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K. Emerson & A. K. GerlakBOX 3.Collaborative CompetenciesLeadership and Management Competency1. Strengthening Collaborative Leadership, for example: Effective leadership roles Collaborative leadership styles and skills Political and entrepreneurial skills2. Planning, Organizing and Managing for Collaboration, for example: Designing and managing collaborative problem solving and conflict resolution processes Planning and building collaborative networks, partnerships, and cross-sector institutions Designing and sustaining deliberative civic engagement and public participationProcess Competency3.Communicating Effectively, for example.: Listening skills Presentation, persuasion, and assertiveness Communicating in different modes and media to different kinds of groups Cross-cultural communication skills4.Working in Teams and Facilitating Groups, for example: Understanding group dynamics and building working relationships Facilitating group deliberation and decision making Participating in teams effectively5.Negotiating Agreement and Managing Conflict, for example: Two-party negotiation and conflict management styles Interest-based negotiation and conflict resolution in multiparty settings Managing conflict constructively in groups in different rolesAnalytical Competency6.Applying Analytic Skills and Strategic Thinking, for example: Situation assessment and issue analysis Understanding the political, legal, and regulatory context for collaboration Decision analysis for negotiation and agreement seeking7.Evaluating and Adapting Processes, for example: Measuring outcomes and impacts of collaborative processes Setting group goals and indicators of success for performance evaluation Assessing and adapting ongoing progressKnowledge Management Competency8. Integrating Technical and Scientific Information, for example: Assessing information requirements for informed decision making Developing methods and standards for collecting and analyzing information9. Using Information and Communication Technology, for example: Using computer-based decision support and spatial analysis tools Using Web-based communications and social networking toolsProfessional Accountability Competency10. Maintaining Personal Integrity and Professional Ethics, for example: Enacting/enforcing principles of fairness, transparency, and inclusive engagement Reflecting on personal and professional effectiveness and seeking feedback Balancing personal, professional, and institutional obligations with group orcross-sector organizational requirementsSource. Taken from Emerson and Smutko (2011).330Journal of Public Affairs Education

Teaching Collaborative Governance OnlineBUILDING BLOCKS: COLLABORATIVECAPACITY AND COLLABORATIVE LEARNINGThe design of the SGPP Collaborative Govern ance Program rests on two basic pedagogicalbuilding blocks: collaborative capacity andcollaborative learning. Across the program,through the various courses, instructors aretrying to activate students’ appreciation andmotivation to work across boundaries and tostrengthen their collaborative competencies todo so. While “collaboration is becoming the21st century’s governance tool of choice andnecessity” (Emerson & Smutko, 2012, p. 5), itrequires proficiencies in management andparticipation that are not fully recognized norbroadly realized (see Box 3).These five collaborative competencies (and 10skill sets) are consistent with guidance from theliterature on graduate management education,including network management functions (e.g.,Agranoff & McGuire, 2001), collaborativeskills needed by emergency managers (e.g.,Alexander, 2003), entre pre neurial strategies forinterorganizational managers (e.g., Page, 2003),general capabilities for public managers (e.g.,Bingham, Sandfort, & O’Leary, 2008), andknowledge and skills relevant to local deli ber ative practice (e.g., Carcasson & Bruns, 2009).In combination, the courses offered in the SGPPprogram work to build all these competencies.