Now, possibly more than ever, it is critically important for colleges and universities to engage with employers for the benefit of our students. Higher education is facing an unprecedented time. The demographic cliff is upon us, the current political environment has led to policy whiplash and has upended funding sources for research. Our campuses have…
Read MoreWhy Institutional Leaders Can No Longer Afford to Wait on AI adoption The clock is ticking for higher education institutions that haven’t fully embraced AI. What was once an experimental advantage in marketing and enrollment has quickly become an urgent necessity. AI has firmly established itself as an operational imperative across diverse industries, with the…
Read MoreThis fall we are moving into the agentic generation of Artificial Intelligence (AI). It is generative AI that we have become accustomed to in the past couple of years. That will not go away, but increasingly, it will serve in support of agents. “Where generative AI creates, agentic AI acts.” That’s how my trusted assistant,…
Read MoreAs we enter the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the emphasis in higher learning is less on in-depth discipline knowledge and more on agile skills in critical thinking and creative thinking. How can we more deeply integrate the development of these skills into our curricula? Of course, the need for these skills is based upon the continuing…
Read More7 new standards for excellent online learning leadership (eCampusNews)
“As online learning evolves from amateur experimentation to a mainstream professional entity on campus, new standards for quality online learning leadership are emerging in order to not only sustain these distance programs, but ensure they meet the growing demands of 21st-century academe. The UPCEA has released a report detailing seven hallmarks of excellence in online…
Can Associations Attract Millennials with Credentialing? (Associations Now)
“The degree will always be an important credential, but it won’t always be the gold standard,” said Jim Fong, director of UPCEA’s Center for Research and Marketing strategy, in a press release. “As millennials enter the prime years of their career and move into positions of greater power, we’ll see more alternative credentials for specific…
Department of Education Releases Proposed Rules on State Authorization
The Department of Education released Friday July 22 their proposed regulations on State Authorization, following an earlier failure to reach consensus as part of negotiated rule making. State authorization for distance education — the proposed regulation for institutions administering a program in which a distance or online education student is present in another state. The administration has proposed…
Alternative credentials now a must-have for traditional universities (eCampusNews)
Millennials prefer badging and certificates to traditional degrees, according to researchers from UPCEA, Penn State and Pearson. More than half of higher education institutions (64 percent) participating in a recent survey said alternative credentials are an important strategy for institutions’ futures. That same survey also found that millennial students are likely to support the use…
We are pleased to share the foreword by UPCEA CEO Bob Hansen from the newly released Chief Online Learning Officers’ Guidebook: A Framework for Strategy and Practice in Higher Education. The guidebook, now available from Routledge in paperback, hardback, and eBook formats, provides a comprehensive framework for today’s online learning leaders. Learn more and purchase…
Read MoreOver the last three years, UPCEA engaged in an innovative partnership with the University of Wisconsin–Madison to enable the latter’s Distance Teaching and Learning (DT&L) conference to continue under UPCEA’s leadership. The partnership’s goals included making this valuable event for the distance learning community more sustainable and accessible to online practitioners focused on teaching and…
Read MoreTurn learners into the cyber pros every employer is chasing with stackable, multi-credential pathways The Cyber Talent Gap Is a Moving Target Picture this: the bad guys keep upgrading their playbook, but the good guys are still running last season’s plays. That’s the cyber talent gap in a nutshell. It’s not just about more people…
Read MoreEvery year, the Voice of the Online Learner report offers a window into the motivations, preferences, and challenges of today’s online students. Now in its 14th year, the 2025 edition provides timely insights for UPCEA members seeking to design courses and programs that meet the needs of adult learners, employers, and communities. At Risepoint, we’re…
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