Take your online programs to the next level
Magellan Learning Solutions partners with you to:
Our Service Areas
Marketing & Enrollment
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Curriculum Services
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Academic Operations
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Training & Professional Development
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Custom Solutions
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Embark on a transformative journey with Magellan to take your online programs to the next level.
Begin by reflecting on these pivotal questions:
01.
Are your online student recruitment processes and services world-class?
02.
Are your students consistently experiencing exceptional online courses and persisting term to term?
03.
Does your institution prioritize excellence in online education in a way that distinguishes you in the marketplace?
04.
Does your team have the bandwidth to take your online programs to the next level?
If you answered no to any of the questions above, Magellan is here to help.
Our services are tailored to elevate critical aspects of your online program, driving excellence in online education.
Let's collaborate for a seamless and top-tier experience.
Get started now!
Trusted by our Clients
We work with businesses and universities to help students succeed
Testimonials
What Our
Clients Say
"It is extremely evident to us that the Magellan team has been entrenched in myriad and diverse aspects of online academic operations and course content development for many years. The proof is visible in the academic, operational, technical, and technological project outcomes and deliverables."
Rev. Dr. Debra Lynn Haggins
School of Religion Founding Dean
Hampton University
"Magellan has consistently demonstrated its proficiency in transforming traditional classroom curricula and content into interactive online modules. Their innovative approach effectively engages adult learners, facilitating a more interactive and dynamic learning experience. By leveraging its instructional design and e-learning technologies expertise, Magellan Learning Solutions has successfully bridged the gap between traditional classroom instruction and online learning."
Dr. Keith Harkins
Vice President, Academic & Workforce Programs
Southside Virginia Community College
"I am highly impressed with Magellan Learning Solutions, not only for their exceptional team of instructional designers but also for their advice and counsel from a leadership perspective as I have learned a new job in a new location. We intend to retain a consulting relationship with Magellan and use their instructional design teams as needed when we have surges in course development activity because of new programs offered by the SBU Worldwide Campus."
Ron Miller
Vice President for Online Learning
Southwest Baptist University
About Us
The Magellan Story
Magellan Learning Solutions was founded in May 2017 by Dr. Wayne Patton and Mr. Aaron Traphagen. Our headquarters is located at 828 Main Street, Suite 1800, in Lynchburg, Virginia. Dr. Emily Heady joined as the third partner in 2022, bringing a wealth of academic and operational experience to the firm.
With over 700 educational professionals in our network, Magellan is a robust boutique online program management firm. Our principals have been working in online education since the early 2000s, dedicated to developing educational and operational solutions for higher education institutions, industry, and other organizations. The Magellan Team is collaborative, innovative, and interested in helping your institution meet its goals.
News & Media
Keep current with our work, The Magellan Podcast, and White Papers.
News & Media
Read the latest news around Magellan Learning Solutions, our current projects and major events, and the work we're doing with our partners.
Read Our Recent Updates →
The Magellan Podcast
Magellan partners Wayne Patton, Aaron Traphagen, and Emily Heady discuss current online education trends and topics with special guests.
Listen to Our Podcast →
Articles & Publications
Read our collection of articles, publications, and white papers around the topics of RSI, cognitive load, leadership, managing change, and more.
Read Our Articles & Publications →
Individual Service Description
Program or Course-Level AI Standards Development
Avoid confusion, frustration and mixed messages by building a foundation for AI consistency.
Your institution’s stance towards AI technology is part of its core identity. Magellan helps translate that stance into practical standards that guide course design and instruction. The result is a framework that clearly guides how AI should and shouldn’t be used in the classroom. At the same time, we ensure courses and instructors remain free to create unique, nuanced learning experiences.
You gain standards that promote constructive AI use, AI literacy, and academic integrity. Faculty and students gain a more seamless, productive working relationship, characterized by less uncertainty and more trust.
Individual Service Description
Faculty Workshops: Teaching in the AI Era
Overcome the challenges and seize the opportunities that AI offers online instructors.
Magellan’s workshops and support sessions support your institution’s approach to AI in everyday practice. Instructors learn how to set and maintain boundaries, uphold academic rigor, and use AI to enhance learning. Teaching decisions that promote academic integrity and AI literacy skills can protect the value of your program.
Faculty gain confidence in making everyday decisions surrounding AI in the classroom. They develop skill in explaining policies to students and helping them use AI well in their specific disciplines.
Individual Service Description
AI-Responsive Course and Program Support
Keep faculty, students and leadership aligned with clear guidance that reflects your philosophy.
Magellan partners with your institution to determine where AI should fit into teaching and learning processes. We help convert your philosophy into practical guidelines and implementation that keeps your programs consistently relevant.
Your institution gains a framework for supporting AI literacy and academic integrity in the present and the future. You’ll also prepare to respond more flexibly to developing AI technology and changing institutional needs.
