Rationale

In less than 20 years, online communications — text, graphics, imagery, audio, and video delivered via networked devices — have become a powerful force in public discourse, professional development, and community building. For a campus community, online communications are becoming a critical interface for teaching and learning, co-curricular collaboration, and conducting business.

Above all, for constituents who are at a distance — especially future students, students abroad, and alumni — the online experience is becoming a primary point of contact and engagement.

Purpose

Envision, identify, and promote integrated online environments for higher education that: simplify knowledge creation, storage, organization, publishing, collaboration, outreach, and access, beyond the classroom, and across media and devices.

Objectives

• Establish a collaborative network of practice [Reference]
  
• Enhance and extend each institution's educational missions and communication strategies for all constituencies.
• Engage future and current students, faculty, staff, and philanthropists by envisioning the most effective, immersive, and meaningful online experiences.

Phases and deliverables

• Phase 1 - Discovery: Collaboratively develop a set of initial documents defining an integrative vision for knowledge environments that transcends individual institutions
  
• Phase 2 - Outreach: Conduct outreach on first iteration from stakeholders at founding member's institutions and from contributors in higher education, and deliver documentation and presentation(s)
• Phase 3 - Framework: Develop framework for next-level fundraising and collaboration
  

Constraints

• Research into integrated knowledge environments is at an early stage, and few are in production.
  
• Staffing for the first phase efforts of this collaborative is currently limited to 0.2 FTE from Cornell and Bates.
• Expectation for rapid delivery of findings to coincide with technology initiatives at both Cornell and Bates.
  

Criteria for success

High-quality knowledge created by this collaboration will help founding institutions acquire and apply their resources with greater success than without such research and vision.