Publications

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May 2015 (Revised January 2016)
Case

Online Education at HBS

By: Stephen P. Kaufman

September 2014 (Revised June 2016)
Case

edX: Strategies for Higher Education

By: David Collis, Matthew Shaffer and Ashley Hartman

In May 2012, Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) founded edX, a new non-profit joint venture that would provide a platform for massive open online courses (MOOCs). edX did not produce original courses or instructional content—it made... View Details

Keywords: MOOCS; edX; Online Platforms; Online Education; Harvard University; MIT; Execution; Monetization; Brand Management; Higher Education; Information Technology; Strategy; Disruptive Innovation; Digital Platforms; Education Industry

June 2015
Case

Beacon Group of Hong Kong: Finding Light in the Shadow Education Industry

By: Christopher Marquis, Qi Li and Guy Leung

After more than 25 years of operation, Beacon Group had grown from having 3 small classrooms on the fourth floor of a commercial building, to a network of 21 centers across Hong Kong with over 60,000 students enrolled per year. The key long-term challenge for the... View Details

Keywords: Online Education; Education; Tutoring; Incentives; Hong Kong; Motivation and Incentives; Internet and the Web; Family Business; Education Industry; Hong Kong

Keywords: by Rene F. Kizilcec, Justin Reich, Michael Yeomans, Christoph Dann, Emma Brunskill, Glenn Lopez, Selen Turkay, Joseph J. Williams, and Dustin Tingley; Education

01 Jul 2020
Working Paper Summaries

Scaling Up Behavioral Science Interventions in Online Education

January 2016 (Revised January 2017)
Case

Rumie: Bringing Digital Education to the Underserved

By: John J-H Kim and Amram Migdal

In fall of 2015, the Toronto, Canada–based education technology nonprofit Rumie had distributed thousands of computer tablets preloaded with collections of thousands of pieces of curated educational content to nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in some of the most... View Details

Keywords: Edtech; Education Technology; Social Enterprise; Nonprofit; Education Startup; Technological Innovation; Nonprofit Organizations; Social Entrepreneurship; Education; Business Startups; Education Industry; Canada; Africa

September 10, 2020
Editorial

Today's Awkward Zoom Classes Could Bring a New Era of Higher Education

By: D. L. Spar

Keywords: Higher Education; Online Learning; Coronavirus

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April 2019 (Revised June 2019)
Case

Western Governors University: 10x Vision

By: William R. Kerr and Susie L. Ma

Western Governors University (WGU) was a nonprofit institution of higher education whose online learning model served more than 100,000 students in 2019 and was scaling rapidly. President Scott Pulsipher wanted to expand WGU’s reach to millions more with a plan called... View Details

Keywords: Online Education; Enrollment; Scaling; Higher Education; Internet and the Web; Business Model; Expansion; Growth and Development Strategy; Education Industry; United States

August 2020 (Revised October 2024)
Case

Digital Marketing at HBS Online

By: Sunil Gupta and Rajiv Lal

In July 2020, the management team of Harvard Business School Online (HBS Online) had to decide how to allocate its marketing budget for fiscal year 2021 between various digital channels and its portfolio of courses. Since its launch in 2014, HBS Online had grown to... View Details

Keywords: Marketing Strategy; Advertising; Digital Marketing; Marketing Channels; Brands and Branding; Business Education; Education Industry; United States; Boston

2020
Other Teaching and Training Material

REMOTE—A Framework for Teaching Online

By: Ayelet Israeli

This article explains the REMOTE Teaching and Learning framework. I developed this framework to synthesize key insights and learnings about the digital classroom. Whether you are new to teaching online or have taught online before, this framework provides helpful... View Details

Keywords: Teaching; Education; Online Technology

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April 2001 (Revised August 2001)
Case

UNext: Business Education and e-Learning

By: Michael G. Rukstad, David J. Collis and Tyrell Levine

UNEXT has signed agreements with Columbia, Stanford, Chicago, Carnegie Mellon, and the London School of Economics to create online business courses. The company is backed by Michael Milken and Larry Ellison and has four Nobel laureates on its advisory board. Describes... View Details

Keywords: Business Education; Curriculum and Courses; Technological Innovation; Internet and the Web; Competition; Disruptive Innovation; Performance Efficiency; Higher Education; Learning; Education Industry

Find at Harvard

18 Aug 2008
Research & Ideas

How Disruptive Innovation Changes Education

are not offered. In these foothold areas, computer-based or online learning is beginning to fill the void and plant itself and make inroads in the education system in classic disruptive fashion. View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Education

Research Summary

Incentives and Education

(with Bob Slonim and Eric Bettinger)
No Child Left Behind has created an incentive system for schools to increase test scores as well as attendance figures.... View Details

September 2019 (Revised June 2020)
Case

2U: Higher Education Rewired

By: Yael Grushka-Cockayne and Karim R. Lakhani

In its 2019 Partner Symposium, 2U, an online program management provider (OPM), showcased its new vision: “Career. Curriculum. Continuum. A construct for lifelong learning in the 21st century.” 2U, founded in 2008 and went public in 2014, was looking to expand beyond... View Details

Keywords: Digital Innovation; Architectural Innovation; Make V. Buy; Learning; Higher Education; Internet and the Web; Innovation Strategy; Transformation; Digital Transformation

September 2019
Teaching Note

Western Governors University: 10x Vision

By: William R. Kerr and Coelin P. Scibetta

Teaching Note for HBS No. 819-093. View Details

Keywords: Education Systems; Online Learning; Higher Education; Internet and the Web; Expansion; Growth and Development Strategy; Education Industry; United States

18 Jun 2019
Cold Call Podcast

Can Khan Academy Scale to Educate Anyone, Anywhere?

Keywords: Education

16 Dec 2002
Lessons from the Classroom

Marrying Distance and Classroom Education

adult learning workshop was looking at the strengths and weaknesses of face-to-face education versus online distance learning. But in fact, these two types of education can be... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

March 2011 (Revised September 2011)
Background Note

Everyone and Everything is Online

By: Stephen P. Bradley and Nancy Bartlett

The twenty-first century digital world enabled mobile, empowered, content-hungry individuals to capture the value of enabling technologies and applications to manage, create, share, and influence content across the creation and delivery spectrum. Users were online in... View Details

Keywords: Communication Technology; Learning; Entertainment; Power and Influence; Internet and the Web; Value; Web Services Industry

2019
Working Paper

The Impact of Professionals' Contributions to Online Knowledge Communities on Their Workplace Knowledge Work

By: Hila Lifshitz - Assaf and Frank Nagle

Knowledge work is becoming increasingly challenging as pace of change in the knowledge frontier is increasing. Organizations have created multiple mechanisms to minimize knowledge gaps and increase learning such internal training, mentorship programs as well as... View Details

Keywords: Open Source; Future Of Work; Software Development; Knowledge Work; Online Community; Learning; Knowledge Sharing; Applications and Software; Open Source Distribution; Performance Productivity