Individual Service Description
Faculty Workshops: Effective Online Teaching
Expand your instructors’ toolkit with practical insights and resources they can implement right away.
Magellan’s workshops and 1:1 support sessions help instructors make effective teaching decisions in their online classrooms. Each session is informed by research, data, and industry best practices, and tailored to your institution’s unique needs.
Faculty members are prepared for the challenges of teaching online, including building community, upholding trauma-informed and culturally sensitive practices, and navigating the AI revolution. Throughout your program, students gain a more cohesive experience that feels like it’s made just for them.
Individual Service Description
Student Interaction Resource Bank
Empower instructors to offer high-impact, relational input and feedback at scale.
The quality of their interactions with faculty can strongly impact students’ satisfaction and success. Magellan partners with your team to create adaptable messaging stems tailored to faculty needs. Recurring interactions like announcements, reminders, grading comments, and encouragements become easier to scale without sacrificing quality. Instructors retain the freedom to share their unique insights and voices with their students.
Faculty gain tools for communicating clearly and compassionately, even when time is limited. Students benefit from consistent affective learning practices and messaging that guides them closer to their goals.
Individual Service Description
Faculty Guidance
Group workshops and 1:1 guidance empower your instructors to share their expertise effectively in any modality.
Magellan’s custom workshops and 1:1 sessions on topics like best practices for online teaching, RSI, and accessibility give your instructors the targeted support they need. We tailor our focus and approach to your team and your needs, so our practical support brings you closer to your specific goals.
Your faculty have a wealth of knowledge, experience and passion to share with your students. Magellan helps overcome obstacles like technological barriers, modality changes, and unclear expectations, so that teaching and learning happens naturally and freely.
Individual Service Description
Faculty Workshops: Quality and Compliance
Improve your students’ experience and outcomes with practical guidance that’s customized to your needs.
Magellan’s workshops and 1:1 support sessions prepare faculty to navigate everyday situations in your online classrooms. Rather than one-size-fits-all programming, Magellan offers custom sessions that can include topics like RSI, WCAG compliance and accessibility, and best practices for online grading and teaching. Our faculty support team makes data-driven choices to address your most pressing needs.
Faculty members gain the confidence and tools they need to s쳮d in their online classrooms. Your institution gains a clear path to implementing the quality standards you care about.
Individual Service Description
Course and Program Standards Development
Reduce friction by developing standards that keep your work aligned with your goals.
The Magellan team partners with you to define clear, practical standards that reflect your priorities. We analyze factors like regulatory requirements, institutional distinctives, and your desired student experience. Then, we help translate these goals into quality standards that guide decision-making for everyone involved.
The right standards help to streamline processes like grading, LMS design and organization, and decision-making about academic integrity and AI use. You’ll gain a consistent framework that keeps quality consistent while making room for academic freedom and course distinction.
Individual Service Description
AI-Responsive Course and Program Support
Ensure each course addresses AI technology in ways that accurately reflect your institution’s goals.
The Magellan team gathers and analyzes data from your courses and programs to understand how AI already impacts learning. We identify existing wins and opportunities for boundaries, clarification, and training in AI literacy. Your partnership with Magellan helps prepare students for their futures without sacrificing academic integrity and program reputation.
Your team can opt for recommendations or hands-on support with course updates that strengthen your position. From assignment design to resource selection, policy decisions and more, your courses develop a purposeful relationship with AI that benefits everyone involved.
Individual Service Description
Course Standardization and Customization Support
Prepare your instructional assets to maintain and grow their value over time.
Magellan works with your department to define where course consistency ends and instructor personalization begins. We help you shape a sustainable module that keeps every course focused on shared expectations. We also build in resilience and flexibility to keep your courses relevant as instructors, knowledge, and technologies change.
Faculty gain a reliable model for operating as individuals within a departmental framework. Students experience less friction when moving from one course to the next, and your department knows its investments in existing assets will pay off over time.
Individual Service Description
Instructor Communication Toolkit
Equip your faculty with adaptable tools that help students persist and thrive.
Excellence in online teaching is largely defined by routine interactions like announcements, grading feedback, and conversations with students. Magellan helps your faculty share their expertise and voice effectively across every course they teach.
Faculty gain tools that make personalized, compassionate messaging possible at scale. Students experience less uncertainty and more high-value interactions that move them closer to their goals.
Individual Service Description
Visual Course Content Refresh
Capture and hold interest and guide learners through your courses with ease.
Today’s learners want experiences that feel immersive, visually appealing, and easy to follow. Magellan visually reinforces the value of each course through carefully chosen design elements.
Your team can partner with Magellan for expert guidance or hands-on implementation. You’ll gain a repeatable approach to visually enhancing your courses now and in the future. Courses will stand out from competitors’ and deliver a more inviting and memorable learning environment for every user.
