Distance education-School As A Service

Another approach to overcoming the barrier between traditional education and scalable online education is outsourcing to, or partnering with, an external company for online content, curriculum, and/or student services. These companies bring experience and capabilities to help schools implement a master course concept and the associated operations while providing these courses through the traditional institution.

There is also a burgeoning industry built around outsourced, for-profit service providers—companies that provide the curriculum and course development, as well as the operations, of an online program. This new category is called School-as-a-Service, and some market estimates indicate future compound annual growth rates of 30 percent for this sector. Pearson has entered this market based on the model used with Arizona State University and California State University.6 Other providers include Embanet Compus, 2tor, Deltak, and Academic Parterships.