Introduction

Doctoral education as known in North America today can be traced back to the educational philosophy of Wilhelm von Humboldt, who, in 1810, founded the University of Berlin (renamed Humboldt University in 1949). The first PhD graduates in the United States and Canada matriculated in 1861 and in 1897, respectively (Bourner, Bowden, & Laing, 2001; Kot & Hendel, 2012). Doctoral programs are offered in different forms and with various requirements across the disciplines, but their common aim is to graduate individuals capable of conducting independent research and advancing knowledge in their fields. The early twentieth century saw the emergence of doctoral programs that sought to address the needs of professionals in a variety of settings where research could inform practice. Called professional doctorates, practitioner doctorates, work-based doctorates, or professional practice doctorates, these doctoral programs also took diverse forms as they gradually expanded across and within disciplines.

The past decade has seen the development of both on-campus professional doctorates with varying degrees of online components and similar programs that are completely online. This has led to a need for educators and administrators to design educational experiences that (a) align the goals and outcomes of a professional doctorate with the needs of professional students, (b) implement lessons learned from prior research on doctoral education and adult learning, and (c) integrate research and practice to support distance learners, thus helping them to succeed in online environments. Fostering scholarly habits of mind and research skills through online learning can be challenging, as can the conceptualization and implementation of an online terminal degree. A doctoral program, be it a research doctorate or a professional doctorate, is inherently different from a master’s program, which usually consists of a set of courses and projects and may include an internship or practicum. To prepare both independent researchers and members of a scholarly community, a doctoral education generally provides various types of experiences; it might include coursework, one-to-one mentoring, independent work, participation in research teams, and involvement in a wide variety of forums that lead to enculturation in a community of scholars. An online doctoral program must include such experiences as well as others that are possible only in online environments (e.g., participation in a network of international scholars on Twitter). As we have presented our work at conferences over the years, we have encountered individuals with extensive experience in campus-based doctoral education who have struggled with the design and implementation of an online doctoral program, as well as those who have led excellent online master’s programs but have been less successful in creating doctoral-level experiences in online environments. In this book, we build on existing literature on doctoral education, adult learning, and online education to present our model of a professional doctorate offered online.

Almost a decade ago, we set out to develop the online EdD degree in educational technology that is presently offered through the University of Florida’s College of Education. The College of Education offers both a PhD and an EdD in the field of educational technology. The PhD (a research doctorate) is designed for individuals wishing to pursue research-oriented careers, while the EdD (a professional doctorate) is intended for those wishing to conduct research and assume leadership roles in professional environments. In short, the PhD program prepares “professional researchers,” while the EdD program prepares “researching professionals” (Bourner et al., 2001, p. 71). Students enrolled in the PhD program are expected to study on campus—ideally, attending full-time and engaging fully with the campus community. We expect students pursuing our online EdD to continue working while taking courses, implementing their learning in their professional practice and engaging fully with the online academic community. Students in both programs are expected to produce work that is commensurate with doctoral-level standards and that advances the field and improves practice. We firmly subscribe to the view that the professional doctorate, while distinguished from the research doctorate by its purpose, can and should be as rigorous as the research doctorate.

Our goal was to create an online doctoral program that would enable candidates to build an online community of inquiry, to engage in critical discourse within a specific discipline and/or in an interdisciplinary setting, to learn from and with experts and peers, and to generate knowledge based on existing and original research. In this book, we present the model on which our program is based. Despite its origins in a specific doctoral program, the model necessarily addresses issues of concern to any online professional doctorate, such as curriculum design, the development of scholarly thinking, dissertation supervision in an online environment, and community building. Such topics are clearly integral to all doctoral programs aimed at learners who study part-time, are working professionals, and are unable to pursue on-campus studies. While we would never claim to have it all figured out or to have created a model that will work in every context, we believe that we have much to offer those interested in exploring online doctoral degrees, whether for professional researchers or researching professionals.

