The Pulse of Higher Ed

By Vickie S. Cook, Ph.D.

The first article in this series explored how the updated UPCEA Hallmarks of Excellence in Digital Learning Enterprises reflect the evolution of digital learning from a specialized initiative into an institutional opportunity and responsibility. As digital learning has become woven into strategic planning, enrollment management, academic affairs, and institutional sustainability, another question becomes evident in the institutional life cycle.

How do institutions intentionally create the conditions that enable learners to succeed?

The updated Hallmarks answer that question through two closely connected domains: Instructional Support and Learner Support. The Hallmarks intentionally present these as distinct areas of responsibility, yet institutions are most effective when they are viewed as complementary components of a single learner-centered ecosystem. Learners rarely distinguish between instructional support and learner support. They simply know whether they were successful and whether the institution provided the support they needed along the way. From a learner’s perspective, course design, faculty engagement, advising, accessibility, academic resources, technical assistance, and timely communication are experienced as one connected educational experience. Institutional organizational charts may separate these functions, but learners do not.

Designing the Conditions for Learner Success

Higher education has long invested in improving individual components of the learner experience especially at the undergraduate level. Institutions strengthen advising, expand tutoring, introduce new learning technologies, enhance faculty development, redesign courses, and improve accessibility. Yet meaningful learner success rarely results from excellence in one area alone. Instead, learner success reflects the degree to which these efforts are strategically connected.

Institutional intentionality is the difference between offering excellent individual services and creating an educational environment in which instructional support and learner support reinforce one another. That distinction becomes increasingly important as institutions serve learners whose educational experiences are more varied than ever before. Students move easily between online, hybrid, and face-to-face instruction. Many balance careers, families, military service, and other responsibilities while pursuing their education. They expect consistency regardless of instructional modality because, from their perspective, they are attending one institution, not navigating multiple administrative systems.

The Hallmarks recognize that learner success is shaped as much by intentional institutional design as by individual learner interactions. This intentionality requires a broader institutional perspective. Rather than asking whether instructional design is effective or whether learner support services are available, institutions are encouraged to consider how intentionally they have designed the overall learning environment that leads to success.

Putting the Hallmarks into Practice

One of the strengths of the updated Hallmarks of Excellence in Digital Learning Enterprises is that they encourage institutions to think beyond individual functions and toward shared enterprise-level responsibility. Instructional Support focuses on creating learning environments grounded in evidence-based teaching practices, meaningful faculty support, accessibility, and continuous course improvement. Learner Support extends that commitment by ensuring learners have equitable access to the academic, technological, and personal resources that enable persistence and achievement.

Viewed separately, these Hallmarks describe important institutional responsibilities. Viewed together, they describe something larger. They describe an institution intentionally designed for learner success. For institutional leaders, this perspective changes the conversation. Instead of evaluating isolated offices or services, institutions begin examining how effectively people, processes, technologies, and policies work together to support learners from their first interaction with the institution through orientation, course engagement, advising, persistence, completion, and continued professional growth. This shift reflects institutional maturity by recognizing that learner success depends less on individual services and more on how those services are designed to work together. It also reflects a growing recognition that learner success is not the responsibility of any single office. It is the outcome of an intentionally designed learner-centered enterprise.

Measuring Progress

The updated Hallmarks deliberately move beyond describing effective practice by identifying measurable indicators of institutional progress. The accompanying Key Performance Indicators provide institutions with practical benchmarks for evaluating how effectively instructional support and learner support work together to advance learner success. Instead of viewing these indicators as a checklist, institutions should consider using them to guide meaningful conversations about continuous improvement.

Among the conversations that might be considered are:

• Do instructional support and learner support reflect a shared institutional vision for learner success? Is this true for both undergraduate and graduate students?
• Are faculty supported in designing high-quality learning experiences across instructional modalities?
• Do learners receive consistent, accessible support throughout their educational experience?
• Are learner outcomes routinely evaluated to inform improvements in instruction, services, and institutional decision-making?
• Does evidence demonstrate that these efforts contribute to persistence, completion, learner satisfaction, and educational quality?

Collectively, these benchmarks help institutions evaluate not simply whether services exist, but whether they are intentionally connected in ways that improve learner success.

Leadership Reflection

If you viewed your institution through the eyes of a new learner, where would you find evidence of an intentionally designed learning ecosystem? Where might unit or office boundaries still shape the learner’s experience more than the overall institutional purpose?

Continue the Conversation …

To explore the Hallmarks in greater depth:

• Download the UPCEA Hallmarks of Excellence in Digital Learning Enterprises.
• Review the Key Performance Indicators for Hallmark 3: Entrepreneurial Initiatives and Hallmark 4: Instructional Support.
• Register for the upcoming Hallmarks webinar series:
  • September 9 at 1:00 PM Eastern: External Advocacy & Professionalism
  • September 22 at 1:00 PM Eastern: Technology & Digital Innovation

Vickie Cook is a nationally recognized higher education leader specializing in enrollment strategy, online and digital learning, organizational transformation, team development, and leadership growth. She currently serves as a Senior Fellow and Strategic Advisor for UPCEA, and is a Contributing Editor for the Hallmarks of Excellence in Digital Learning Enterprises.