eDesign Collaborative Blog

The eDesign Collaborative (eDC) Blog is a dedicated resource to announcements, updates, upcoming events, surveys, and other items for the eDC community. 

eDC ThinkTank Roadshow

December 11, 2017

Most conferences have the format of bringing people away from universities to share what they are doing… however, much is lost without seeing things in context. Ours is a “Flipped Conference Model” where we bring people to universities and show them how things work in real time. We meet the team, tour, and then spend…

Thought Piece: The Heat Map

October 27, 2017

In my early days as a director, I found that, even when doing my best to scope a course development cycle, there would inevitably come one-off request for “urgent course fixes or builds” that hovered around the beginning of the semester. Despite doing what we could to assist, I could never seem to explain to…

Thought Piece: Transforming Problem Sets into Authentic Assessments

September 18, 2017

Shelly Brazelle, an adjunct professor in Forensic Science at George Washington University, was drawn to the field like many others for the thrill of crime. TV shows like CSI and Forensic Files popping up, cast an allure revealing the drama and glamour of a career in Forensics. While there are still high stakes for her…

Instructional Design and Technology Teams: Work Experiences and Professional Development

April 22, 2017

The University Professional and Continuing Education Association (UPCEA) conducted a research study in the spring of 2017 to learn more about the professional development needs and work experiences of instructional designers, instructional technologists, multimedia designers, and their team leaders. The goal was to determine how similar the team leaders and the team members felt about…

The UPCEA eDesign Collaborative serves higher education instructional design teams (instructional designers, multimedia developers and team administrators) in higher education seeking networking and professional development.


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More Blogs + Updates from UPCEA

An AI-Aware Approach to Online Assessment

The New Assessment Challenge in Online Learning Generative AI is complicating how we teach working adults in online and professional continuing education. I recently asked a group of educators who teach online about their biggest concerns regarding AI and assessment of student learning. They had many! These educators were worried about:  enforcing academic integrity when…

Benchmarking in Higher Education: What to Measure and Why It Changes Decisions

Colleges and universities have never had more data at their fingertips. Still, many higher education leadership teams still make major decisions on incomplete internal reporting or even gut instinct alone. Benchmarking offers a structured alternative. When done well, it gives higher ed leaders a reliable framework for understanding where their institution stands versus peer organizations…

UPCEA’s Corporate Member Blog Series #4 | From Data to Action: Helping Institutions Close the Gap Between Ambition and Infrastructure

The 2026 State of Continuing Education report makes one thing unmistakably clear: UPCEA member institutions know where they want to go. What they need is help getting there. The findings from this year’s study read less like a progress report and more like a stress test. Microcredential adoption has hit an all-time high (88%). Workforce…

Seeing Part of the Picture: What We Still Cannot See About Online Students

For more than a decade, higher education leaders have relied on IPEDS data to understand the growth of distance education. Since distance education reporting was added to IPEDS in 2012, the number of students enrolled exclusively in distance education courses has more than doubled. Today, more than 5.3 million students are enrolled exclusively in distance…

The Modern Online and Professional Continuing Education Leader: Roles, Pressures, and What High-Performing Units Do Differently

Online and professional continuing education plays a pivotal part in expanding educational access and shaping contemporary workforce development. These programs serve a critical function in our communities, yet they face considerable challenges. Today’s leaders must navigate complexity tied to virtual learning and employer partnerships, along with changes in what communities expect from online and professional…

What is a “Professional” Degree? Lawsuits and Legislators Push Back against Trump Admin | Policy Matters (June 2026)

Major Updates What is a “Professional” Degree? Lawsuits and Legislators Push Back against Trump Admin Determinations The definition of a “professional” degree has quietly become one of the most consequential terms in federal financial aid, and it lands squarely on the graduate and professional programs many continuing education units operate. Under the One Big Beautiful…