The Pulse of Higher Ed

COLO Compass: Evidence and practical direction for chief online learning officers.

By Vickie S. Cook, Ph.D.

For years, one of the challenges facing online learning leaders was convincing the institution that online education belonged in the mainstream of academic life. That argument is increasingly behind us.

Online learning now intersects with enrollment strategy, academic planning, technology, student support, workforce development, compliance, marketing, finance, and institutional strategy. Learners move among modalities. Faculty teach across modalities with varying pedagogical approaches. Technology systems rarely serve only online learners. And decisions made in one part of the institution can quickly affect the quality and sustainability of the entire online learning enterprise.

That creates an interesting leadership paradox for Chief Online Learning Officers. The more successfully online learning becomes integrated into the institution, the less of it the COLO directly controls.

From Owning Online Learning to Integrating the Enterprise

The traditional organizational question was often straightforward: Where should online learning reside? Academic affairs? Continuing education? Information technology? A separate online unit that isn’t integrated into the overall institutional strategy?

Organizational structure still matters, but I am increasingly convinced that the more consequential question is different.  The question today is “Who is responsible for making sure all of the pieces work together?”

Consider the prospective learner experience. Marketing may generate interest. The CRM will likely manage communications. Enrollment staff may respond to inquiries. Academic departments control governance of programs and curriculum. Financial aid manages another part of the learner experience process. Instructional designers work with faculty. Information technology maintains critical systems. Student affairs provides support services. Institutional research supplies data and develops critical reporting structures. Every unit may perform its own work well while the learner still experiences friction between them.  Fees and tuition may be overseen by an operational arm that is separate from the on-campus fee and tuition committee.

The same problem appears in other areas of the online enterprise. Institutions can have excellent technology but cumbersome processes. Strong individual online programs but no coherent portfolio strategy. Good enrollment data but limited ability to turn it into decisions. Responsible AI policies that are disconnected from actual workflows. Strong faculty support in one college and little support in another.

These are not necessarily failures of individual units. They are failures of integration. And integration may be becoming one of the COLO’s most important leadership responsibilities. This changes how we should think about the authority of the COLO.

Leadership Across Boundaries

Institutional leadership does not always come from owning every function. In complex organizations, it often comes from establishing shared direction, clarifying responsibilities, connecting work across organizational boundaries, and making sure decisions remain aligned with institutional purpose.  Institutional leadership often requires influencing work across organizational boundaries to deliver on the promise made to prospective learners. Delivering on this promise requires COLOs to understand much more than online course delivery.

They need sufficient knowledge of enrollment to recognize friction in the prospective learner journey. They need enough understanding of technology and AI to distinguish a promising capability from an unnecessary solution. They need to understand regulatory compliance and accreditation requirements. They need to be able to help colleagues across campus understand the federal regulatory requirements affecting online learning. They need to participate in conversations about program economics and portfolio decisions with deans and department chairs. They need credible relationships with faculty and academic leadership to steer online programming forward across the institution. Most importantly, they need to see connections that may not be apparent when each functional area looks only at its own responsibilities.

The COLO becomes less the leader of an online unit and more the integrator of an online learning enterprise.

Start With the Problem, Not the Technology

AI makes this responsibility particularly visible. Institutions are understandably exploring where AI can improve recruitment, enrollment, learner support, instructional design, faculty work, analytics, and administrative processes. But the availability of a new capability does not mean that adopting it is the appropriate first step.

A lesson I have returned to repeatedly in my work is that technology cannot repair a poorly designed process. 

In some cases, it simply allows us to execute the poor process more efficiently.

The COLO can help change the sequence of the conversation.

Instead of beginning with:

What can this technology do?

Begin with:

What problem are we trying to solve?

Then ask:

What process produces the current outcome?

Who is involved?

Where are the handoffs or points of friction?

What experience are we creating for learners, faculty, and staff?

Only then should we ask what role technology—including AI—should play.

That is a leadership discipline, not a technology strategy.

Integration Requires Shared Evidence

The same principle applies to data. Online learning enterprises have no shortage of metrics. Enrollment, retention, course completion, learner satisfaction, faculty participation, marketing performance, program revenue, and many other measures are readily available. The harder question is whether those measures help leaders understand what is actually happening.

A metric can tell us where to look. It does not necessarily tell us why something happened.

If application conversion declines, for example, the answer may not reside in the enrollment dashboard. The problem could involve communication, program positioning, price, response time, an application process, market demand, or the learner experience itself.

COLOs therefore need to help institutions move from reporting data to asking questions with data. That means bringing evidence from different parts of the institution together and creating the cross-functional conversations necessary to interpret it.

The COLO’s Leadership Question

Perhaps this is the emerging leadership test for the role. When online learning was still developing institutional legitimacy, COLOs often needed to advocate for it. When online programs expanded, they needed to build the structures necessary to support them.

Now that digital learning is increasingly embedded throughout institutional operations, the next stage may require something different: ensuring coherence across an enterprise in which responsibility is widely distributed. That work is less visible than launching a new program or implementing a new technology. It involves people, processes, purpose, and the patient work of aligning them. But I think it may also be where the COLO creates the greatest institutional value.

As you look across your own institution, consider one question:

Where does the online learner experience depend on several parts of the institution working together but no one is clearly responsible for making sure they do?

That may be exactly where the COLO needs to lead next.