How to Maximise the Value of Your OPM Partnerships: This article is part two of a five part series looking into transformation in the education sector.

Partnerships with privately operated Online Programme Management (OPM) providers look set to remain a mainstay for UK universities in 2025. But what does this mean for universities when appointing a new Director of Online Education?

Alison Elton, Principal Consultant at GatenbySanderson, and Darren Gray, Online Learning Expert who has worked with numerous UK universities to design, and launch scaled online degree programmes, share their thoughts.

The attraction of OPM partnerships: immediate wins

OPM partnerships offer a fast and comparatively pain-free way for universities to enter and test new markets for online programmes. Although most institutions have in-house expertise across pedagogy and student support, translating this into online delivery calls for different skills, resource and systems that are not always so commonly found (although they are increasingly developing within institutions, sometimes in pockets rather than centrally).

Partnering with an OPM can be a quick and effective way to bridge gaps in knowledge, skills, or resources, providing everything from marketing and student recruitment to technology infrastructure and learner support. One of the key attractions is the ability to minimise upfront costs and heavy initial investment, opting instead for an ongoing cost or profit-sharing model. However, we are seeing a shift in some OPMs’ approaches, with a growing trend towards sharing the upfront risk with their partners.

But this speed to market, one of the attractions of working with an OPM, can also be a downfall if universities do not think strategically about their longer-term plans for online education. This is where it pays to define the Director of Online Education role carefully.

OPM Partnerships: an agent for change

Rather than see an OPM as the magic fix to getting online programmes out to market and then expectantly waiting for the promised income stream to generate, the bigger opportunity for institutions might be both more complex and more exciting.

A real and underestimated benefit of working with an OPM is the chance to future proof, by getting to grips with the operational, programmatic and cultural changes required to meet the needs of online students.

• How will existing student records systems accurately record the modular structure of online courses?
• Are payment systems set up to allow students to pay fees on a course-by-course basis?
• Do quality processes, such as exam boards, align with multiple presentations of courses in an academic year?

There are just a few of the myriad of details to be considered and resolved. The devil is in the detail.

OPMs, who work with many partners, are well-versed in the intricacies of implementations and can guide your institution to best practice. Working with an OPM is an opportunity to jump-start institutional change.

Given this, the Director of Online Education can be a far bigger role than might be first thought. They should be getting full value from the OPM partnership and joining dots across the whole institution to lead and deliver wider, vital transformation.

Appointing an Online Education Director: an under-utilised opportunity?

When planning to appoint a Director of Online Education, it is worth thinking about what an OPM can bring and what an institution needs to do for itself.

For example, to get the best out of the partnership, a university needs to adopt an entrepreneurial and experimental mindset and an agile approach to content production that is very different from traditional course design and development cycles.

It is important that institutions take time to review and update their content generation processes and don’t just assume they can outsource this to OPMs. It is in areas like this where a Director of Online Education can bring real leadership and build capacity.

They can also bring deep institutional knowledge and brand awareness when designing courses, to compliment the OPM’s understanding of the global marketplace.

As boundaries between online and campus models continue to blur, a horizon-scanning, customer-focused Director of Online Education becomes even more important. If Universities are to offer that friction-free convenience and utility that learners increasingly expect, your Director of Online Education will need to work with your OPM partners and wider campus community to provide more flexible student access to products and services.

How do you find such a gem?

You need a stellar Director of Online Education if you want them to lead your OPM partnership to deliver online education in the most transformational, future facing way.

An executive search is a great way to get the strongest choice of outstanding candidates, providing the search firm understands not just higher education but the wider online education landscape too.

But here is the secret.

There is no one-size-fits-all model for what makes an outstanding candidate for a Director of Online Education role. It is a generic job title that can translate into nuanced and varied roles, depending on the context – something we will explore further in our next article in this series.

What you are looking for is the right candidate for your institution right now.

The key take out is to think big when it comes to getting the best from both your OPM partnership and your Director of Online Education appointment.

Before you start any recruitment process, we advise taking time to define the longer-term strategy, the investment needed and what a good Director of Online Education looks like in your context.

GatenbySanderson specialise in teasing these things out to make sure the right questions are asked; the job description and role are well considered, and the salary is market competitive. If you need a sounding board before you are ready to recruit, we are always glad to support.

At GatenbySanderson, we bring extensive experience in identifying and recruiting digital education leaders. By building strategic leadership teams, we help universities adapt and thrive in a rapidly changing environment, ensuring they have the vision and expertise needed to navigate the future of education.

For more information contact:

Alison Elton,
Principal Consultant, Education practice
GatenbySanderson

Authors:

• Alison Elton, Principal Consultant,
  GatenbySanderson
• Darren Gray, Digital Learning Consultant.