Individual Service Description
Student Experience Review and Improvement
See your courses through your students’ eyes to improve your program outcomes.
Our team performs a targeted or comprehensive course review to pinpoint successes and pain points. We look for high-interest content with clear value for students, strategic technical enhancements, clear organization and framing, and resources and activities that support your stated outcomes.
Our informed guidance helps you launch a winning improvement plan, and our hands-on support adds expertise and capacity where you need it most. Your students gain a clear reason to choose your program over competitors' and boost your reputation organically.
Individual Service Description
Course or Program Audits, Guidance, and Hands-on Support
Magellan pinpoints your current wins and quality gaps and helps implement the fixes you need.
Our team evaluates your courses against your priority metrics, such as RSI, alignment with outcomes, accessibility, rigor, time on task, and connection to real-world careers and application. Gathering data helps eliminate wasted resources and direct your efforts to where they’re needed most.
You choose the level of support your team needs, from auditing and recommendations to hands-on support with completing the work. Your institution gains an accurate sense of where you stand and a roadmap to your next quality destination.
Individual Service Description
Fleet Courses
Gain a repository of course content ready to tailor to your institutional needs.
Magellan provides ready-built course maps and populated LMS course shells with online course content that supports your goals. Our team works with yours to achieve any desired degree of customization, centering academic freedom and the student experience while slashing the runway to program startup. Our content is engaging, fully accessible and compliant with RSI standards. In addition, its alignment with stated outcomes and comparability to seated courses is thoroughly documented.
Individual Service Description
Teaching Effectiveness Review
Gain a deep understanding of how instructors and students interact in your programs and make informed decisions for improvement.
Magellan delivers a targeted or comprehensive assessment of course-level interactions, focused on your unique goals and priorities. Our team analyzes grading feedback, discussions, announcements, and more to identify clear patterns you can learn from and act on.
A sense of human connection with peers and instructors is vital to students’ program persistence and completion. Seeing how interactions currently play out in your courses helps you target faculty support where it's needed most.
Individual Service Description
Faculty Guidance
Group workshops and 1:1 guidance empower your instructors to share their expertise effectively in any modality.
Magellan’s custom workshops and 1:1 sessions on topics like best practices for online teaching, RSI, and accessibility give your instructors the targeted support they need. We'll provide the tools needed for confident online teaching in the AI era. We tailor our focus and approach to your team and your needs, so our practical support brings you closer to your specific goals.
Your faculty have a wealth of knowledge, experience and passion to share with your students. Magellan helps overcome obstacles like technological barriers, modality changes, and unclear expectations, so that teaching and learning happens naturally and freely.
Individual Service Description
Content Creation or Revision
Gain new course content or improve existing courses to achieve your desired outcomes.
The Magellan team helps you create or improve assignments, assessments, rubrics, resources, and connective elements that support your goals. Our team works alongside yours to align student-facing course content with your mission.
Throughout our strategic partnership, we’ll offer practical solutions based on cutting-edge learning theory, technical knowledge, industry best practices, and data-driven insights. As a thought partner and force multiplier, Magellan facilitates targeted or comprehensive program improvements at scale. Our library of Fleet courses stands ready to deploy into your own program, with customization options that reflect your unique identity and priorities.
Individual Service Description
Course or Program Effectiveness Review
Reveal a cross section or comprehensive view of your current courses and make data-driven decisions going forward.
The Magellan team customizes our audit approach to your goals and priorities. Our team delivers actionable insights from existing course design, content, assessments, and other elements.
Knowing what is and isn't working is key to improving student retention and outcomes. With data in hand, you’ll be prepared to focus your efforts on initiatives that matter most.
Individual Service Description
Program or Course-Level Standards Development
Align every growth project with your priorities.
Magellan translates your priorities into practical expectations every team member can meet. A shared definition of quality keeps your program consistent as you build, evaluate, and maintain new content.
Our team helps to clarify what quality means in the context of your program and institution. Clear articulation of your goals helps everyone make course-level decisions with confidence.
Individual Service Description
Template Creation
Start every course with a structure that works.
The Magellan team guides you in developing shared, repeatable structures that reflect what makes your program and institution unique. Our approach gives course developers an efficient starting point without stifling the individual character and goals of each course.
Your team spends less time making routine decisions and repeating processes and more time creating meaningful learning experiences. Students gain a familiar navigation experience so they can focus on learning in each course.
Individual Service Description
LMS Organization Support
Clear a path for every student through every course.
The Magellan team helps to create a shared approach to course organization across your entire LMS. Intuitive, predictable course navigation reduces friction and keeps students focused on their progress.
Your team gains a plan for course organization that makes scaling achievable. Students enjoy less confusion and more confidence that their goals are attainable.