Lessons Learned and Future Prospects for Online Program Creation and Delivery: A Case Study From Geography

Institutions of higher learning are increasingly embracing online education, and the number of students in online learning programs is growing across the United States, which in turn spurs the development of more online courses and degrees. The College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Kennesaw State University in the metro Atlanta area was proud to announce the birth of its new online B.A. in Geography in spring 2015. This program will be the first of its kind in the United States and perhaps in the world. But it didn't come into being overnight. Like anything amazing, it was years in the making. There are wide-ranging issues within any institution that must be addressed for innovative online programs to come to fruition and succeed. The university had to provide a structure to support this creation, including a technological infrastructure, faculty support services, and student support services to ensure that students had access to the same quality education and success resources whether online or face-to-face. Faculty needed support and resources as they created the courses and the program proposal, and the program still must receive necessary resources for success: further program development, marketing, support services for students, faculty development, and additional faculty. In order to illuminate these issues, the authors will describe how we designed and delivered this online Bachelors of Arts degree in Geography at a large state university in the U.S. The next steps in this process of developing the online geography degree program will be discussed, including assessment for the degree program and future research.