There is a lot we know about online courses, but a lot is yet to be discovered. We know quite a bit about how to develop these courses, as well as how to deliver them. We know quite a bit about assuring the quality of these courses, and how to assess student performance. We know quite a bit about how to "incentivize" faculty to develop these courses, and about their equivalence to hybrid and traditional classroom-based courses. What we do not know, and what Sociology can contribute to the discussion, is how the institutional environment affect's individual faculty member's propensity and ability to develop and deliver online courses. This manuscript attempts to tackle these issues and discusses nine different elements that affect the development and delivery of these courses including the technological/teaching context, the political environment, faculty and administrative resistance, competing agendas, course ownership, resources, specialists and technology, and the human touch. Each of these areas is discussed in the article then linked to an individual case study at a large research University in the Northeastern United States.