1   The Case for an Online Professional Doctorate

The goal of most doctoral programs is to prepare students for research and teaching positions that will allow them to advance knowledge in their chosen disciplines. Ideally, students immerse themselves in the scholarship of their disciplines, acquire research skills, become active members of the academic community, complete comprehensive or qualifying exams, and conduct independent research that culminates in a dissertation. However, not all individuals who pursue a doctoral degree do so with the hope of working in a university- or research-based setting. Some are motivated to pursue doctoral degrees by the increasingly large and complex body of knowledge and expertise required in their field, aspirations for promotion or advancement, and/or an intense passion to make a difference in their local professional contexts. Traditional doctoral structures are often less than ideal for such individuals because their needs and goals differ from those associated with traditional academic and research environments.

The needs of professionals seeking terminal degrees that are not focused on academic or traditional research environments have been addressed in a variety of ways. The past decade has seen an increasing number of professional doctorates offered in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia, countries where higher education professionals and policy-makers have given greater attention to economic pressures, the need to implement research in the professions, and the drive to prepare a highly educated workforce (Kot & Hendel, 2012). In Canada, similar political, economic, and social factors have contributed to a renewed emphasis on the quality of PhD programs and to the creation of flexible PhD programs for adult professionals (Allen, Smyth, & Wahlstrom, 2002). These efforts address the rising need for highly skilled researchers and professionals outside of academia, aim for closer connections between research and practice or between research in academic and nonacademic professional contexts, and provide improved access to a terminal degree for adult professionals with commitments that might exclude them from full-time on-campus studies.

Developments in Internet and communication technologies in the last two decades have made possible virtual learning environments that facilitate doctoral-level experiences at a distance. However, the diversity of models for online doctorates, the research expectations and products, and the traditional view of what constitutes doctoral education have often led to such degrees being perceived as less rigorous, lower quality, and incapable of advancing knowledge. Nevertheless, excellent online doctoral programs (both professional doctorates and flexible PhDs) exist around the world that contribute to knowledge creation and that graduate professionals who conduct invaluable research in their professional contexts.

In this opening chapter, we provide some background about professional doctorates and present our model for an online professional doctorate that fuses theory, research, and practice. Using the example of the online professional doctorate in educational technology at the University of Florida (UF EdD EdTech), we explain why the online environment is an ideal medium in which to offer a professional doctorate. The chapter concludes with a list of key considerations for university program leaders wishing to distinguish between research and professional doctorates and to offer online professional doctorates.

A HISTORY OF THE PROFESSIONAL DOCTORATE IN THE UNITED STATES

The first doctor of pedagogy (later called doctor of education) was awarded in 1898 at the University of Toronto in Canada, and the first doctor of education, or EdD, in the United States was awarded in 1921 at Harvard University, sixty years after the first PhD was granted at Yale University (Allen et al., 2002; Lee, Brennan, & Green, 2009). Doctoral degrees in other disciplines, such as nursing, engineering science, and psychology, soon followed, the goal being to enable disciplines that could not offer a doctor of philosophy to award a degree comparable to the PhD. A report on doctorates earned in the United States in 1991 listed fifty different doctoral-level degrees in addition to the PhD, including several in very specialized fields such as rehabilitation and music ministry (Ries & Thurgood, 1993). These doctoral degrees varied in purpose and scope: some were research doctorates designed, like the PhD, to prepare recipients to teach at a postsecondary level, while others targeted people who planned to become practitioners in a particular discipline. Taking as his example the doctor of ministry, Tucker (2006) notes that, depending on the individual program, the same degree could amount to either a research doctorate or a professional doctorate.

