Major Updates

  • Submission Form for Federal Student Loan Forgiveness Opens; Accepting Applications Through End of 2023
    The application for federal student loan forgiveness for up to $20,000 for eligible individuals opened earlier this month. Though the deadline to submit for forgiveness is December 31, 2023, student loan borrowers are encouraged to submit prior to November 15 of this year. Due to the four- to six-week processing for the forgiveness, it would allow for the overall loan balances and any payment calculations to be reduced ahead of the sunsetting of the student loan interest/payment pause, which is scheduled to return to normal collections and payment periods beginning January 1, 2023.The Department of Education has warned that there are many scams and some “Do’s and Don’ts” to consider for borrowers. We encourage our member schools to consider warning their student populations of such.

    The student debt relief portal can be found here and applicants can apply now.

     

  • Department of Education Releases Final Rules on 90/10 Rule, Pell for Incarcerated Individuals, Change in Ownership, Borrower Defense, Debt Relief Programs, Closed School Discharges, Among Others
    To meet the Federal Master Calendar schedule, the Department of Education released final rules ahead of the November 1st deadline, for implementation of July 1 of 2023. The topics included a number of final regulations split into two major sets.

      • 90/10 Rule – changes to rule that increases protections for veterans and service members from aggressive recruiting
      • Prison Education Program – rules that set standards for institutions to implement prison education programs that can provide incarcerated individuals
      • Changes in Ownership – new accountability rules for colleges and universities undergoing changes in ownership

        Read more.
    • The second one focused on:
      • Borrower Defense to Repayment and Arbitration – establishes a stronger framework for borrowers to raise a defense to repayment if their institution misleads or manipulates them
      • Closed School Discharges – provide an automatic discharge one year after a college’s closure date for borrowers who were enrolled at the time of closure or left 180 days before closure and who do not accept an approved teach-out agreement or a continuation of the program at another location of the school
      • Total and Permanent Disability Discharges – provides additional pathways for borrowers who have a total and permanent disability to receive loan forgiveness
  • UPCEA and Online Education Organizations Seek Guidance on “Regular and Substantive Interaction”
    The U.S. Department of Education uses the concept of “regular and substantive interaction” to distinguish between “distance education” and “correspondence education” courses. If an institution has too many correspondence courses, it could lose its ability to disburse federal financial aid. A new version of “regular and substantive interaction” went into effect in July 2021. In August of that year, WCET and the State Authorization Network (SAN) issued a letter to the Department seeking clarification on how institutions were to comply with provisions of the updated definition. So far, there has been no guidance—leaving accreditation agencies and institutions to make their own interpretations.

    UPCEA, Quality Matters, the Online Learning Consortium, and WCET/SAN joined in submitting a letter to the Department on October 11 requesting this important guidance. As the leading online education organizations, we are keen to ensure that our members are informed on how to comply with this regulation and that student consumers receive the protections they deserve. We will inform you of the outcome of this request.

 

Other News

WASHINGTON, D.C., October 28, 2022 – UPCEA, the association for leaders in online and professional continuing education, has announced a number of key staff changes. Chief Membership Officer and Vice President, Corporate Partnerships Kimberly Zaski is retiring at the end of the calendar year. She will be replaced by Kathleen Ives, formerly CEO of the Online Learning Consortium (OLC).  UPCEA has hired Melissa Peraino, formerly of Grand Valley State University, as Director of Content Development and Volunteer Leader Management; Mel Edwards, formerly of Purdue University Online, as Director of Membership and Business Development; and Matt Norsworthy, formerly of the Online Learning Consortium, as Director of Member Experience. 

 

Chief Membership Officer and Vice President, Corporate Partnerships Kimberly Zaski Retiring 

UPCEA’s Chief Membership Officer and Vice President for Corporate Partnerships, Kimberly Zaski, will be retiring in December 2022. Kim has been an integral member of the association’s staff and leadership team since starting at UPCEA in 2014. During her tenure, the association’s number of professional members has grown to more than 13,000, representing nearly 400 institutions. Kim also built strong relationships with UPCEA’s corporate partners, growing from nine partners in 2014 to 32 from across the higher ed space today.

“I know I speak for the entire UPCEA staff when I say how much we’re going to miss having Kim as a part of the team,” said Bob Hansen, CEO of UPCEA. “She is a wonderful friend and colleague, and has done an extraordinary job growing both the association’s membership and corporate engagement during her time on staff, but especially during the pandemic.” 

