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. 

Thought Piece: The Heat Map

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 folks why asking at that time of the year was the most problematic. At the time, I created a heat map graphic that I have used several times sense… in hopes that the colors (similar to a stop light) would help them see when would better be able to reach out for help, and why help was hard to come by when they were asking. I share this with you as well.

Also, a great solution is to also organize your team up to accommodate two needs: production shop and faculty assistance. In my experience, even if you are just a production shop, faculty assistance comes back to haunt you, because you established a relationship with the faculty, so it’s something to field for in your shop design.

I’m sure you each have your own version of this map (with your unique development schedules), but I share this with you as a tool that has helped me.

-Camille Funk, Director, UPCEA eDesign Collaborative

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


Learn more about the UPCEA eDesign Collaborative here.


UPCEA Blogs and Updates:  

How to Build Strong Employer Partnerships to Support Student Success

Now, possibly more than ever, it is critically important for colleges and universities to engage with employers for the benefit of our students. Higher education is facing an unprecedented time. The demographic cliff is upon us, the current political environment has led to policy whiplash and has upended funding sources for research. Our campuses have…

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Artificial Intelligence is Non-Negotiable for Higher Education Marketing and Enrollment Management

Why Institutional Leaders Can No Longer Afford to Wait on AI adoption The clock is ticking for higher education institutions that haven’t fully embraced AI. What was once an experimental advantage in marketing and enrollment has quickly become an urgent necessity. AI has firmly established itself as an operational imperative across diverse industries, with the…

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Congress Passes President Trump’s OBBB—Workforce Pell Included, but Higher Ed Gets $300 Billion Slash | Policy Matters (July 2025)

Major Updates Congress Passes President Trump’s OBBB—Workforce Pell Included, but Higher Ed Gets $300 Billion Slash President Trump’s newly signed One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBB) overhauls the federal approach to higher education policy. Short-term Pell advocates (of which UPCEA has been a long supporter) have something to be thankful for, as it opens Workforce…

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Synchronizing Pathways: Advancing the National Dialogue on Credentials and Learning Mobility

Incubator grant supports critical work to align data practices and learning mobility frameworks to benefit today’s learners WASHINGTON July 31, 2025 – UPCEA, the online and professional education association, has launched a national initiative to advance credential transparency and learner mobility through improved data quality and institutional capacity-building. The project titled, “Synchronizing Pathways: Expanding Institutional…

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Accelerating Institutional Capacity for Employer Engagement in Credential Innovation

As the future of work rapidly evolves, higher education institutions must accelerate their capacity to engage with employers—building bridges between learning and labor market relevance. At UPCEA, with support from Walmart, the world’s largest employer, we’ve undertaken two major initiatives to strengthen these bridges. The first project provided foundational benchmarking data, a practical playbook, and…

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UPCEA Recognizes 2025 Award Recipients at the Summit for Online Leadership and Administration Conference (SOLAR)

Association Award Recipients Highlighted at Event WASHINGTON (July 17, 2025) – UPCEA, the online and professional education association, is pleased to recognize the recipients of this year’s online and distance education awards. Award recipients will be showcased at the Summit for Online Leadership and Administration (SOLAR) Conference, July 22-24 in Portland, Oregon. The annual SOLAR…

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