This lack of standardization has been especially prevalent in relation to the EdD. The Survey of Earned Doctorates, sponsored by six federal agencies, reported that 143 participating doctor of education programs in the United States, after being reviewed over several years, were reclassified from research doctorate to professional doctorate during the 2010–11 period (National Science Foundation, National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, 2015). Given the close relationship between practice and research in the field of education, the EdD was, in theory, intended to prepare educational practitioners to be educational leaders who conduct research in practice, whereas a PhD in education prepared students for academic careers in educational research. In reality, however, several institutions, including Harvard, offered EdDs that looked more like PhDs, while others offered both degrees. The EdD was often treated as a less rigorous degree, with some institutions offering the EdD as a practitioner degree with no research component. As a result, “instead of being valued for accomplishing the discrete ends it was originally designed for, the EdD is widely regarded as a ‘Ph.D.-Lite’” (Shulman et al., 2006, p. 27). In 2006, on the basis of data collected from individuals involved in six different disciplines at fifteen institutions who had reconceptualized their doctoral programs, the Carnegie Initiative on the Doctorate emphasized the importance of clearly distinguishing between the research doctorate, which would prepare stewards of a discipline, and a professional practice doctorate, which would prepare stewards of practice (Perry & Imig, 2008; Shulman et al., 2006). Bourner et al. (2001) made a similar distinction between research and professional doctorates in universities in England using the terms discipline-development doctorates, whose holders seek to advance science and knowledge from a disciplinary standpoint, and student-development or context-improvement doctorates, whose holders seek to solve contextually based problems of practice through rigorous research.

Since 2007, to improve both programs, the Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate (CPED) in the United States has addressed the lack of clarity in the content of EdD and PhD programs by engaging colleges and universities in distinguishing the goals and outcomes of these two programs. According to the current CPED definition, PhD programs prepare researchers for traditional faculty or research settings while EdD programs “prepares educators for the application of appropriate and specific practices, the generation of new knowledge, and for the stewardship of the profession” (http://www.cpedinitiative.org/page/AboutUs). During our program’s inception, our faculty participated in CPED, and the vision of a professional practice doctorate equally rigorous to a Phd but distinct in purpose catalyzed our initial thinking about the UF EdD EdTech. Our model evolved based on numerous factors, including the online nature of our program, the interdisciplinary nature of the field of educational technology, the range of contexts within which our students work, and our familiarity with international perspectives on professional doctorates.

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PROFESSIONAL DOCTORATE

The term professional doctorate does not have a standard definition and is often synonymously used in various disciplines with terms such as practitioner doctorate, professional practice doctorate, the practice degree, and the clinical doctorate. All of these terms clearly refer to a doctorate designed for those with significant work experience and those who are embedded in or want to apply the degree to practice. However, doctoral programs in different disciplines, as well as within the same discipline across institutions, have varying expectations and formats.

The problem with terminology is further complicated by the fact that internationally, the professional doctorate takes many forms in the English-speaking world. In various disciplines in the United States, a combination of coursework and research has been prevalent in doctoral education of all types since the 1920s. Similarly, in Canada, doctoral programs generally include coursework, a residency (with varying lengths and requirements for research versus professional doctorates), and research (Allen et. al., 2002). In the United Kingdom and Australia, however, the PhD often does not include a “taught component” (Bourner et al., 2001, p. 66). The United Kingdom first offered professional doctorates (e.g., the EdD) in the 1990s; these degrees often included coursework, which distinguished them from research doctorates. In Australia, the professional doctorate has been defined as “a program of research and advanced study which enables the candidate to make a significant contribution to knowledge and practice in their professional context” and possibly “more generally to scholarship within a discipline or field of study” (Council of Australian Deans and Directors of Graduate Studies, 2007, p. 1).

British and Australian researchers often refer to the professional doctorate as an “in-service doctorate” (as opposed to the “pre-service” or research doctorate) to indicate that the doctorate was designed for working professionals and not for young students fresh from bachelor’s or master’s degrees (Bourner et al., 2001, p. 66). For instance, Maxwell and Shanahan (1997) define the professional doctorate in Australia as “an in-service or professional development award, concerned with production of knowledge in the professions,” distinguishing it from “the professional doctorate in the USA (with its history as a pre-service award)” (p. 133). In addition, Maxwell (2003) found that the connection to industry was definitive of several professional doctorates, which were characterized by the location of their research in industry, the inclusion of committee members from industry, or mentoring by members in industry. The workplace, and not the university, as the basis for research was also highlighted by Maxwell and Shanahan (1997) in their analysis of nineteen EdD programs in Australia; they asserted that professional doctorates produced “knowledge in context” rather than “propositional knowledge” (p. 142).