“The capacity for joint action,” as specified byEmerson and Nabatchi (2015), who draw onmultiple frameworks for collaboration found inthe literature (Agranoff & McGuire, 2001;Ansell & Gash, 2008; Bardach, 1998; Brysonet al., 2006; Cooper, Bryer, & Meek, 2006;Thomson & Perry, 2006; Wood & Gray,1991), is a crucial component of collaborationdynamics and needs to be built and sustainedover time across partners in collaborativegovernance. Those joint capacities includeinstitutional and procedural arrangements,resources, knowledge, and leadership (Emerson& Nabatchi, 2015, p. 68). To train tomorrow’scollaborative managers, the SGPP programtries to provide students with an understandingof the value and variety of these capacities aswell as the skill base to practice and improvetheir own collaborative competencies.The program’s second building block iscollaborative learning. Due to the complexityof the problems and organizational dynamicsoften associated with collaboration, the capacityfor learning is an important feature for theendurance and success of collaborative arrange ments (Ansell & Gash, 2007; Gerlak & Heikkila,2007; Pennington, 2008; Weber, Lovrich, &Gaffney, 2005).Drawing upon a wealth of literature—rangingfrom organization theory, policy process andchange, and network analysis—Gerlak andHeikkila (2011) established a framework ofcollective learning to guide inquiry aboutlearning in collaborative governance settings.The framework guides the study of howlearning processes and products are linkedwithin a collaborative setting and providesinsights into the structural, social, andtechnological features of collaboration thatmay foster or impede learning. Subsequentresearch has expanded these ideas to applymore generally to diverse collective contextswhere policy decisions are debated, devised,implemented, and enforced, paying moreexplicit attention to the relationship betweenindividual and collective learning as well asexploring in-depth the phases of the learningprocess and the factors that shape learning(Heikkila & Gerlak, 2013). (See Figure 1.)Building from this research, the SGPP programpositions learning as a central dimension of itsinstructional program; learning is explicitly thefocus of the PA 622A course, as indicated in itstitle—Institutional Design and Learning forCollaborative Governance. This courseintroduces students to classic readings, such asSenge’s (2006) “learning organization” andWenger’s (1999) “communities of practice.”Students also become familiar with strategies tolearn from failure (Edmondson, 2011), thelarger role of information and technology insupporting learning in collaborative settings,and how learning processes in collaborativesettings can support more adaptive governance.Journal of Public Affairs Education331

K. Emerson & A. K. GerlakFIGURE 1.Linking Individual Learning to Learning Processes and Products in Collective Policy ContextsIndividual Learning ProcessIndividual Learning ProductsCollective Learning ProcessAcquireTranslateDisseminate(knowledge, info, experience)Collective Learning ProductsCognitive(new beliefs or ideas)which may lead to:Behavioral (new strategies, plans,programs, rules policies)Policy ProcessesSource. Based on Heikkila and Gerlak (2013, p. 487).In addition to its focus on substantive learning,the Collaborative Governance Program alsoembraces a learning approach to programevaluation and to making adjustments andadaptations over time. This is in line withresearch positing that collaborative capacitygenerates associated adaptive capacity, therebyenabling adaptation within collaborative govern ance regimes (Emerson & Gerlak, 2014).CHALLENGES FOR ONLINE INSTRUCTIONSeveral general challenges affect learning andparticipation in online coursework. Attritionrates in MOOCs (massive online open courses),for example, are widely documented, as is thedecline in students’ active participation inonline courses over the course of a semester(Clow, 2013; Yang, Sinha, Adamson, & Rose,2013). The claim (often used as an incentive)that up-front investments by instructors inonline course development will translate into332Journal of Public Affairs Educationless teaching workload during the rest of thesemester has proven false and can lead todiminished student-teacher interaction. Thesechallenges, along with inadequate institutionalsupport around hardware and software andtrain ing in course design and development(Nkonge & Geuldenzolph, 2006), have con tri buted to making online instruction far lessgratify ing for many instructors than face-toface classroom interaction. These and otherexperiences with online teaching over the past5–10 years have discouraged many high-qualityteachers from experimenting with onlinecourses. Nonetheless, the trend toward Webbased learning continues to accelerate (Kraiger,2014; Sitzmann, Kraiger, Stewart, & Wisher,2006). This trend is in line with instructor rolesin course delivery that are changing morebroadly for both traditional and online courses(Keengwe & Kidd, 2010).