Prior to joining the UPCEA staff, Kim served for 13 years as director of marketing for Extended Studies at the University of Nevada, Reno. She has experience in all facets of mass media, as an award-winning journalist, a public relations and advertising specialist, and as the chief marketing and communication strategist for the University of Nevada’s nationally recognized continuing education and professional studies programs. As an UPCEA member, Kim served as Chair of the West Region, and for six years on the UPCEA MEMS Conference planning committee. Kim holds both an M.A. and B.A. in Journalism from the University of Nevada, Reno. 

As Kim steps down, Brandan Kaiser will assume new roles as the Vice President of Membership and Corporate Engagement.

In light of Kim’s retirement and the association’s growth, UPCEA is adding a number of new staff members to the association’s national office team. These new hires will provide integral expertise and experience in two departments as UPCEA continues to serve our membership with high-quality products and services.    

 

Melissa Peraino Hired as Director of Content Development and Volunteer Leader Management

UPCEA has hired Melissa Peraino, formerly Director of Educational Outreach for Grand Valley State University, as Director of Content Development and Volunteer Leader Management. In this role, Melissa will provide wide-ranging support for content development and volunteer leadership management for UPCEA, including but not limited to: supporting the two main volunteer leadership bodies (Regions, Networks) and their deliverables; curating and managing online communities in the association’s member networking platform; driving an overarching content calendar for the organization, and leading the association’s mentoring initiative from pilot to scalable program. Melissa will start at UPCEA on November 1.

“I could not be more pleased to augment UPCEA’s firepower with the talent and experience Melissa brings,” said Amy Heitzman, Deputy CEO & Chief Learning Officer of UPCEA. “Her decades of engagement across the entire spectrum of PCO will go a long way toward deepening member engagement, as well as increase our capacity to provide critical professional development, at scale, for our entire community.”

 

Mel Edwards Hired as Director of Membership and Business Development

UPCEA has hired Mel Edwards, formerly Interim Manager for the Course Production team at Purdue University Online, as Director of Membership and Business Development. In this role, Mel will develop and execute UPCEA’s data-driven business growth strategy, including member recruitment, engagement, and retention strategies for both institutional and corporate members, as well as consulting and professional development programs. Additionally, Mel will promote UPCEA’s value proposition, grow UPCEA membership, serve new and existing members, and develop strategies for recruitment and retention. Mel will start at UPCEA on December 5. 

“Mel’s extensive background in overseeing strategic initiatives, project management, and programmatic design in addition to her many years of volunteer leadership within the UPCEA community lends itself perfectly to this new position,” said Kathleen Ives, UPCEA’s Senior Vice President for Engagement. “She will prove to be a tremendous asset in improving our practices, advancing our field and providing solutions for our members.”

 

Matthew Norsworthy Hired as Director of Member Experience

UPCEA has hired Matthew Norsworthy, formerly of the Online Learning Consortium, as Director of Member Experience. In this role, Matthew will assist the membership team, focusing heavily on member services, day-to-day operations, and member reports, in addition to UPCEA conferences, professional development programs and consulting. Matthew will also develop strategies to measure and strengthen member engagement, and oversee membership data, tracking and reporting. Matthew will start at UPCEA on November 1.

# # #

 

About UPCEA

UPCEA is the leading association for professional, continuing, and online education. For more than 100 years, UPCEA has served most of the leading public and private colleges and universities in North America. Founded in 1915, the association serves its members with innovative conferences and specialty seminars, research and benchmarking information, professional networking opportunities and timely publications. Based in Washington, D.C., UPCEA also builds greater awareness of the vital link between contemporary learners and public policy issues. Learn more at upcea.edu.

If you were asked what digital channels facilitate your most qualified prospects’ journey to inquiry or application, would you know the answer?

It’s no secret that in the last three years, demand for online education has skyrocketed, while the demographics of Professional, Continuing and Online (PCO) education units’ students have evolved. Facilitated by the Great Resignation, PCO units can no longer afford to focus solely on “mature” adult learners and now must adapt recruitment and marketing tactics to reach younger and more digitally savvy students.

If most institutions have accepted online education as the way of the present, it logically follows that they must also accept online recruitment as necessary, stat.

As an account director on the agency side of higher ed marketing, I’ve seen that without a digital-first strategy — in particular, focused on SEO and digital advertising — higher education marketers may under-deliver leads and waste budget.

In my time at Search Influence, an ROI-focused digital marketing agency and a new Platinum Partner of UPCEA, I launch and manage campaigns for rapidly evolving PCOs. I supervise the testing of emerging marketing tactics and observe their successes and failures.

In my tenure as a marketer, there is a theme that rings true: search engine optimization (SEO) and digital advertising — both paid search and digital display — work in tandem to deliver consistent, qualified inquiries to fuel your pipeline.

 And, because these strategies are trackable and return is measurable, I assure you they work. In this blog post, I’ll share why SEO and digital advertising are the jet fuel for your higher education strategy: they allow you to identify the sources of your most valuable prospects; optimize your plan to increase inquiries; and drive action through your enrollment funnel.