This distinction is noted by Gibbons, Limoges, Nowotny, Schwartzman, Scott, & Trow (1994), who propose that two modes of knowledge production exist: Mode 1, or disciplinary knowledge, which is generated in universities and is “governed by academic interests of specific communities,” and Mode 2, or transdisciplinary knowledge, which is produced “in context of application” and is a result of “new forms of research practice carried out in places far from the university” (cited in Lee, Green, and Brennan, 2000, p. 124). Or, as Morley and Priest (1998) describe it, transdisciplinary knowledge contributes to the “development of professional practice, rather than to the advancement of purely theoretical knowledge” (p. 24). Based on the distinction between these two modes of knowledge production, Lee et al. (2000) propose a hybrid curriculum model for the professional doctorate that takes into account the intersections between the university and the organization in which a doctoral research project will typically be undertaken. This hybrid model would facilitate the development of not only new kinds of knowledge but also new ways of producing knowledge, ways that involve new relationships among participants and new kinds of research writing. Lee et al. (2000) propose “a three-way model, where the university, the candidate’s profession and the particular work-site of the research meet in specific and local ways, in the context of a specific organization” and where the doctoral student will use “research literacies” to solve “problems of professional practice” (p. 127). Our proposed definition of the professional doctorate substantially corresponds to this point of view.

THE ONLINE PROFESSIONAL DOCTORATE FOR RESEARCHING PROFESSIONALS

Following their review of doctoral programs at seventy British universities, Bourner et al. (2001) distinguished between the PhD as a degree “intended to develop professional researchers” and the professional doctorate as a degree “designed to develop researching professionals” (p. 71). We agree with this distinction and define researching professionals as individuals who conduct research that generates knowledge to improve (primarily) their professional contexts; their research combines foundational and theoretical knowledge in their disciplines (sometimes, in more than one discipline) with knowledge of research in their contexts. We contend, however, that a professional doctoral curriculum that is designed according to our model can also contribute to the advancement of theoretical and empirical knowledge within a discipline or across disciplines. We propose an online professional doctorate that

• combines online coursework with a dissertation;
• allows researching professionals to remain embedded in their professional contexts while engaging with an online academic community of inquiry;
• fosters scholarly thinking in researching professionals;
• produces research grounded in a conceptual framework and culminating in a dissertation that addresses problems of practice but also has implications for other contexts; and
• generates researching professionals who can fuse theory, research, and practice and can communicate new knowledge and research in both professional and academic contexts.

An online professional doctorate with these characteristics contributes to effective application of research in professional contexts, productive collaborations between experts in professional and academic contexts, and a deeper understanding of research in professional contexts for those working in traditional academic contexts. This bidirectional flow of knowledge, expertise, and research can result in the advancement of various types of knowledge in both academic and professional contexts.

THEORY, RESEARCH, AND PRACTICE

Our model is based on the premise that the knowledge, research, and scholarship of students graduating with a professional doctorate should bring together the trifecta of theory, research, and practice (see figure 1).

Figure 1. Trifecta of theory, research, and practice.

• Theory. Researching professionals should possess foundational knowledge of theories in their discipline, and deep knowledge of theories that inform their areas of specialization within their discipline.
• Research. Researching professionals should possess foundational skills in research methods, deep knowledge of prior research and research methods in their areas of specialization, and knowledge of ethical behaviour and appropriate research methods in the context of their practice.
• Practice. Researching professionals should possess foundational knowledge of the social, political, historical, and economic fabric of their professional contexts; deep specialized knowledge of their professional contexts and disciplines; and a passion for improving their professional contexts through problem solving.

