Unbundling is the disaggregation of complex activities into component parts. Distributed learning provides the opportunity to use unbundling more widely within colleges and universities. In higher education, unbundling is primarily applied to the faculty role. Conventionally, the faculty role contains three functions: research, teaching, and service (institutional, professional, and public service). Although tradition envisions all three functions being discharged by each individual faculty member, in practice academic institutions have met many needs by hiring individuals to carry out only one function or allowing multiple individuals to collectively fulfill functions. Unbundling formalizes the differentiation process by identifying activities within each function and allocating individuals and resources to meet functional requirements in the aggregate.

Unbundling goes beyond designating generic functions. It requires specification of activities within each function. ...