 

Search Engines Are Your Runway, Time To Start Taxiing

If SEO and paid digital advertising are the jet fuel for your marketing efforts, then search engines are the runway. According to Forbes, 93% of online experiences begin with a search engine such as Google, Yahoo, or Bing.

So, no matter where prospective students are in their journey to pursue higher education, they’re likely turning to search engines to get the information they need, whether it’s to find a program, apply, or enroll.

The evidence is there. Check out this batch of search queries and their search frequency:

 

Search Query Estimated Monthly Searches
what is an mpa degree 700
mpa programs 700
masters in public administration online 200
best public administration masters programs 100

 

If your institution offers an online MPA, ideally you’d be “the answer” to a user’s search for any of the above. You won’t get there without intentional and expert effort put toward SEO for your site. It’s time to start taxiing toward the runway.

 

All Systems Go. Your Jet Needs the Right Fuel: SEO

The PCO student of today expects a “self-service” model when it comes to researching and gathering information to inform their decision. They expect institutional websites to provide information like program details, tuition rates, financial aid opportunities, and application deadlines.

And, they expect search engines to help them discover that content. 

Your website is the vehicle by which this content will be accessible to them. Consider your website the high-speed, low-altitude jet responsible for getting your prospects from point A to point B. SEO is the jet fuel.

To meet your prospects in search engines organically, your site must host content personalized to their most searched queries. The content must be highly informative, promote your key selling propositions, and be keyword-optimized.

Of course, SEO isn’t only about content. A comprehensive SEO strategy includes technical SEO, which ensures the back end of your site is search engine friendly so Google and other search engines can actually access your great content and show it to searchers. Technical SEO is especially important in higher education where multi-site environments are controlled by central university marketing because these websites tend to be more complex, which can mean more hurdles for Google to jump through to understand your content and therefore lower rankings.

 

When Weather Conditions Are Not Optimal: Paid Search

There will be times when the search algorithm works against you. You may identify a query you want to rank for because it’s searched by prospects and it demonstrates their intent. Problem is, for this query, the search engines rank other content like lists and news articles ahead of actual institutions. Chances are, even the best SEOs will have trouble outranking that content.

When weather conditions are not optimal for achieving an organic ranking, enter paid search advertising. Paid search campaigns allow marketers to bid for placements in search results for specific keywords. Success will always be a function of expertise in strategy (what keywords are you bidding for), budget (how much are you willing to pay for a click), and quality (how effective is your ad and landing page at delivering the information?).

Paid search enables you to compete for the best quality traffic. While these leads may cost more than a prospect who clicks on a display ad, if you’re doing it right, they should be already highly qualified and therefore worth that extra cost.

 

For Optimal Fuel (Budget) Efficiency: SEO & Digital Advertising Integration

With SEO and digital advertising (paid search and display), you can maximize your higher ed marketing budget and focus on campaigns that deliver returns.

An integrated SEO and digital advertising strategy provides balance and stability when weather conditions are not optimal for flight.

  • Where you may struggle to rank organically, a fine-tuned paid search campaign can bid for the top spot, and capture the highly qualified searcher you otherwise may have lost to a competitor.
  • Your paid search advertising can give insights about what keywords users are actually searching and what headlines and copy are resonating.
  • Digital display advertising allows you to get in front of prospects before they are actively searching to actually create demand for your programs.

 

SEO & Digital Advertising Provide Real-Time Data Analytics

SEO and digital advertising for higher education digital marketing allow you to see results in real-time — helping you determine what is and isn’t working and even make adjustments as your campaign goes on. 

With website analytics, heatmaps, conversion tracking, and search ad campaign platform details, these strategies provide incredible amounts of data. The ability to track site visits, impressions, clicks, keyword search volume, high-converting calls-to-action, and more can help inform and drive your individual marketing strategies. With these insights you can better focus your resources and develop creative that works, saving you time and money, and ultimately driving down your cost per enrollment.

 

Immediacy Allows You to Make Real-time Adjustments

With the right team who understand how to analyze, react and respond to that data, you can use the data available to make real-time adjustments. This is clearly helpful compared to longer-term media buys like traditional TV, radio, or billboards, where you’re often locked in with specific creative for a given amount of time.

With an SEO and digital advertising strategy, you can easily pivot:

  • Reallocate your investment to programs or campaigns performing well to optimize your return
  • Adjust creative messaging, tweak landing pages, fine-tune your message as needed — whether based on results or changes to your program
  • Change geographic targeting or other targeting tactics to reach the right audience
  • Add, change or remove keywords from your campaign or your website if you are finding they’re driving unqualified prospects, or if they are costing you clicks but no conversions.