Researching professionals in a professional doctorate should be able to (a) construct their conceptual or theoretical frameworks that combine theories and prior research from one or more disciplines as they relate to problems of practice; (b) apply those theoretical frameworks using contextually appropriate research skills, to the implementation of research in their professional contexts; and (c) communicate the results and implications of their research to enhance context-specific knowledge and practice. In our model for the online professional doctorate, researching professionals are also enculturated into scholarly thinking in their disciplines, making it possible for them to disseminate knowledge and research produced in their professional contexts to other contexts. For example, in the UF EdD EdTech, dissertations produced by students within their professional contexts often lead to implications for other professional contexts and can sometimes contribute to the advancement of knowledge in a discipline. We assert that knowledge and research resulting from a true fusion of theory, research, and practice in an online professional doctorate are significant for both professional and academic contexts. Moreover, the online nature of the professional doctorate we describe in this book and the multiple opportunities for interactions and information dissemination provided by communication technologies today ensure the blurring of context boundaries and increased engagement among stakeholders from various contexts.

THE NEED FOR ONLINE PROFESSIONAL DOCTORATES

Several institutions currently offer successful on-campus professional doctorates in which students take classes at university campuses in the evenings or on weekends and conduct research in their workplaces. Nevertheless, we assert that the online environment is an ideal medium for professionals who wish to immerse themselves in theory and conduct research while remaining embedded in their practice. We envision the online professional doctorate as particularly relevant for researching professionals who work in diverse professional contexts at a distance from the institution at which the terminal degree of their choice is offered. With today’s Internet and communication technologies, faculty members at a university can interact using real-time video and audio with people situated at physical distances; professionals can access academic research and course materials while at their workplaces and homes or while travelling; and online communities can comprise participants located in different states, countries, and workplaces. It is not only possible but, in our opinion, preferable for a professional doctorate that combines theory, research, and practice to be offered using the online medium.

Those likely to apply to professional doctorates are typically older than traditional PhD students, are usually fully employed in professional settings, and often carry numerous personal responsibilities such as caring for children or aging parents. Online education allows such professionals to continue to work, whether full-time or part-time, and to meet the personal demands on their time while simultaneously learning in an environment that promotes the integration of university learning and professional practice. During interviews with nineteen students who graduated from the first two cohorts of the UF EdD EdTech, seventeen stated that they could not have received their doctoral degrees if not for the online medium. The reasons they provided included family responsibilities, work commitments, inability to coordinate class schedules with professional commitments, and geographical distance from a research university. Sixteen students stated that the support of their online cohorts was instrumental in their ability to persist and finish their dissertations. The online environment enables students to build a community with other students working in other professional contexts, thus avoiding the isolation that many working doctoral students feel in traditional, campus-based programs.

In our educational technology program, we do not see the PhD and EdD degrees as mutually exclusive but as having different purposes, goals, and outcomes: the PhD prepares professional researchers for academic and other contexts and the EdD prepares researching professionals for the interdisciplinary field of educational technology. With these distinctions in mind, we spent considerable thought and effort on the admissions process, attempting to identify the goals of prospective students. Of the 117 applicants to our first two cohorts (approximately 50% of the applications received) who completed a voluntary, anonymous survey about the reasons for their application to our university, 115 were employed full-time. About 90 percent of those who responded to the survey stated that they were applying to our program because it was offered online, and 60 percent named convenience as a reason. Professional development (82%), professional growth (76%), and enhanced professional status (61%) were the most cited reasons for pursuing a doctoral degree. These data clearly indicate the relevance of an online terminal degree to working adults who cannot attend a university full-time but would like to learn and grow in the context of their professions. Of the 117 survey respondents, only 11 percent had not previously taken an online course, whereas 51 percent had taken at least six courses online before applying to our program. While we acknowledge the fact that the respondents were interested in or were already working in the field of educational technology, these numbers not only reflect the general trend toward online education in institutions of higher education (Seaman, Allen, & Seaman, 2018), but they also emphasize the need for online terminal degrees for professionals.

THE NEED FOR RESEARCHING PROFESSIONALS

Traditionally, a doctoral education aims to prepare researchers who will engage in the pursuit and advancement of knowledge in higher education settings. In the past couple of decades, the number of academic jobs available to doctoral graduates has decreased (Golde & Walker, 2006; Nyquist, 2002), and at the same time, the access for adult professionals interested in pursuing terminal degrees part-time in institutions of higher education has increased because of advancements in Internet and communication technologies. These developments have been accompanied by calls for improving the quality of doctoral education and fulfilling the need for highly educated professionals and skilled researchers in areas outside of academia (Archbald, 2011; Burgess, Weller, & Wellington, 2013; Golde & Walker, 2006; Nyquist, 2002). Reports have criticized the isolation of academic research from industry and the economic needs of a society or country and, at the same time, have highlighted the need for researchers and professionals with terminal degrees who can advance knowledge in professional contexts, policy making and government, social and economic organizations, and corporate environments (Canadian Association for Graduate Studies, 2005; Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, 2005).

