How Can the IAA Help Me?
Environmental Scans

If you want to know what's happening in the market, ask the market.
-Japanese Proverb

One of the most important steps when deciding whether to develop a new course, degree program or academic alliance is to research the environment.  As a service to our clients, the Institute for Academic Alliances (IAA) scans the environment to identify market competition and determine institutional capacity for new offerings. 

Market Competition

Knowing what other institutions are offering can help your institution develop a well-focused program that fills an unmet need.  Early in the development process, the IAA determines which universities and colleges are offering a similar program, and finds answers to the following questions:

• What degree/certification do students receive from the program?
• What are the tuition and fees for in-state and out-of-state students wanting to pursue the degree?
• How many credit hours does the program require?
• What is the delivery method?  Are the courses available entirely online or are there face-to-face components?
• Additional questions are posed depending on the program and the type of information needed

If there are few or no universities/colleges offering a similar program, then ensure the program is needed.  A program in a niche area may be one of few, and developing such a program may make sense, especially in a burgeoning field.  Institutions make sustainable decisions when they are in-step with the market.  So, the IAA asks:

• Would the program have adequate enrollment if offered? (A market demand survey might be needed to answer this question.)
• What programs are being offered in related fields?   Does the proposed program focus encompass topics that are usually covered as specializations under other program titles?
• What are the general tuition and fees for in-state and out-of-state students in a program that most closely resembles the new program?
• Should an academic alliance be considered that might cut the cost of building an entirely new program?
• Additional questions are posed depending on the program and the type of information needed

Institutional Capacity

When institutions discover an unmet need and begin the process of starting a new program, institutional capacity must be considered.  While thinking about course building and curriculum development is constructive, the first step in building a new program should be looking at what current courses the university offers that might fit with the new program.  When an academic alliance is considered, scanning the institutional capacity of all the institutions can give the individual institutions a better idea of how the partners might work together.  The main question asked when doing an institutional capacity scan is:

• What courses does the institution already offer that might be incorporated into this new program?

After the IAA has adequately researched the environment, a document in compiled for the client in an easy-to-read format that summarizes the findings.  One example of an environmental scan compiled by the IAA was one done for Rural Tourism.  The spreadsheet includes what United States and other countries universities offer a program in Rural Tourism (an example of Market Competition). The spreadsheet also includes what courses the participating universities in the alliance might be compiled to build a new program in Rural Tourism (an example of Institutional Capacity).   An additional example is an environmental scan done for Water Resources (Word | Excel).  The main purpose of this scan was to see what other universities/colleges in the country are offering a degree program in Water Resources (Market Competition). 

If you are interested in learning more about environmental scans, or would like to have the IAA compile an environmental scan, contact us through email at iaa@ksu.edu, or call 785-532-3111.