Whether you’re adapting the message of your content, its mode of delivery, or your target audience persona — optimizing your campaign in real-time based on tracked data helps you attract, engage, and convert your prospects in a more personalized way.

 

Reach Higher Altitudes with Digital Display Advertising

Digital display advertising on platforms like Facebook and Instagram and broader display and programmatic networks allow you to target your ads to new audiences and to remarket further down the funnel to audiences who have already engaged with you online but didn’t quite start their application.

This practice, called retargeting, works by using cookies to track the behavior of your audiences, for example, people who visited your website or interacted with your ads. Through digital display advertising, you can then use those cookies to build remarketing lists (a.k.a custom audiences) to target with very tailored messaging, with a goal of advancing them further in your funnel.

Let’s say your graphic design prospective student recently visited your school’s graphic design program page for curriculum information, they may respond well to ads reminding them of upcoming admissions events or deadlines, with a strong “Apply Now” CTA.

With display ads in your digital marketing strategy, you can harness the power of your SEO efforts by retargeting an ad to prospects who found your website in the organic search results, but weren’t yet ready to convert.

 

Trackable and Measurable: Digital Marketing Analytics Provide Your Marketing Flight Plan

Identify the Sources of Your Most Valuable Prospects With SEO and Digital Advertising

To turn leads into students, you should know how your target audience got to your website.

Lead tracking supports higher ed institutions in finding and gathering data on qualified potential students. Because digital marketing is inherently trackable, you can tie each new inquiry and application to your higher ed institution back to the most recent source they used to enter your site.

Once you know where your leads are coming from, you’ll be able to create more accurate student personas, fine-tune and customize your marketing campaigns, and see which higher education marketing efforts are churning the most leads. In doing so, you’ll better track the correlations between your leads and the overall effectiveness of your higher education marketing strategy.

 

Demonstrate Campaign ROI With SEO and Digital Advertising

SEO, paid search, and digital display advertising offer clear accountability. Because the amount of marketing data at your fingertips can be overwhelming, it’s important to identify the key metrics you want to track to determine your target ROI for your higher ed marketing efforts.

With the right conversion tracking in place, you can view the source of your inquiries and other conversions via a number of different attribution models. Often marketers will use “last click attribution” which helps you measure specifically the last digital channel that facilitated your conversion.

Smart ROI-focused marketers will use this information to measure your return and cost metrics like cost per inquiry (CPI) and cost per enrollment (CPE). Take it further by using your results metrics to compare to industry benchmarks and peer organizations.

 

Ready for Take Off

With a digital-first strategy that prioritizes SEO and digital advertising, you’ll have a first-class marketing plan that attracts consistent, qualified inquiries to fuel your pipeline. With your plan to track and measure results and focus on campaigns that deliver returns your budget is in for a smooth flight and your co-pilots know the path.

 

Written by Search Influence Director of Account Management, Alison Zeringue. Search Influence is a women-owned, ROI-focused, digital marketing agency that helps institutions drive prospects into and through the recruitment funnel with analytics-backed strategies that include search engine optimization and paid digital advertising. Visit to learn more about higher education digital marketing. 

Founded in 2006, Search Influence’s core purpose is to optimize potential. We collaborate with well-regarded institutions both nationally and locally in New Orleans. Clients include Tulane University School of Professional Advancement, Tulane University School of Medicine, University of Maryland School of Public Policy, and Palo Alto University.

‘Using ROI for Strategic Planning of Online Education’ explores process for shifting to an ROI mindset amid pressure for higher ed to prove value and relevance

WASHINGTON, DC, UNITED STATES, October 25, 2022 — Higher education has rarely employed return on investment (ROI) methodology in strategic planning for online education. This may be about to change. A new book suggests the time has come for higher education to adopt an ROI mindset as it is compelled to prove the value and relevance of online education. “Using ROI for Strategic Planning of Online Education: A Process for Institutional Transformation,” published by Stylus Publishing, LLC, in association with UPCEA (the University Professional and Continuing Education Association), is a collection of 15 chapters by 18 authors who explore how to plan for and evaluate the investment institutions make into online learning.

“If there was ever a moment and a market for this comprehensive how-to guide to online education, this is it,” said Paul J. LeBlanc, president of Southern New Hampshire University, in the foreword to the book. “Online education is no longer new, nor disruptive; but it has needed this book and the wisdom and guidance of its contributors, all veterans, leaders, and thinkers in online education. ROI is now the standard by which institutions and programs are to be judged, a consumer protection metric focused on the ratio of student debt to earnings.”