In a report about innovations in doctoral education, the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation (2005) specifies new paradigms, new practices, new people, and new partnerships as the four themes that should inform doctoral education of the future. At the heart of this report is the need for making research the focus of doctoral education and for making “the application of knowledge beyond the academy integral to a doctoral experience” (p. 3). Although the report does not mention professional doctorates, we contend that these degrees—if they integrate the trifecta of theory, research, and practice—are ideally suited to generating knowledge applicable outside of the academy. Within our framework, professional doctoral research is rigorous but has a different purpose from the research conducted in a traditional research doctorate: our framework supports the creation of knowledge in context (Maxwell & Shanahan, 1997), application of that knowledge to professional contexts, and advancement of the discipline through that application. A researching professional’s knowledge and the intersection of theory, research, and practice may fall within a discipline but are often interdisciplinary because professional contexts frequently operate in a transdisciplinary manner. There is a great need for individuals who are qualified to generate such knowledge to solve increasingly broad and complex problems in a variety of professional environments and to disseminate that knowledge in multiple environments. In the following section, we provide the example of educational technology as a field that is experiencing a great demand for researching professionals and online professional doctorates, and we briefly describe how theory, research, and practice coalesce in the UF EdD EdTech.

AN ONLINE PROFESSIONAL DOCTORATE IN EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY

Educational technology is a field with a long history of practice-focused domains and research-oriented paradigms (Reiser, 2001). A widely accepted definition of educational technology that clearly brings research and practice together is “the study and ethical practice of facilitating learning and improving performance by creating, using, and managing appropriate technological processes and resources” (Januszewski & Molenda, 2008, p. 1).

Notwithstanding research-oriented positions that are important for the field of educational technology, opportunities for researching professionals are expanding rapidly around the world in contexts such as schools, virtual schools, businesses, industry, the military, postsecondary institutions, and nonprofit organizations. The need for researching professionals in these contexts is burgeoning as the knowledge base is exploding, access to digital data is growing exponentially, and critical analysis is increasingly necessary while employing technologies to facilitate learning and performance. In particular, educational technologists are needed to support the rapid expansion of online and mobile learning in schools and higher education contexts and of technology use in all disciplines. Twenty-seven states in the United States have K-12 virtual schools, and several million students currently take K-12 online courses (Watson, Murin, Vashaw, Gemin, & Rapp, 2012). Similarly, almost one-third (31.6%) of US college students are taking at least one online course (Seaman, et al., 2018), and more than 62 percent of colleges and universities offer online degree programs (Allen & Seaman, 2013). Massive open online course (MOOC) offerings are increasing across postsecondary institutions, and the use of open educational resources (OER) across interdisciplinary contexts is also expanding (Allen & Seaman, 2016).

These new online opportunities create the need for highly skilled educational technologists who can lead instructional designers or educational technology specialists; can study the wealth of data generated about the activities, patterns, and performance of students and faculty in digital educational experiences; and can solve a variety of contextually based problems that accompany technology implementation. The need for educational technologists and educators in all disciplines who are well versed in designing instruction and assessments, conducting research, and making data-driven decisions in digital environments is at an all-time high. This need has been exacerbated by the development of several new online certificates, master’s programs, and terminal degrees in disciplines such as educational technology, learning design, and the learning sciences—programs that are targeted at adult professionals across disciplines who would prefer to learn at a distance for various reasons. In the UF EdD EdTech, for instance, we have enrolled doctoral students from different professional environments (e.g., postsecondary, traditional and virtual K-12, corporate, military, and nonprofit), job roles (e.g., teachers from elementary, middle, and high school; college instructors; instructional designers and distance learning professionals; administrators; higher education advising professionals; faculty development and professional development professionals), and disciplines (e.g. math, science, foreign languages, English, nursing, public health, deaf studies, art).

