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This chapter presents a case study of a ‘Massive Open Online Courses’ (MOOCs) structure that is offered through an agreement between a traditional university and a MOOC provider. This arrangement has been helping in reaching very large numbers of learners in the Middle East. In implementing this agreement, I categorise the concerns of three key stakeholders (administrators, faculty and students) regarding this mode of instruction. A framework (abbreviated as LOGIC – LEADS – LEARNing) is proposed that could be of use to higher education institutions when they embark on non-traditional education. A common concern among the primary stakeholders was the issue of legitimacy of such an education. I argue the MOOCs so far do not represent a substitute or a threat to traditional face-to-face education. In addition, there are no foreseen reputational risks for universities if MOOCs are included as a mode of education. The value from MOOCs needs to be seen from the perspectives of students and other stakeholders. MOOCs have the potential to lead to positive consequences for the university − as a whole − and other relevant stakeholders as well. However, MOOCs in the Middle East are not likely to operate under a workable business model, at least not in the short run. As MOOCs rise to make more sense to students, their disruptive power would become more tangible. This, however, will take some time and will only be threatening if educational institutions become complacent in response to the novel ways by which the new generation is approaching learning.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the trends in the growth of online learning since 2002 and the change in the opinions and strategies of chief academic officers.

Annual surveys of chief academic officers from 2002‐2006 are summarized.

The paper finds that online courses and programs continue to grow at a rate of 20 percent or more per year and the quality of these courses continues to improve. Online education is part of the long‐term strategy of a majority of chief academic officers. Faculty lag in their acceptance of online courses.

This survey provides the first estimates of the number of online learners, online courses, and online programs. This is the first survey on the attitudes of chief academic officers towards online learning.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the perceptions of human resource directors in the USA about online credentials earned by K‐12 school principals and principal candidates.

In this mixed methods study, a survey was sent to a random sample of 500 human resource directors in K‐12 school districts across the USA. Analysis was conducted on 105 surveys.

In contrast to a traditional face‐to‐face format, the majority of respondents reported beliefs that online courses and online degrees aimed at school principals required less work, were of lower quality, and could not adequately prepare leaders to tackle state‐specific issues. Human resource directors in rural districts had a more negative perception of online learning, in comparison to their counterparts in suburban or urban districts. All preparatory courses, except technology leadership, were reported to be easier taught face‐to‐face, than online.

Further research should be conducted to determine if and how these perceptions are shifting. Further research should also be conducted to determine the influence of location on perceptions of online credentials for school leaders. Comparing perceptions about online credentials cross‐nationally may provide interesting insights and new areas of research.

Implications are for school administration programs, both traditional and online, that desire to create and build more accepted school administration programs that include online components.

Students increasingly opt for online coursework; students in the field of school leadership and administration in the USA are no different. This shift to online learning must be juxtaposed with efforts to maintain quality, improve efficiency, and address the concerns of those persons who hire these candidates.

To date, no research has been published on the perceived acceptability of online degrees and online coursework for school principals in the USA.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss benefits of and barriers to online learning and describe utilization of the Quality Matters (QM) peer review process as a method to assure the quality of online courses. It outlines the QM higher education rubric, explains how the collaborative QM peer review process facilitates online course design and certification, reports on the development of a statewide consortium in Ohio, and explores future directions in online courses.

This paper offers a brief historical review of the incorporation of technology into teaching and learning. It describes attitudes toward online learning and the creation of the non-profit QM program as a vehicle for improving online course design. It summarizes the eight standards of the QM rubric, describes the QM peer review process, and discusses the implementation of the Ohio QM Consortium (OQMC) as a shared services model.

Given existing barriers to online learning, the QM program can improve learning outcomes by offering best practices in online course design, validating the quality of online courses, encouraging faculty buy-in through a focus on design rather than content, and facilitating degree completion through recognition of quality courses.

