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.
Framework for Plotting the Future of Your Online Program
We are in the midst of a major shakeup in higher education. Dozens of colleges have closed in the past couple of years (hundreds if you include failed for-profit chains). The closure parade is growing so fast that Education Dive is maintaining a running list of closures. Meantime, mega-universities have emerged with large online initiatives…
Quantum Leap Into the Future of Education
Quantum computing will burst onto the educational technology scene. Are you preparing now? The quantum era will soon be upon us. The changes we will see will far outpace even those we saw in the development of personal computers, smartphones and broadband networking — combined. IBM has already created a commercial quantum computer prototype, the IBM…
VR, AR, AI Worldwide Perspectives
U.S.-China conference highlights similarities among innovators in ed tech around the world. How should colleges react? In mid-March of this year, some 250 higher education faculty, administrators, programmers and others involved in the educational technology policy and development areas gathered for the fourth annual U.S.-China Smart Education conference at the University of North Texas. It was a…
Curated Artificial Intelligence in Higher Education News Posts
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- From Restriction to Integration: Practical Strategies for Embracing AI in Online Courses - Taoufik Ennoure, Faculty FocusInstead of prohibiting the use of AI, it is more effective to assign tasks that require students to use AI tools and then have them critically assess the outputs. In asynchronous online courses with less frequent instructor interaction, I have adopted a new approach to enhance engagement in weekly discussions. I ask students to use […]
- The Case for Data Centers in Space- McKinseyStarcloud CEO Philip Johnston on the potential role orbital data centers could play in meeting growing AI compute demand—and the technical and economic uncertainties that remain. Philip Johnston, a McKinsey alumnus and cofounder of orbital compute infrastructure provider Starcloud, believes that space-based systems could become a meaningful part of the future compute landscape. He recently […]
- Layoffs down from early '25 — except in this one field - Emma W. Thorne, Editor at LinkedIn NewsLayoffs fell 50% from the first third of 2025 to the first third of 2026 — with one glaring exception. Tech was hit the hardest, laying off more than 85,000 workers in the first four months of the year, according to a new report out Thursday from Challenger, Gray & Christmas. That's a 33% jump […]
- ‘Student Guide to AI’ returns for third year with a new focus: Human capabilities - Elon University News Bureau“Human Wisdom for the Age of AI: A Field Guide to Cultivating Essential Skills”, a publication by Elon University, the American Association of Colleges and Universities and The Princeton Review, is provided to students and institutions free of charge. The new publication, “Human Wisdom for the Age of AI: A Field Guide to Cultivating Essential […]
- AI risk to university jobs despite staff believing roles are safe - Juliette Rowsell, Times Higher EdUniversity workers generally do not believe that their jobs will be taken by artificial intelligence in the short term but experts have warned against complacency, saying that automation may still be used as “justification” to cut roles anyway. While respondents to Times Higher Education’s UK University Redundancy Survey expressed widespread concern about the impact of […]