The financial model is set up so that academic units can benefit from the net proceeds of successful programs while avoiding financial risk. 12.5% of revenue is guaranteed to the unit regardless of whether eCornell recovers its upfront investment. Additionally, the academic unit shares in any subsequent net proceeds from eCornell after all other expenses are recovered. In the non-credit credential market, over 65% of a program’s revenue goes to the costs of marketing, enrollment counselors, administrative support, online course facilitators, and HelpDesk.  

For most programs, eCornell covers the full upfront cost of development, averaging around $150,000. When we start to sell the program, 12.5% of the revenue generated by the program is sent back to the unit. Many units split this between the unit or department and the authoring faculty member(s), though there are many other arrangements your unit could employ. eCornell also sends the unit an advance on future royalties, which typically goes to the authoring faculty member. At the end of the fiscal year, additional revenue generated by programs beyond what is needed to cover eCornell’s operating costs is sent back to the unit in the form of a dividend.  

We would like to work closely with your department chair to make sure that the expectation of effort to create a course is accurately set and that additional support resources are provided if necessary.  We have found that there are many avenues we can pursue to aid in the development of these programs that are more economical with faculty time. The right strategy will need to be tailored to the particular situation. Strategies may include hiring someone to work with the faculty member, adapting the methods used to create the content, creating teams to divide the work, etc.

If you respond to an RFI, we would reach out to your EESC member and/or department chair to let them know we received your submission before engaging in conversation. From there, we would meet with you, learn more about the opportunity, and then determine the path forward. If your department chair didn’t want you to work on this project, we would discontinue the conversation and move on to other faculty.

Depending on the nature of the project and the desire for your department to be involved, we would work with the group to determine the best points in the development process to gather their input and approval. We have had several scenarios like this in the past and have been able to work through them collaboratively.

The time faculty members spend creating their program varies widely and depends on several factors, including the size of the course, the spacing and quantity of the faculty member’s availability, the nature of the subject matter, the number of collaborators (if any), and the faculty member’s level of comfort and experience teaching this material to similar audiences, among other factors. 

Before beginning work on any project, we take a close look at your availability and the other factors above then work with you to determine the approach and timing that will work best. 

Regardless of the size and duration of the project, our faculty partners report that the time they invested creating their program was well spent. See what some veteran eCornell faculty partners have to say about the process.

eCornell tries to take a portfolio approach to support a broad range of programs. As a self-funded unit set up to provide resources to the academic units (vs. being a cost the academic units need to pay for), we do need to consider the funding models. In some cases, we fund lower-volume courses as part of a course collection that we consider holistically. We also explore lower-cost development options when applicable. While not available for every course, we can also fund courses that provide Cornell reach without financial opportunity, although we are constrained financially in our ability to do this. We are happy to talk about the opportunities that you see as contributing significantly to your success as a school or college and jointly figure out how to make them happen.

We encourage this, and will work with you to make it easy to include the digital assets that you create for your certificate program in your other Cornell teaching. Many of our faculty partners use some of the video clips, downloadable tools, course graphics, or assignments from their certificate program to “flip the classroom” for their residential students, to virtualize their class, or simply to provide additional support for students who need it.

Your unit would decide how to proceed. 

The eCornell team includes instructional designers that are skilled in collaborating with faculty across multiple disciplines. If there are niche topics where additional subject-matter expertise would support the development of the program, we are usually willing to support those resources. 

Contact us! We would be more than happy to schedule a course demo and to provide you with access to look at a course at your leisure.