Our curriculum, which combines online coursework with a dissertation, was purposefully designed to address the needs of professionals who seek to conduct research that furthers knowledge in their disciplines while remaining embedded in their professional contexts. The initial two years of coursework immerse the students in the foundational knowledge of their disciplines and the discipline of educational technology and in specialized knowledge of research and research methods in their areas of specialization, which are usually interdisciplinary. They are encouraged to apply the knowledge gained from their coursework to problems of practice at their workplaces and to share and disseminate their learning from these experiences in both professional and academic communities. They are required to develop conceptual frameworks that fuse theory, research, and their deep knowledge of their professional contexts and that form the basis of their research throughout the program and in the culminating dissertation. Below, we describe how three researching professionals—a health science librarian, a professor of nursing, and a high school principal—combined theory, research, and practice in the UF EdD EdTech and generated new knowledge that was shared in academic and professional contexts.

A health sciences librarian in our program was researching ways to support health care professionals taking graduate courses in successfully accessing and using digital library resources. For her research, she drew on theories of online learning (Moore, 1993) and principles of instructional design (Morrison, Kemp, & Ross, 2003); prior research in information literacy and library instruction; and her professional experience in the field of health sciences, where she piloted and evaluated an embedded librarian project. Her research combined methods used in online learning and in the library sciences, and she analyzed returned questionnaires and online interactions to identify the effectiveness of online embedded librarians in information-literacy instruction specific to the health sciences. Finally, she integrated into her professional context—a college of public health—the implications from her results for instructional design, curriculum, and online student-librarian interactions. At the time of writing, she continues to conduct and publish interdisciplinary research in educational technology, information literacy, and the health sciences. Based on her dissertation research, Educational Technology faculty began to work with embedded librarians, and a professional in a subsequent cohort implemented a project that explored the feasibility of embedding librarians in the field of English education.

Another student in our program, a professor of nursing, was interested in developing geriatric and long-term caring efficacy among nursing students. She explored the use of digital storytelling and reflective learning in higher education and the literature on caring and caring efficacy and, based on Kolb’s (1984) experiential learning theory and a care framework used currently in the United States, created a conceptual framework specific to her context. She designed and implemented a digital storytelling activity in the nursing curriculum and investigated the impact of that activity on nursing students’ self-efficacy based on artifact analysis and a caring efficacy scale. To address a problem of practice, this researching professional combined knowledge of foundational theories and prior research in nursing, educational technology, and curriculum design in nursing education; knowledge of research methods and instruments used in higher education, educational technology, and current nursing practice; and intricate knowledge of both her professional context and the discipline. Her dissertation contributed both to her immediate context and to the development of a care-efficacy framework in a professional nursing organization.

A third graduate of our program, a high school principal in a country where technology integration in schools is not commonplace, was working in a secondary school where mathematics scores were below those in other content areas. He examined the effects of GeoGebra, a dynamic geometry software (DGS) program, on student engagement and student achievement in four Grade 9 geometry classes using experimental and control groups. He combined foundational and specialized knowledge of theory and research in educational technology and mathematics to study how DGS might support factors known to contribute to mathematical learning, including visual and tactile opportunities to represent abstract concepts and the need for immediate feedback. With a mixed-methods approach, he used a student-engagement scale to measure engagement, evaluated student achievement using a pre- and post-test and the students’ semester math grades, and conducted interviews of teachers in the four classes, along with classroom observation. Although the statistical results showed no significant difference in achievement or engagement, the qualitative data provided rich insight into teaching and learning mathematics with technology in his professional context. Based on this student’s dissertation, a proposal for infusing GeoGebra more seamlessly into geometry classes and providing more support to teachers was developed. This researching professional is also sharing what he learned with others in his country and identifying issues related to technical infrastructure that need to be addressed in his school.

