Strategic Planning for Online Learning

Abstract

Globalization has brought along competition, and thereby, the concept of strategic planning. Strategic planning is of paramount importance in terms of minimizing uncertainties of the future and achieving sustainable competition superiority. Strategic planning which involves participation of each person from a every level within an organization and full support of organization manager and aim at achieving results mean stakeholders’ playing an active role in determination of requirements and expectations, stakeholders’ and policy makers’ opinion, mission, targets and performance measurement of organization (Küçüksüleymanoglu, 2008). It is not possible for organizations to have sustainable competition superiority without strategic planning and although it is not a type of plan that is drawn for one time only, planning process is a type of process which requires participation of all stakeholders within and outside organization (Demir and Yilmaz, 2010). A different path is pursued when strategic planning is applied at education organizations; because education organizations are not managed like private institutions, therefore, strategic planning at education must be able to respond to surrounding cultural, social, technological, environmental and economic changes. This study has focused on importance of strategic planning for online learning and variables affecting planning have been considered.