Teaching Collaborative Governance OnlinePerhaps the most significant challenge foronline learning is the distance between thestudents and the instructor created by the inter vening Web platform. Asynchronous teachingunits leave students on their own to engagewith the material when convenient for them,without direct and immediate interaction withinstructors. While bringing flexibility andautonomy to students’ learning practices, thisinteraction deficit can be problematic, as notedby the growing literature on instructors’ socialpresence, or the lack thereof, in online courses(Garrison & Cleveland-Innes, 2005; Picciano,2002). More blended learning or hybridinstructional models of instruction that inte grate face-to-face with online learning exper iences are one approach to mitigating some ofthis distance (Keengwe & Kidd, 2010).A second challenge for online learning isstudent discomfort or lack of familiarity withthe course technology. Students need to befamiliar with the technology used in the courseto be successful (Belanger & Jordan, 2000;Wojciechowski & Palmer, 2005). Earlierresearch suggests that students who reportfrustration with technology in online coursesgenerally report lower satisfaction levels withthe course (Chong, 1998).A third challenge involves the diversity asso ciated with the online classroom. Onlinecourses are generally thought to enroll a moreheterogeneous population of learners—in termsof student preferences, skills, and needs—thantraditional college students who take classes oncampuses (Phipps & Merisotis, 1999). Thegreat degree of diversity within the onlinestudent population (Cheung & Kan, 2002) canrelate to professional expertise, age, gender, andculture, among other factors. This turns out tobe the case for the University of Arizona SGPPstudent population as well.ALIGNING ONLINE LEARNING PLATFORMSWITH NEW INSTRUCTOR ROLESThe Collaborative Governance Program onlinecourses have attempted to address and mitigatethese challenges to online learning while at thesame time drawing out the opportunitiesavailable through online technology to buildcollaborative capacity and collaborative learn ing. To do so, the program faculty had toexpand their understanding of what onlinelearning platforms are. They are far more thanthe course website itself and its structure. Thisstatic perception reinforces the view that onlinecourses are simply “serve ’em up” courses,transferring content from the classroom to theWeb, where more students can access infor mation at will.We came to conceptualize learning platforms asa complement of stages or spaces for learningthat connect through a course architecture. Forour purposes, those platforms all enhancecollaborative learning and interactivity. Thelearning platforms we identified are the coursesyllabus and its structure; the course website;the online content, including narrated Power Point presentations (termed e-talks), videopresentations, and accessible references; inter active assignments, communication flows, theclass community itself, interactions with theinstructor; and the integration of the contentinto the students’ knowledge base and pro fessional repertoire. These learning plat formshave much in common with the multifacetedcontexts in which professional managers findthemselves. In public conflict settings or incross-sector collaborative govern ance arenas,professionals must take the initiative to assessthe available information, access multiplesources of additional infor mation, consult withtheir colleagues and with experts, engage withstakeholders, manage com munications withthe public, analyze and integrate what theyhave learned, and recom mend paths forward.To orchestrate these platforms, several addi tion al instructional roles are required tofacilitate the students’ encounters, not onlywith the content and requirements of thecourse, but with their classmates, the instructor,and their own learning experiences. Thesemultiple roles extend beyond the conventionalrole of content delivery, conventionally prac ticed in the lecture hall or the classroom. Ratherthan serving only as the expert source ofknowledge, program faculty had to designlearning platforms in which students take onJournal of Public Affairs Education333

K. Emerson & A. K. GerlakTABLE 1.Instructor Roles and Learning PlatformsLearningplatformsCourse syllabusand structureInstructor ltantXXXXCourse website designOnline content: e-talks,video, referencesXXXXXConnectorXXInteractive assignmentsXCommunication flowXXClass communityXXXXXXXXXXInstructor interactionXIntegrationXXXXNote. An X indicates how the instructor role maps with the course architecture.the responsibility for acquiring and synthesizingknowledge themselves, usually from multiplesources and media, not just the instructor’slecture notes or PowerPoint slides. For theCollaborative Governance Program onlinecourses, we identified additional roles for theinstructor: as designer of learning platforms, asrole model, as learning consultant, and asconnector. All these roles support the multiplelearning platforms in multiple ways, as illus trated in Table 1 and the following discussion.Instructor as Designer of Learning PlatformsIn designing these multiple online learningplatforms, the instructor creates a facilitativelearning environment and serves as an accessibleon-call expert consultant for students. Thisdesigner role extends well beyond what mostinstructors in academia do when designing334Journal of Public Affairs Educationtheir syllabi for lecture courses. Conventionally,instructors organize the content and producelectures and connections to textbooks for thestudent to then follow and demonstrate masteryof. Public affairs instructors, however, are muchmore familiar with creating learning platformsin their applied practice courses, where studentswork in teams and produce deliverables and theinstructor serves as consultant when needed.And those instructors who teach skills-basedcourses, like negotiation and conflict manage ment and leadership, also know how to stage arole-play or simulation, assembling neededinformation, managing student role assignments,stimulating student engagement, and creatingtimelines for preparation, practice and selfreflection. Online instructional design is farmore like the latter instructional model thanthe former conventional one.

