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PurposeThe study's purpose was to examine the faculty-driven organization's design and development that supports faculty research needs, track the emergence of the community of practice (CoP) and provide greater insight into continued organizational design iterations.Design/methodology/approachIn this longitudinal design case study, the authors employed different methods to collect and analyze archival, quantitative and qualitative data to capture the phenomenon's complexity.FindingsThe findings challenge the assumption that only formal organizational structures and top-down management approaches stimulate research and build research capacity in universities and propose a new sustainable and agile informal organizational structure and strategies to respond to faculty members' various research needs.Research limitations/implicationsFuture research is needed to investigate the tension between the individual researchers' and organizational needs, formal and informal organizational structures in universities, and the creation of a culture that would stimulate research.Practical implicationsSome of the recommended strategies and activities already have been implemented by the Research Consortium Committee (RCC), and faculty engagement in the RCC initiatives has increased. The practical implications are not limited to a College of Education (COE) context. The findings and the developed strategies could apply to many universities and colleges that desire to support their researchers. The research development officers, university administration and policymakers can consider the results of the present study to develop a comprehensive framework for research capacity and infrastructure building from not only organizational but individual perspectives.Originality/valueThis study provides one of the rare empirical investigations of the design, development and evolution of researchers' needs-driven informal organization in a higher education (HE) setting.

The number of K-12 online programs and course offerings across the Unites States has increased during the last decade. The issue of how to best identify and address the instructional preparation that K-12 online teaching endorsement (OTE) candidates will need to position themselves for hire in virtual settings raises questions about the quality of preparation they receive in virtual educator training programs. Even with standards in place, preparing K-12 OTE candidates to become online educators comes with a wide range of challenges that includes evaluating OTE program design and preparation practices for validity, relevance, and effectiveness. The field of K-12 online learning lacks literature related to how institutions of higher education can best prepare candidates for careers in this field. Findings from this review use common trends, inconsistencies, recommendations from educational theorists and experts, and implications for further study to demonstrate the need for establishing best-practice in K-12 OTE candidate preparation.