The University of Florida EdD in educational technology (UF EdD EdTech) has been offered since 2008 and has graduated fifty-six students at the time of writing. The degree comprises two years of online coursework culminating in qualifying exams and followed by the dissertation, during which students research a problem of practice, working one-on-one with faculty mentors. The program is characterized by asynchronous and synchronous online interactions, yearly on-campus meetings, and a strong focus on community building and the connections among theory, research, and practice. We have conducted a wealth of research about the program, which has contributed to the development of our model. Our published articles pertaining to specific topics are briefly summarized and cited in the individual chapters wherever relevant.

In this book, we share the theoretical and research foundations for our program, as well as its design, implementation, and evaluation. We discuss many of the key decision points, nuances, and potential pitfalls facing those designing and implementing online professional degrees. We share our insights from our own research and experience and from our colleagues; perhaps most importantly, we present data from students who have experienced our program. Although this book is largely based on our experiences in the field of educational technology, our work applies to a broad range of disciplines.

The book is divided into three parts. Part 1, which focuses on theoretical foundations and design, begins with a chapter in which we describe the need for researching professionals and online professional doctorates and present our model for a program that meets this need. Chapter 2 presents several adult learning theories and describes how they can be used to design an online professional doctoral curriculum that connects theory, research, and practice.

In part 2, we turn to the topic of implementation. Chapter 3 focuses on what we consider to be the most important and most challenging aspect of online professional doctorates—creating a community of researching professionals who are also scholars. In chapter 4, we describe ways to foster scholarly thinking among researching professionals with an online curriculum that promotes scholarly reading and writing, information literacy, and enculturation. Chapter 5 focuses on the structure and conceptualization of dissertations that connect theory, research, and practice, and chapter 6, which centres on the mentoring of such dissertations, is based on strategies used and data collected from three cohorts in our program.

Finally, part 3 focuses on evaluating an online professional doctorate. Chapter 7 addresses the maintenance and measurement of quality, and in chapter 8, we explore the definition and assessment of impact in an online professional doctorate. We conclude the book with a discussion of the numerous administrative issues, faculty decisions, and potential pitfalls we have experienced on our journey.

We provide details of theoretical frameworks and research where possible, but we also presume some basic familiarity with doctoral education practices and online teaching and learning. We cite seminal works on both doctoral and online education that readers can access for background information if needed. The increased expansion of online education in the last two decades has been accompanied by the development of standards, accreditation procedures, technical infrastructure, acceptable use policies, intellectual property policies, units that support online course development and online students, and faculty development programs in online teaching. Learning-management systems, student-information systems, synchronous and asynchronous communication technologies, and mobile applications for access to online program offerings have been implemented and studied at institutions of higher education around the world. Our knowledge base and ability to offer online programs has been enhanced by descriptions of implementations, research reports, and conference presentations on various aspects of online education in leading academic journals and professional organizations such as Educause, Contact North, and the Online Learning Consortium (formerly the Sloan-C Consortium). Seminal works such as The Theory and Practice of Online Learning (Anderson, 2008), Handbook of Distance Education (Moore, 2013), Online Distance Education: Towards a Research Agenda (Zawacki-Richter & Anderson, 2014), and Distance Education: A Systems View of Online Learning (Moore & Kearsley, 2012) provide a comprehensive overview of various aspects of online education.

We believe that this book can guide program leaders who aim to develop, implement, and sustain a rigorous online professional doctorate that provides excellent educational experiences for adult professionals who have different needs from those aiming to pursue careers in academia. It can also be useful to higher education professionals seeking to include e-learning components in existing on-campus doctoral programs and to expand existing programs for traditional students so as to include professional students at a distance. Educators interested in improving the quality of an online professional doctorate—from both a process perspective (how things are working) and a product perspective (how the doctorate is impacting students and their environments)—will also find this book valuable. Notwithstanding discipline-specific and institution-specific issues and areas for consideration that might arise in other programs, this book provides a comprehensive guide to the design, implementation, and evaluation of online professional doctorates.