NGLC Breakthrough Models Incubator

In a 2012 grant competition, the Next Generation Learning Challenges initiative managed by EDUCAUSE funded ten Breakthrough Models for College Completion – entirely new or substantially transformed higher education degree programs. Institutional and organizational innovators designed these next-generation online and blended programs to produce breakthroughs in completion rates and time to completion of high-quality associate’s or bachelor’s degrees at affordable costs, particularly for underserved populations. In fall 2013, all ten programs will launch with their first groups of students.

Over the course of 2013, a select group of institutions that share a commitment to making significant transformations of this kind will join together to form the inaugural cohort of NGLC’s Breakthrough Models Incubator (BMI). The Incubator will build on the Breakthrough Models concept, with the goal of accelerating the development and implementation of breakthrough models. Participating institutions will share the goal of radically improving both operational productivity and student outcomes. 

The Incubator will provide up to $150,000 and a range of supports to help each participating institution plan and launch its own pathway to fundamental, technology-enabled change. In addition, by demonstrating what is possible through their designs and implementation, Incubator institutions will catalyze broader efforts to improve the quality, completion, and affordability of college. The result, both for the Incubator institutions and for the field, will be significantly improved student access to and completion of high-quality, affordable degree programs, which in turn will improve the effectiveness of American higher education.

The Incubator experience will...

SERVE institutions that seek to dramatically improve student success in terms of persistence and graduation, through more personalized, mastery-based approaches to learning, enabled in part by technology. In order to make its work broadly scalable in postsecondary education, the Incubator will focus on institutional change strategies that:

• Are not dependent on significant philanthropic contribution;
• Rely upon adaptation as much or more than new model creation;
• Will be recognized as viable and achievable by many other institutions.

EXPLORE technology-enabled change in higher education. Although models are emerging, the landscape is evolving rapidly. Lessons learned by one institution may not apply at another due to size, culture, or context. The Incubator is designed to help institutions explore what we know, what we don’t know, and rapidly evolve their thinking. While there may be no single “right answer,” the Incubator brings together innovative institutions that are willing to explore new models and distill what they learn. The elements of breakthrough models currently funded by NGLC and the Gates Foundation are briefly summarized in Breakthrough Models Incubator: Background and Context.

CONNECT its participating institutions with the leaders of emerging models and provide a range of supports including: 

• Analysis and information on emerging models, such as competency-based student progression, or educational pathways;
• Opportunities to network with peer Incubator institutions and national experts through face-to-face workshops, webinars, and a collaborative online space;
• Individualized coaching on planning and design from experts with experience in these models;
• Incentives, including $150,000 in grant support, to complete, approve, and launch the plan.

Process and Timeline

• Each institution will receive an initial $50,000 to defray travel and other costs during the education, design, and planning period.
• The Incubator will proceed as single cohorts with the understanding that some Incubator support and activities will focus on subsets of institutions sharing particular attributes, needs, or aspects of breakthrough design.
• Pre-kickoff events will occur via webinars and other online formats to help familiarize newly formed teams with existing breakthrough models.
• Institutional teams will attend one face-to-face design workshop to occur over 2.5 days to launch their planning process. Each team will include the president, provost, chief financial officer, chief information officer, and a representative of the faculty (e.g., faculty senate chair). A trustee may be included on the team, along with two other staff members.
• Following the planning workshop, assistance will continue in various forms:
  • Expert coaching to individual institutions on both learning and business models; expert consulting on the development of business plans. Guidance provided to participating institutions will include perspectives from NGLC’s current “breakthrough” grantees – ten institutions designing new education and financial models.
  • On-going topical activities for the entire cohort via video or online workshops. Institutional teams may be expanded for these events. For example, workshops and/or discussion groups may be provided on competencies, accreditation, business models, tuition policies, learning analytics, student-centered design, service blueprinting, virtual communities, and/or challenges relating specifically to two-year or four-year institutions.
  • Assistance to subsets of participating institutions facing similar challenges or working on similar design strategies.
  • NGLC-identified and/or -developed tools and strategies for breakthrough models.
  • Shared online work space.
• At the end of the education, design, and planning period, each institution will be required to submit a business plan for fundamental change. Plans that meet baseline (TBA) benchmarks for proposed institutional change will receive funding of $100,000 to help launch implementation of the plan. Funding is dependent upon an institutional commitment to assess and share results.
• NGLC and partners will collect and analyze data to monitor institutional progress and synthesize lessons-learned, sharing with participating institutions for mutual benefit. The results and syntheses will be freely available.
• At project end, institutional representatives will be invited to a convening to share lessons learned and suggest improvements to the program.