Higher education collaboration Great Plains Interactive Distance Education Alliance: selected policy analysis

Abstract

This is a qualitative policy analysis that incorporates constructivism and template analysis to study the process of policy development of three policies for the Great Plains Interactive Distance Education Alliance. The policies studied were the financial, leadership, and intellectual property policies. Data was gathered utilizing meeting minutes, emails, three interviews, and institutional members' websites. Great Plains Interactive Distance Education Alliance is a consortium of mostly land grant universities in the Great Plains region of the United States. The human sciences colleges of these institutions collaborated to offer courses that the individual members did not have the resources to support with the goal of offering students master's degrees that the membership felt were needed by their discipline. The policies were developed to sustain the consortium while addressing the individual needs of the members. The findings include historical best practices for consortia, best practices from the work of the consortium that was studied, and gaps that could be addressed in future consortia. There are also some signposts for new ventures to be aware of as they begin the process of policy development.