Use course design rubrics, standards formatively and summatively for course reviews.
• Support innovation and experimentation.
• Cultivate a culture of continuous improvement at the program, faculty and course levels.
• Institute revision and improvement cycles and processes and implement them assiduously.
• How will you measure success and impact?