Book cover - title: Using ROI for Strategic Planning of Online Education: A Process for Institutional Transformation; Edited by Kathleen S. Ives and Deborah M. Seymour, Foreword by Paul J. LeBlancThe book demonstrates how ROI is a critical tool for strategic planning and outlines the process for determining ROI. It examines ROI through four perspectives: institutional strategy, the implications for constituents involved in the field, ROI models, and understanding the social and strategic planning contexts of online learning.

The book’s expert contributors lay the foundation for developing new practices to meet the compelling challenges of online education. They also identify new models that offer the potential for transforming the educational system, meeting new workforce demands, and ultimately improving the economy.

“The authors provide a comprehensive and cutting-edge treatment of ROI for those focused on assessing the value add of their institution’s online learning programs,” said Robert J. Hansen, chief executive officer of UPCEA. “Collectively, the authors pave the way for readers to become more adept at analyzing the processes and initiatives necessary for online programs to be managed with agility and effectiveness.”

The book offers presidents and senior administrators, faculty engaged in shared governance, online learning administrators, and stakeholders representing student, community, and employer interests a rigorous process for developing an online strategy. It is also a useful resource for higher education policy professionals, investors in online education programs and technology to advance employability, and anyone interested in the future of higher education and online learning.

“Using ROI for Strategic Planning of Online Education: A Process for Institutional Transformation” was co-edited by Kathleen S. Ives, D.M., senior vice president of engagement at UPCEA and Deborah M. Seymour, Ph.D., owner and principal of Higher Education Innovation Consulting, LLC.

 

AVAILABILITY

“Using ROI for Strategic Planning of Online Education: A Process for Institutional Transformation,” 260 pages, is available now in paperback, hardback, library e-book, and e-book (ePub) formats from Stylus Publishing. Learn more and purchase here.

 

ABOUT UPCEA

UPCEA is the association for online and professional continuing education. Founded in 1915, UPCEA now serves most of the leading public and private colleges and universities in North America. The association supports its members with innovative conferences and specialty seminars, research and benchmarking information, professional networking opportunities and timely publications. Based in Washington, D.C., UPCEA builds greater awareness of the vital link between adult learners and public policy issues. Visit www.upcea.edu.

UPCEA recently collaborated with ed2go on research related to professional, continuing, and online (PCO) education units’ relationships with third-party providers. This study, Perceptions of Third-Party Providers as a Result of the Pandemic, found that PCO units often sought assistance from third-party providers to help expand bandwidth to support existing students, diversify their portfolios, and continually attract new adult learners.

The demand for online learning continues to rise with more and more adult learners seeking out online modalities of instruction. In 2021, there were 92 million registered online learners compared to the pre-pandemic level of 44 million in 2019. Research has shown that when adult learners were asked how remote instruction might impact their plans to enroll, 73% said they were open to it.

And while many institutions may see the associated opportunities of diversifying their portfolio with stackable pathways and increased online programming, some lack the resources or subject-area expertise to capitalize on these opportunities. As a result, some PCO units are turning to third-party content providers to help fill the gap. 

Our research found that 61% of PCO units use a third-party provider for course development, content, or materials. Among those that do, the average percentage of PCO unit courses using third-party providers is 31%, with a median of 18%. Eighty-nine percent of respondents that leverage a third-party provider most often do so for non-credit courses, followed by bootcamps (41%), and badges (30%).

Conversely, among respondents not using third-party providers 48% already have internal services/resources, 19% cited cost, and 14% questioned the quality. 

Click here to read the full report.

15 Recipients Chosen For Three Award Categories

WASHINGTON, D.C., October 20, 2022 — UPCEA, the leader in online and professional continuing education, has announced the recipients of the 2022 Excellence in Enrollment Management Award, Excellence in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusiveness in Marketing, Enrollment, and Student Success Award, and the new Excellence in Marketing Award. 

All three awards are sponsored by UPCEA’s Marketing, Enrollment, and Student Success Network. Recipients will be honored at the 2022 UPCEA MEMS: Marketing, Enrollment Management, Student Success conference, November 30-December 2  in New Orleans.

“We are consistently impressed by the high caliber of work our members are doing to both reach and retain students,” said Matt Tate of Appalachian State University and Amanda Keighley of Worcester Polytechnic Institute, 2022 MEMS Awards Subcommittee Co-Chairs. “We congratulate each of this year’s recipients for their creative efforts in higher education marketing, enrollment, and student success.” 

 

The UPCEA Excellence in Enrollment Management Award recognizes an outstanding professional, continuing, and/or online (PCO) organization (unit or individual) that models best practices and combines process excellence with superior results in enrollment management. 

