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Unique biweekly insights and news review from Ray Schroeder, Senior Fellow at UPCEA.
A Near Future Vision of AI in Higher Ed
The state-of-art of Generative Artificial Intelligence (Gen AI) is changing at lightning speed. Advances come by the hour, not just by the day. How might this play out in higher ed? As Senior Fellow at UPCEA, the online and professional education association, and Professor Emeritus from the University of Illinois Springfield, I am fortunate to…
AI is Already Advancing Higher Education
The potential for Generative AI (GenAI) to further advance, enhance, and expand higher education in the future is enormous. Meanwhile, few realize how AI already is improving what we do today in a myriad of ways. Let me begin by noting that I have used GenAI tools to assist in ideation and the search for…
Upskilling, Reskilling, or Retiring: Responding to the Advent of AI
The anticipated replacement of human workers with Generative AI (GenAI) apps has begun. Earlier this year IBM announced about 8,000 layoffs amid an AI-powered initiative. As reported by Byte magazine, Cisco is among a group of other tech companies that most recently announced layoffs: “Despite tech conglomerate Cisco posting $10.3 billion in profits last year,…
AI in a Lingering Age of Loneliness Among Students
The COVID-19 Pandemic brought about greater awareness of an even larger epidemic, one of loneliness in America. In higher education, it is incumbent on us to help our learners with overcoming the pain and other ill-effects of this condition. The World Health Organization has staggering reports on mental health around the world: In 2019, 1…
Our Responsibility to Teach AI to our Students
Put aside any concerns you may have about student use of GenAI in your classes. It is our urgent responsibility to teach our students now how to use the technology in their discipline; their careers depend on us. It is not the academic integrity issue that looms the largest in higher education use of Generative…
The Synthetic Professor
We have reached a point in the development of Generative AI (GenAI) that synthetic AI professors are poised to enter academe. We have been following the rapid development of knowledge and abilities of GenAI over the past couple of years. OpenAI Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Mira Murati recently gave some additional clarity on its capabilities.…

Ray Schroeder is Professor Emeritus, Associate Vice Chancellor for Online Learning at the University of Illinois Springfield (UIS) and Senior Fellow at UPCEA. Each year, Ray publishes and presents nationally on emerging topics in online and technology-enhanced learning. Ray’s social media publications daily reach more than 12,000 professionals. He is the inaugural recipient of the A. Frank Mayadas Online Leadership Award, recipient of the University of Illinois Distinguished Service Award, the United States Distance Learning Association Hall of Fame Award, and the American Journal of Distance Education/University of Wisconsin Wedemeyer Excellence in Distance Education Award 2016.