Institutions that seek to validate online course quality in a cost-effective manner can explore a shared services model such as that developed by the OQMC.

This paper introduces to an international audience a program and process, widely implemented in the USA, which encourages inter-institutional cooperation and promotes a supportive culture among online educators.

Due to COVID-19 pandemic, the government around the world has closed all the educational institutions to control the spread of disease, which is creating a direct impact on students, educators and institutions. The sudden shift from the physical classroom to virtual space is creating a disruption among students. The purpose of this study was to analyze the perception of academic stress experienced by students during current online education and coping strategies using emotional intelligence adopted by them.

Using a purposive sampling method, data were collected on a sample of 94 students pursuing undergraduation and postgraduation from two Indian cities, Ahmedabad, and Mumbai. The survey was conducted using two online questionnaires, Perceptions of Academic Stress Scale and Emotional Intelligence Scale and analyzed using descriptive statistics with chi-square analysis. A telephonic discussion was also conducted with some respondents to understand different coping strategies used by them to handle the stress.

The findings indicated significant differences were observed between the fear of academic failure and online and home environment among male and female students. Many of them have started diverting themselves to various creative activities and taking up courses that are helping them to learn new technical skills. By using emotional intelligence and distancing from boredom and depressive thoughts, students were trying to cope with negative effects arising from the current pandemic situation.

This research study will be beneficial to educators, scholars, students, parents and will add a contribution to its field. However, the key factors studied were limited to a small sample from selected institutions and cities, which cannot be used to generalize to a large population.

The findings of this paper will be useful to assess the key challenges of online education especially at the time when it is the only option.

The findings of this paper will be beneficial to understand the academic stress experienced by students and how a cultural and educational modification will be implemented.

This research study was conducted during the lockdown in India (April–May 2020), and the results derived through it are original in nature.

To explain how technology will replace a great deal of human labor in knowledge markets using a theory of reasoned action applied to demand and theories of procedural rationality, cost structure and system dynamics applied to supply.

Two illustrative scenarios are presented. The first is a third-party Best Treatments site, and its effect on the expert advice pharmaceutical representatives provide doctors. The second scenario is an online higher education business course module with embedded AI.

Both scenarios demonstrate the advantages of online expertise and teaching platforms over the in-person alternative in variable and marginal cost, ease and convenience of use, quality conformance, scalability, knowledge reach and depth and most importantly, speed of evolutionary adaptability. Despite such overwhelming advantages, a number of reasons why the substitution might be slowed are presented, and some strategies firms might adopt are discussed. Opportunities for service scholars to confirm, challenge and extend the conclusions are presented throughout the paper.

Increasing cost structure and adaptability advantages of online technology and AI over in-person delivery of expertise and training services are demonstrated. It is also demonstrated that the innovation-imitation cycle is accelerating because of exogenous innovation in knowledge access and online influence networks and an endogenous effect where imitators accelerate their innovation that drives innovators to accelerate their innovation, which drives imitators to further accelerate their imitation.

This paper aims to compare the nature of three different business and management education (BME) research streams (online/blended learning, entrepreneurship education and experiential learning), along with their citation sources to draw insights on their support and legitimacy bases, with lessons on improving such support and legitimacy for the streams and the wider BME research field.

The authors analyze the nature of three BME research streams and their citation sources through tests of differences across streams.

The three streams differ in research foci and approaches such as the use of managerial samples in experiential learning, quantitative studies in online/blended education and literature reviews in entrepreneurship education. They also differ in sources of legitimacy recognition and avenues for mobilization of support. The underlying literature development pattern of the experiential learning stream indicates a need for BME scholars to identify and build on each other’s work.

Identification of different research bases and key supporting literature in the different streams shows important core articles that are useful to build research in each stream.

Readers will understand the different research bases supporting the three research streams, along with their targeted audience and practice implications.

The discovery of different support bases for the three different streams helps identify the network of authors and relationships that have been built in each stream.