The 2022 recipient is: 

  • Enrollment Services
    Oregon State University Ecampus

 

The UPCEA Excellence in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusiveness in Marketing, Enrollment, and Student Success Award recognizes institutions or departments that have dedicated their time and efforts to promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion throughout their marketing, recruitment, communication, programming, student success/services and/or enrollment efforts. This award focuses on a commitment to equity, representation and inclusion in a school’s marketing, enrollment and/or student success/services. Award recipients will have shown increased and sustained success in recruiting and retaining underrepresented populations based on their marketing and/or student success/services.

The 2022 recipient is: 

  • Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging Task Force
    American Public University System

 

New in 2022, the UPCEA Excellence in Marketing Award recognizes marketing campaigns that excel in creativity, execution, and impact. Regardless of institution size or budget, the award focuses on outstanding and effective marketing in the higher ed industry based upon overall creativity, messaging, results achieved by the campaign, and level of design.

The 2022 recipients are: 

GOLD

  • Meet The Right People: Reposition Video Campaign 2021 – 2022
    The Chang School of Continuing Education, Toronto Metropolitan University

 

SILVER

  • The Storytelling Videos
    The G. Raymond Chang School of Continuing Education, Toronto Metropolitan University
  • Reimagine Arkansas Workforce Project Marketing and Communications
    Global Campus, University of Arkansas
  • The Chang School Spring/Summer 2022 Lead Nurturing Campaign
    The G. Raymond Chang School of Continuing Education, Toronto Metropolitan University
  • Yes, That Harvard
    Harvard University Division of Continuing Education

 

BRONZE

  • Paid Social Media Strategy
    Berklee Online
  • 2022 Summer Term Campaign
    University of Wisconsin–Madison Division of Continuing Studies and Vendi Advertising and Kingdom Filmworks
  • Beaver for Life
    Oregon State University College of Business
  • Conservation and Natural Sciences Marketing Campaign
    Oregon State University Ecampus
  • Summer Sampler Series 2022
    University of Washington Tacoma Professional Development Center
  • UW–Madison Online Campaign
    University of Wisconsin–Madison Division of Continuing Studies and Heavy
  • Revamp, Redesign and Publish
    University of Calgary Continuing Education
  • Over 20 Online Graduate Degrees Under $20k
    University of Massachusetts Lowell

 

Congratulations to all of the 2022 Award recipients!

# # #

About UPCEA

UPCEA is the leading association for professional, continuing, and online education. For more than 100 years, UPCEA has served most of the leading public and private colleges and universities in North America. Founded in 1915, the association serves its members with innovative conferences and specialty seminars, research and benchmarking information, professional networking opportunities and timely publications. Based in Washington, D.C., UPCEA also builds greater awareness of the vital link between contemporary learners and public policy issues. Learn more at upcea.edu.

 

CONTACT:

Molly Nelson, UPCEA Vice President of Communications
[email protected]

Like a lot of professors whose field of study is higher education, Jeffrey C. Sun frequently gets asked by administrators at his institution to weigh in on thorny issues they’re debating. When his bosses at the University of Louisville were considering how best to expand their online learning offerings, they asked Sun, a Distinguished University Scholar, for his thoughts on whether the university should hire an online program management (OPM) company or build the in-house expertise itself.

“I realized there was not a guide for the field about what to consider, and rather than moving blindly into this world of outsourcing, particularly for a core academic function, I wanted to make sure they had something to work with,” said Sun. So he set about to create just such a guide.

The result, “In-House or Outsource?,” was published this month by Louisville and UPCEA, an association that focuses on professional, online and continuing education. Sun and his co-author, Heather A. Turner, an adjunct assistant professor and Sun’s colleague at Louisville’s SKILLS Collaborative, worked with UPCEA to survey chief online learning officers, quantitatively and qualitatively, about why their institutions did (or didn’t) use outside providers to deliver virtual learning—and their experiences if they did. Read the full article.

It is time that we prepare for adding a more relevant, more responsive, student-centered, technology-delivered curriculum. 

Rick Seltzer reports in Higher Ed Dive that a recent Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation funded study of 18-to-30-year-olds without a college degree, found: “Respondents prioritized their own emotional, mental and financial health more frequently than a college education. Researchers asked them about their personal goals over the next few years. Almost nine in 10 respondents, 87%, said good mental and emotional health was either important or their top priority, making it the most popular answer. A close second was financial stability, cited by 85%, and in third place was earning more money, at 80%.” 

A new survey by Coursera shows that most employers and students view short-term, industry certificates as a worthwhile addition to a college degree and a strong positive in the hiring and job-seeking process. Former Missouri State University President Michael T. Nietzel, writing in Forbes, reports: “Among the U. S students surveyed, 81% believed that micro-credentials would help them succeed in their job, and 74% said the presence of relevant micro-credentials would influence their choice of a degree program at their university.” 

