Proposal Planning Considerations
- Who will advise your distance students?
- How will your website be revised to serve your distance students?
- What will your distance program infrastructure look like?
- What additional personnel (faculty and staff) will be needed?
- What additional expenses will be generated as a result of this distance program?
- Who will teach the courses: regular faculty, adjuncts, GTAs?
- What is your course rotation schedule to enable distance students to move through the program?
- What format will each course be in: 8-week semester-based, 16-week semester-based, 8-week self-paced, 16-week self-paced, 9-month self-paced, multiple formats?
Market Demand Analysis (Two paragraphs or so of narrative on this will likely be sufficient.)
- Keeping in mind that this offering will be targeting distance students, who would be interested in this program?
- What jobs do they have now and what employment prospects will they have when they are finished?
- How is this industry doing nationally or in the Midwest or in Missouri? Is it easy or hard to find jobs in this industry after achieving this level of education?
- Information may be available from the Bureau of Labor Statistics or the Missouri Department of Economic Development, for example.
- What skills are employers in this industry seeking?
- If the offering isn’t intended to improve students’ employability, does it prepare them for advanced study in another area? Is there proof to be cited that additional educational opportunities in this area are lacking?
- Would the offering satisfy an unmet need for education in this area for those seeking personal enrichment?
- Would the offering help with an online degree in another area (e.g. a minor)?
- Is this (or a similarly named program) already offered online by many other institutions, or only a few?
- Discuss the competitors and where they are.
- Knowing Mizzou’s tuition and supplemental fees, would this program be competitively priced compared to the competition?
- What will be different about Mizzou’s offering?
Recruitment Plans(Two paragraphs or so of narrative on this will likely be sufficient.)
- Having determined who would want to enroll in this offering through your market demand analysis, discuss how they can be reached.
- Describe how completion of this offering improves career prospects for students.
- List any geographic areas that are underserved by this area of study (making it a target area for recruitment).
- List professional organizations these students belong to or would belong to once finished.
- Will the new offering prepare students for a certification from another association?
- List the publications or websites that employees in this industry peruse.
- List employers who would promote this offering because they seek to hire in this area.
- List any that might offer tuition assistance.