According to the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to uncover differences in nature and citation sources of the three continuously growing BME research streams with recommendations on ways to improve the support of the three streams.

The emergence of internet-based business models has given rise to online higher education institutions (OHEIs) that offer their undergraduate and graduate degree programs exclusively online with minimal physical presence. Research on OHEIs discusses the need for external legitimacy and resource acquisition, often ignoring the role of quality among these institutions. Hence, this study aims to investigate the role of digital quality of education on OHEIs’ survival.

Guided by four different inter-disciplinary theories, a conceptual framework is offered based on a comprehensive literature review.

The role of digital quality of education in improving the survival and strategic competitiveness of institutions in the US online higher education industry is highlighted.

This conceptual paper highlights how the digital quality of education becomes increasingly important over the life cycle of OHEIs.

The proposed framework suggests that despite the competition provided by traditional and well-entrenched players, OHEIs can improve their survival and competitiveness if they invest strategically in the digital quality of education.

This study offers an overarching conceptual framework developed through an integration of multiple theoretical perspectives and grounded in the US online higher education industry.

The purpose of this paper is to identify how the US Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) communicatively engaged in legitimization concerning accreditation.

This study utilized the rhetorical analysis approach outlined by Hoffman and Ford (2010) to explore the accreditation-related texts from an online source created by CHEA, Information About Accreditation.

The analysis identified three overarching approaches to include: isomorphism to address regulatory legitimacy, organizational identity management to address pragmatic legitimacy, and a dialogic approach to address normative legitimacy. This analysis also developed a new theoretical model for the rhetorical construction of legitimacy, “A Model for the Rhetorical Construction of Legitimacy,” that can be summarized as: organizations foster a type of legitimacy through a legitimizing strategy by demonstrating how the purpose of the legitimizing strategy is achieved by the implementation of the legitimizing strategy.

Limitations include that data were gathered only from online, web-based texts during a period in which the rhetorical situation was ongoing.

This study expands research concerning the rhetorical approach to issues management in that it examines the way legitimacy is negotiated through the various rhetorical strategies of an organization. Additionally, information is offered about the rhetorical structure of texts when an organization seeks to legitimize certain ideas.

This analysis developed a theoretical model for the rhetorical construction of legitimacy, “A Model for the Rhetorical Construction of Legitimacy,” that demonstrates important relationships between legitimizing strategies and types of legitimacy. Understanding these relationships may allow for a better interpretation of how legitimacy theory is represented within a communicative venture.

This paper aims to analyze how the legitimacy of the policy of external quality assurance (EQA) in Colombian higher education has evolved over the past 30 years through an examination of its two main instruments: the compulsory control of minimum quality standards for academic programs and institutions (registro calificado) and accreditations of excellence for programs and institutions.

Based on the methodology of process-tracing, this paper offers a review of the main sequences of the policy of EQA in Colombian higher education: the origins (1990–1998), the expansion (1998–2011) and the contestation (2011–2021). In each sequence, the sources of the substantive and procedural legitimacy of the policy are analyzed. This analysis is based on qualitative data comprising semi-structured interviews with key informants, online information from the 2011 and 2018 student protests and official documentation.

The policy of EQA in Colombian higher education had relatively high levels of substantive and procedural legitimacy during the first two sequences. However, the situation has become more ambivalent since 2011. On the one hand, internal contradictions and student movements’ growing criticism of neoliberal policies have undermined some of the foundations of this policy. On the other hand, higher education institutions and the Colombian Government still have a positive perception of EQA and have recently revisited the policy to address some of its shortcomings.

From a conceptual standpoint, this paper advances our understanding of how quality assurance in higher education gains, sustains or loses legitimacy by discussing and testing typologies of legitimacy in the analysis of a national system of EQA. From an empirical perspective, this paper provides a diachronic analysis of EQA in Colombian higher education, a case that has primarily been studied through a technical-rational perspective.