Colleges and universities must respond to the needs, desires and demands of our clientele – the students, families and employers who pay for and consume our learning products. The truth is that the desired workforce characteristics are changing. The last century model of employees working many years, even decades, at one job for one employer, is long gone. As such, one degree will not sustain a lifetime of work credentials. A continuing flow of upskilling and reskilling will be required for lifelong success.

The need is not to abandon the baccalaureate or graduate degrees. Rather, it is to provide affordable, effective ways for more students to build a scaffolding of knowledge and skills to successfully launch rewarding careers in a constantly shifting economy. Further, it is to build paths for continuous improvement and advancement for those already in the workforce.

Today, in large part because of the advances in technology, needed labor skills change rapidly from year to year. The latest Bureau of Labor Statistics report released last month shows the median number of years that wage and salary workers had been with their current employer was 4.1 years in January 2022. For men, it was 4.3 years; for women it was 3.9 years. That means that nearly as soon as workers begin a new job, they are looking, and preparing, for the next job. That means they are also in the market for relevant certificates that document their readiness to successfully take the next step in their careers.

Not to trivialize these changes in any way, as a recreational golfer I cannot help but to see an analogy to the game. Despite those captivating vistas of 500-yard-long fairways and the soaring tee shots of the pros, to my mind (and ability), golf is much more of a short game. The short game is focused on the last 100 yards. Some two-thirds of all golf shots are in the short game. Forty percent of all shots are on the putting green. So, it seems that learning and practice are best focused on finishing the job for that hole. That’s where the payoff – birdie, par, bogey or worse – comes. The wise golfer concentrates on developing the short game to successfully complete each hole, much like the learner works on adding skills and knowledge in increments to advance in their careers.

A college baccalaureate degree today is like the long fairway; it takes four to five years of full-time study to complete. Colleges and universities will, of course, continue to serve that need for a lengthy, well-rounded education. But, given the needs of employers and priorities of students and families to produce a faster, more economical return on their investment, shorter term certificate programs are appealing. For example, UC Davis reports regarding their programs that “Most certificate programs take approximately two years to complete if you take one course per quarter. Intensive Certificate Programs are typically completed in 10-12 weeks of full-time study. Customized Certificate Programs may take up to five years to complete.” 

As we prepare for the needs of learners, we should take stock of the fact that some will continue to need a baccalaureate degree, however all will require many continuing professional education in the form of additional certificates, certifications, internships, apprenticeships and other learning opportunities. Stackable certificates provide a way to scaffold learning in increments that are marketable – providing career advancement along the way. These are where the learning can be focused on the job at hand, while at the same time, accrue longer-term benefits in the form of associate, baccalaureate and advanced degrees. It is in this mix of offerings that the long-term “return” on the cumulative investment in education is realized.

So, how might an institution begin to add the short game to its portfolio? First, we assess our current offerings to match their relevance to the field both today and anticipated for the future. We can only do that with the close cooperation and coordination with professionals already in the field. Adjustments are made as needed. We further collaborate with employers to identify the learning outcomes, usually across several classes, that qualify successful completion as meeting the needs of entry level applicants for a class of positions. These are then assembled into a sequence that can be completed efficiently and assessed, perhaps using virtual and augmented reality tools to best simulate the real application of skills, methods and principles learned. With the help of interested students and families, we find the best match for setting costs, modes of delivery, and course loads. In taking this approach, we engage all three groups of our stakeholders – employers, prospective students, and families – in helping the faculty and staff to shape the best product. This engagement process is regularly repeated to add more certificate sequences and to update older ones.

Does this kind of internal/external collaboration go into frequent reviews and revisions of your curriculum? Are your departmental curricula up-to-date and relevant to employers in all relevant fields? Are you responding to the needs of students and families by engaging them frequently and deeply in developing standards for workload for classes, modes of delivery, length of certificates, and desired career outcomes?

 

This article was originally published in Inside Higher Ed’s Transforming Teaching & Learning.

OPMs have exploded over the last decade, and more than 500 colleges have contracts with these companies to help launch and grow their online programs. Many OPMs work with colleges on a revenue-share basis, a model that has been criticized for potentially spurring companies to aggressively recruit students in order to receive higher compensation. 

Even chief online learning officers who have no intention of working with these companies need to stay up to date with developments in the OPM sector, as changes in leadership, enrollment or institutional strategy could prompt colleges to contract with these companies, according to the report. Its findings are based on a survey of 92 chief online learning officers who are also UPCEA members and one-on-one interviews conducted with about one-third of that group. Read the full article.

