Untethered Education

Tethered means to be bound, tied up, held back - you get the idea. To be Untethered  means you're free to  explore, try new ideas, be  bold. Untethered Education means creating  new ways to reach students that extend your institution's mission and create ROI. We provide eLearning consulting  in the online and distance learning space to help you create innovative and sustainable programs. Let us be your higher educational consultant.

Untethered Education comprises experts from across higher education and online learning. It is led by Jon  Bellum, Ph.D., who has over 20  years of experience creating high-growth online programs and as a higher education consultant.

Jon was previously the EVP and Provost at CSU Global Campus, where he launched over 50 programs, and while still within the CSU System, he created the eLearning consulting practice which he continues today at Untethered Education.

Untethered Education was created to provide a unique eLearning consulting experience designed to help higher education institutions create or relaunch academic programs to ensure high  ROI in the online learning space.

New program launches in the online learning space are expensive. Having a trusted eLearning consulting partner in the early planning stage will help ensure a successful program that meets institutional needs. Solutions include the Untethered Launch Plan, program feasibility studies to ensure new products are aligned with market needs, and business plans to ensure you can monitor ROI for each program. A small investment at the beginning can be the difference between a  success or a costly failure. 

The start to any journey is taking the first step, and that’s where having a detailed launch plan is essential. The Untethered Launch Plan is a proprietary transformation process that:

1. documents where the organization is currently at and maps out where it needs to transform to align with industry standards; 
2. helps ensure proposed programs meet the needs of the market and will support the institution’s overall enrollment goals;
3. includes a detailed business plan that provides an estimate of when programming will break even and begin to show a return on investment; and 
4. provides strategic consulting to help ensure the launch succeeds by working with your team to implement the launch plan fully. 

Sometimes you need a new start, and that's okay. We can support the relaunch of existing programs that have lost their luster or don't have the ROI needed for online learning sustainability. As an eLearning consulting practice, we can analyze your portfolio of existing programs and determine where to place your institutional capacity investment.

Who to trust, we can help with that. We can help you develop specifications documentation and conduct independent research into vendors saving you time and ensuring a good fit.  We work for you, not the vendor so our analysis is independent, we do not have a financial relationship with any vendor we recommend.

We conduct external program evaluations to help you determine the efficacy of your programs. We can provide ad hoc evaluation or partner with you before program launch to support a longitudinal approach. We have experts in quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods analysis.