Putting AI into Action for Higher Education
UPCEA is the hands-on partner for leaders who need to translate AI from idea to implementation. We bring together practitioners, publish applied research on artificial intelligence in higher education, and deliver cohort-based learning so members can move from piloting AI tools to measurable results through strategic implementation. While postsecondary leaders gravitate to frameworks, innovators operationalize and pilot new initiatives, like AI.
This hub centralizes our primers, research briefs, training, and member spotlights on AI resources, with an emphasis on marketing and enrollment, learner support, credential innovation, and workforce alignment.
AI Primers & Insights
Short, actionable overviews to get your team aligned—plus starter resources from UPCEA.
Each topic includes a few UPCEA resources so your team can operationalize AI in your online and professional education departments. These AI resources for UPCEA members will grow over time as we add new guides, cases, and tools.
Implementing AI in our work - Enrollment, Student Success, Teaching
AI-Enabled Enrollment & Marketing
AI is rewriting discovery and conversion. Recent UPCEA research shows half of prospective students use AI-powered search weekly, so showing up in AI overviews (and the SEO that feeds them) determines visibility.
Student Success, Advising & Retention
AI is moving from content creation to tutoring and agentic systems, enabling responsive support and mastery-based progress—key for learner success.
Teaching & Learning Design
Generative and embodied AI are reshaping course design, assessment, and feedback loops across online and hybrid modalities.
Leading AI - Governance, Credentials, Institutional Strategy
Governance, Ethics & Operational Readiness
Responsible AI demands policy alignment, cross-functional coordination, and cultural readiness across marketing, enrollment, IT, data privacy, and academic units.
Credential Innovation, Program Design & Workforce Alignment
AI is accelerating employer demand, microcredentials, and stackable pathways—and reshaping learning mobility.
Institutional Strategy & Future-Proofing
AI influences revenue models, online enterprise strategy, and institutional resilience; leaders need a forward-looking view.
- UPCEA Senior Fellow Ray Schroeder's EduAI Advisor GPT
- New book: AI Applications in Online Higher Administration: Strategies for Maximizing Returns and Improving Outcomes
- Focus on the Future
What's Next + Engage More
Online: Trending Now
Insights on AI and the future of higher education from UPCEA Senior Fellow, Ray Schroeder.
Leading Faculty Support in Online Learning
These might seem to be a rare combination of qualities, but I have seen them come together time and again in the successful leaders and their operations at colleges and universities across the country. I write often about the changing technologies and trends, but today I want to address the special qualities of successful leadership in…
What Matters More: Skills or Degrees?
We increasingly hear employers, prospective students, and futurists saying that it is all about the skills, not about the degree. What does that mean for higher ed? Historically, employers made the baccalaureate, and in some cases advanced degrees, the gateway to an interview. If you did not hold the sheepskin, you would not get in the…
Emergence of Blockchain
Blockchain is evolving into a robust platform that may shake many aspects of higher ed. We all have heard much about the potential for blockchain, particularly how it might serve as a distribution, validation and secure ledger of transcripts and associated certifications. MIT did the early work on this. Two years ago they began offering the distribution…
Curated Artificial Intelligence in Higher Education News Posts
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- The Third Wave of Online Education: Why AI-Powered Adaptive Learning Could Disrupt Universities, Corporate Training, and Workforce Development - Tim King, Solutions ReviewThe Third Wave of Online Education Has Begun. Artificial intelligence is beginning to fundamentally reshape education. Not simply classroom technology. Not digital homework systems. Not video-based e-learning platforms. Education itself. During a recent episode of Inside Jam, Solutions Review President Doug Atkinson sat down with Jonathan Cornelissen to discuss what may become one of the […]
- Quantum’s bold promise: What business leaders need to know - Henning Soller and Sven Smit with Anna Heid - McKinsey QuarterlyFor years, business leaders and corporate boards have viewed quantum computing (QC) as a threat—and for good reason: It has the potential to break today’s strongest encryptions. That moment, commonly known as Q-Day, will occur when quantum computers succeed in factoring exceptionally large numbers, undermining the math that public-key cryptography depends on. Though business leaders […]
- The AI industry is still in flux, and university programs are trying to keep up - MarketplaceWelcome to May — the job market is currently awash in fresh graduates looking for that first post-college job, and it’s not an easy task. The unemployment rate for young college graduates jumped to 5.6% at the end of last year, entry-level job postings in the U.S. are down by a third since 2023, and […]
- 5 Things to Know About the Changing Cybersecurity Landscape in Higher Education - UMass AmherstRecent incidents affecting institutions nationwide, including the widely used Canvas learning management system, have reinforced the importance of cybersecurity not only as a technical priority, but as a shared community responsibility. For Jeremy Pelegrin, Chief Information Security Officer at UMass Amherst, the conversation around cybersecurity today extends far beyond firewalls and software updates. It’s about […]
- Assessing students when artificial intelligence is ubiquitous - Michelle Seref, Times Higher EducationIf we continue to prioritise memorisation in an age of wall-to-wall information, we send the wrong message to our students and employers. Michelle Seref offers advice on assessment that builds critical thinking skills. For much of higher education’s modern history, assessment has followed a familiar formula: a midterm and a final exam, with a heavy […]