Teaching Collaborative Governance OnlineThe most significant opportunity for teachingcollaboration online resides in the designchal lenge of creating new learning platformsthat enable students to appreciate the value ofcollaboration, understand the components orworking parts of collaboration, and experiencecollaboration with other students. Effectively,the instructor becomes a shadow partner withthe students as they experience collaborativelearning by design. The existing scholarshipsuggests that there is no discernible differencein learning outcomes, or students’ perceptionsof their learning, between traditional face-toface university courses and well-designed and-delivered online courses (Braun, 2008; Rovai& Jordan, 2004; Topper, 2007). Nonetheless,instructors need to be “careful not to assumethat teaching the same in both environmentswill create similar results” (Mullen & TallentRunnels, 2006, p. 264).As previously described, the SGPP collaborativegovernance curriculum includes three onlinecourses and one skills-based course. Specificcollaborative skills are best developed throughactive practice and feedback in interactiveexercises, role-plays, and simulation activitiesin a classroom or workshop setting. That said,the online courses are designed not only todeliver content about collaborative governancebut also to foster collaborative engagement inthe learning process. The program strives tobuild in community development and inter activity between the instructor and among thestudents, which researchers have highlighted ascritical for successful online distance programs(Rofe, 2011).The course website itself is the online classroomand, like its physical counterpart, it influencesthe interaction between instructor and students.The website’s graphic design and the arrange ment of course components as they appear onthe computer screen convey a sense of organ ization, clarity, consistency, openness andacces s ibility, and dynamism and inter act ivity.The standard template require ments andDesire2Learn (D2L) software for online coursesat the University of Arizona con strain the website appearance and architecture to some extent.However, within those limita tions, the programhas tried to create a con sistent graphic appearance across all collaborative governance coursesand to make the site as user-friendly as possible.As one example, Figure 2 presents a Wordle oncollaborative governance that appears through out the courses.The weekly online discussion forums describedbelow are designed to foster deliberative dis course. Guidelines and grading rubrics provideincentives for students to take these discussionforums seriously. Earlier research suggests thatwhen students engage one another in onlinediscussions in a focused way, their behaviorsenhance learner outcomes (Wilson, Pollock, &Hamann, 2007). In the program courses, earlydiscussion assignments help the students getacquainted with each other (posting picturesand biographical information) so that thesubsequent substantive discussions build oninterpersonal bonds. For example, in all threeonline courses, students are asked at the outsetabout their personal and professional exper iences, as well as their goals and where theyexpect to see themselves in five years.The team presentations toward the latter half ofthe Collaborative Governance in Theory, Prac tice, and Research (PA 620A) course requirestudents to collaborate in designing onlinepresentations, creating discussion questions,and curating the discussion forum for the weekof their presentation. For the InstitutionalDesign and Learning for Collaborative Govern ance (PA 622A) course, the final group projectgives students the opportunity to develop theirown collaborative design to address a com munity or regional public policy issue in needof co

PA 624A collaborative governance Tools intro- duces students to the array of tools and technologies available to assist cross-boundary governance and collaborative management, including tools for pro- ject coordination, information sharing, knowledge management, visioning, public engagement, con flict