In Fall 2017, OLC launched the OLC Research Center for Digital Learning and Leadership in order to better serve the digital learning community as the go-to resource for empirical and evidence-based research, as well as practitioner-based resources.

The Center’s resources are categorized into six focus areas that are critical to the field: Annual Surveys, Digital Learning, Instructional Design/Learning Design, Leadership, Teaching & Learning, and the soon-to-be-released Quality section. Each focus area includes original, curated, and sponsored research papers, white papers, case studies, webinars, tool kits, links to peer-reviewed articles from journals such as OLC’s Online Learning, as well as searchable research databases.

OLC collaborates with a variety of institutions to provide this collection of resources, as well as to create new research in the field. If you are working on a study that pertains to a topic in the digital learning field and would like to collaborate with OLC, please fill out the form on the Research Center web page.

In addition to partnering with institutions to produce meaningful research, the Center conducts commissioned and sponsored research studies, such as Alternative Credentials: PLA 2.0, commissioned by DEAC, the Presidents’ Forum, and USA Funds; and the Virtual Classroom Training Survey: What Can We Learn from Our Colleagues, sponsored by Acrobatiq. The Center also provides custom research presentations and keynotes, sponsorship opportunities, as well as webinars. If you’re interested in any of these opportunities, please fill out the form on the Research Center home page.

Every few weeks, we will highlight one of the resources in the Research Center, right here on OLC Insights, the OLC blog. At the end of this month, we’ll release guidelines for OLC members to submit studies, white papers, and blog posts to be reviewed for inclusion in the Research Center for Digital Learning and Leadership.