New Research Offers Insights into the Criteria and Contractual Agreements Chief Online Learning Officers (COLOs) Consider When Deciding to Work With an OPM

LOUISVILLE, KY and WASHINGTON, DC (October 6, 2022) — With the explosive growth of online learning and the accompanying rise of online program managers (OPMs), Chief Online Learning Officers (COLOs) at higher education institutions must balance a variety of needs, limitations, and stakeholder inputs when deciding to engage a third-party provider, according to a just-released study by UPCEA and the University of Louisville SKILLS Collaborative. 

The results of In-House or Outsource?: Chief online learning officers’ decision-making factors when considering online program managers show that although many COLOs chose to work with OPMs for marketing and recruiting, these services largely were not meeting the expectations of those decision-makers. Those COLOs that declined to engage an OPM indicated sufficient internal capacity and capabilities to operate online programs in-house, although some remain open to future partnerships.  

“The competition to expand online learning continues to place pressures on COLOs to explore new strategies, and for some institutions, OPMs serve as an expansion approach,” said Jeffrey Sun, professor, distinguished university scholar, and director of the SKILLS Collaborative at the University of Louisville. “Campuses have drawn on the experiences of either exploring or engaging in OPM partnerships as a learning opportunity to re-evaluate their operational approach and build their capacity and capabilities of their online learning units.”

Researchers found that for many institutions, the drivers behind considering an OPM were in response to perceived changes in online learning and/or evolving institutional needs and priorities. Regardless of the impetus, the study found that COLOs followed a similar process in deciding to work with an OPM: assessment of internal capacity and capabilities, issuing a request for proposals, interviewing and vetting candidates, and negotiating contract or relationship terms with a selected partner. 

“Despite the proliferation of OPMs in recent years, there is little known about how these for-profit companies operate within higher ed,” said Heather Turner, adjunct assistant professor and director of research and policy for the SKILLS Collaborative at the University of Louisville. “This research makes steps towards demystifying the role of OPMs in online education and provides concrete advice for those who may be considering engaging with one of these companies in the future.” 

The study also reinforced that while COLOs are key figures in the decision to engage an OPM, this process typically involves input from other stakeholders from across the institution. The final section of the study includes analysis of the feedback received by study respondents, as well as the key questions that COLOs should consider when discussing a potential OPM partnership with campus leaders.  

UPCEA and the University of Louisville SKILLS Collaborative plan to pursue future collaborative research related to OPMs, including additional information on OPM contract terms and, in the longer term, additional research that is more inclusive of other institutional perspectives on OPMs, as large, public, research universities may be overrepresented in UPCEA’s membership and the research sample. 

“When Dr. Sun and Dr. Turner approached UPCEA to partner on this research we were 100% in, offering unprecedented access to our senior most members in UPCEA,” said Julie Uranis, Senior Vice President of Online and Strategic Initiatives at UPCEA. “COLOs were incredibly generous with their time and shared candid perspectives not found in other OPM research. UPCEA research is unlike others in postsecondary education as it reflects the perspectives of practitioners leading professional, continuing, online, and microcredential programs.”

Read the full study here.

 

Methodology

This study adopted a convergent mixed methods design in which qualitative and quantitative data were collected separately and analyzed together. The study’s authors recognized a need for a large sample of COLOs to identify trends in OPM experiences as well as in-depth interviews to elucidate the details of these experiences.

The work of the study began with the development and implementation of a survey of UPCEA’s COLO members (n=92). The quantitative portion of this study provided a baseline understanding of COLOs’ experiences with OPMs, including the services that they turn to OPMs for and whether OPMs meet their expectations for these services. This portion of the study also identified many of the factors that led COLOs to not engage with OPMs or to terminate their relationships. Respondents were asked if they would be willing to participate in the subsequent qualitative phase of the study, which consisted of one-on-one interviews with COLOs and members of the research team (n=32). Interviews were conducted virtually with COLOs across the country and each interview lasted between 20 and 120 minutes.

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About UPCEA

UPCEA is the leading association for professional, continuing, and online education. For more than 100 years, UPCEA has served most of the leading public and private colleges and universities in North America. Founded in 1915, the association serves its members with innovative conferences and specialty seminars, research and benchmarking information, professional networking opportunities and timely publications. Based in Washington, D.C., UPCEA also builds greater awareness of the vital link between contemporary learners and public policy issues. Learn more at upcea.edu.

 

About University of Louisville SKILLS Collaborative

The SKILLS Collaborative at the University of Louisville is a research, policy, and programming unit that examines the intersection among learning designs in light of the future of work movement, workforce development policies drawing on innovative practices such as work-based learning, and economic development in response to regional/national opportunities. Learn more at louisville.edu/education.

 

Contact

Molly Nelson, UPCEA Vice President of Communications
[email protected]