The above examples show that researching professionals in an online professional doctorate can blend foundational and specialized interdisciplinary knowledge to conduct research that addresses problems of practice. Such endeavours not only generate new knowledge in professional contexts but also result in knowledge and expertise being transferred from specific contexts to larger professional communities and to other contexts or disciplines, in the formation of new partnerships, and in the sharing of expertise between academic and professional contexts.

KEY CONSIDERATIONS

We recognize that some disciplines may experience a greater demand for researching professionals and online professional doctorates than others and that our experiences in doctoral programs in education may be different from those of educators in other disciplines. Like our discipline of educational technology, which has a tremendous need and great potential for terminal degree programs for researching professionals, other disciplines have a similar number of professionals who are interested in rigorous research, as evidenced by the literature we reviewed in this chapter. We provide key considerations here for those interested in offering an online professional doctorate for researching professionals.

Defining the purpose and goals. Those interested in offering an online professional doctorate should first clearly articulate its purpose and goals based on their institution’s goals and the needs of their discipline and profession. We have found this to be essential for making a case for a particular online professional doctorate, designing the program’s curriculum, initiating conversations with administrators and colleagues, marketing the program to prospective students, and recruiting students who will be served well by the degree. The definition of purpose and goals should be based on the types of skills and knowledge needed by the researching professionals for whom the program is designed and on the connections among theory, research, and practice that are valued in the particular discipline. A review of the dissertations that already exist in the discipline and a definition of the dissertation format and types of research that would be valuable can help to refine the proposed program’s purpose and goals.

Identifying prospective learners. Identifying the learners who would be interested in earning a professional doctorate in the discipline in question, as well as the kinds of dissertations or research that would enhance their professional environments, can increase the sustainability of a professional doctorate. In order to identify who might be interested in a doctorate like the one we envisioned and to design a relevant and useful curriculum, we initially surveyed potential applicants. We also collected data from applicants about their prior experiences with online learning in order to provide the support they would require as doctoral learners in the online environment. Finally, to continually improve the program and ensure that it meets the needs of professionals and keeps up with the changes in our dynamic field, our ongoing practice is to solicit feedback from each cohort, regularly review reports about key positions in our profession, and conduct research about the skills and knowledge needed in the profession (Ritzhaupt & Kumar, 2015).

Identifying existing and needed resources. As important as it is to understand the needs of professionals and their experiences as online learners, an analysis of the infrastructure and capabilities of the host institution to offer an online degree and support adult learners at a distance is essential for retention and student success. For example, an institution that already offers master’s degrees or certificates online will typically have a learning management system and instructional designers, as well as some experience with online student support and the marketing of online offerings. In the case of the UF EdD EdTech, because of our previous experience of conceptualizing and offering a successful online master’s program, we were familiar with the processes and infrastructure needed to begin an online doctoral program. At the same time, we were challenged with providing research infrastructure for online students and addressing the requirements of an online doctorate that were unrelated to coursework (e.g., proposal defence meetings or dissertation defence meetings). It is important to identify what already exists and what will be needed to successfully offer an online professional doctorate.

Involving stakeholders. Administrative support is essential to any new initiative in an institution of higher education, as is compliance with accreditation and policy procedures. It is critical to collaborate with staff involved with admissions, administrative procedures, and graduate student support. Additionally, all faculty members involved in an online professional doctorate must understand its purposes and goals, the challenges and needs of professionals completing an online degree, and the competencies required to communicate with and mentor students online. Faculty readiness to teach online, a plan for quality assurance and maintenance, and ongoing documentation of how the online professional doctorate is achieving its goals are also required for the successful implementation of such a program.

CONCLUSION

Higher education institutions have responded to the need for professionals with advanced degrees and specialized knowledge in a knowledge-based economy by adapting or creating doctoral programs for adults who seek to acquire a terminal degree while embedded in their professional contexts. Advances in Internet and communication technologies have already made it possible for such programs to be offered at a distance. The ubiquity of mobile technologies and the advent of augmented reality hold tremendous potential for new modes of interaction, different types of degree programs, and creative models of doctoral education in the future. Notwithstanding the technologies used, clarity of purpose and the purposeful design of a curriculum that integrates theory, research, and practice is needed for an online professional doctorate to succeed in its goals.