Three years with UPCEA, what it means to be part of a real community

Three years ago, I joined my first UPCEA event without knowing many people in the room. Today, Drieam is a UPCEA Silver Partner, and I’ve lost count of how many Coffee Chats, webinars and conversations that partnership has led to. What has stayed consistent across those three years is not the format of the conversations, but what they have taught me about what it means to actually be part of a community, rather than simply attending one.

Research can show us what is changing in continuing education. A strong community helps us understand what that change actually means to institutions and their people.

Some of the most valuable conversations in continuing education do not happen on a conference stage. They happen in the smaller moments, when people bring an unfinished question, share something that has not quite worked yet, or recognize their own challenge in somebody else’s story.

I was reminded of that during a recent UPCEA Coffee Chat. These are informal conversations, but the people taking part are often responsible for some very important work. They are building new programs, responding to workforce needs, supporting different types of learners, and trying to make all of that sustainable inside institutions that are already managing a great deal of change.

I still occasionally catch myself wondering whether the question I want to ask will be relevant to everyone in the room. Perhaps that is a little bit of impostor syndrome, even after more than a decade of working in education technology. But that is also precisely why these conversations matter. A real community creates room not only for polished answers, but also for the questions people are still working through.

Institution-led conversations feel different

There are many valuable technology conferences and user events in higher education. I attend them, learn from them, and genuinely enjoy them. But they are usually led by a company or shaped around a particular product ecosystem.

An institution-led community has a different starting point. The conversation begins with the reality institutions are facing, whether that is changing learner expectations, AI, employer engagement, financial pressure, internal governance, fragmented systems, or the challenge of scaling (continuing) education without simply adding more work for already stretched teams.

That changes the role of a technology partner too.

We should not enter these spaces simply to explain what our platform can do. We should be there to listen, learn, ask useful questions, and contribute patterns we have seen across institutions. Because we work with many different teams, countries, and technology environments, we may hear several versions of the same challenge. That gives us an opportunity, and a responsibility, to connect ideas that might otherwise remain separate.

One institution’s experience can help another avoid starting with an empty mixing bowl. The recipe will never be exactly the same, because every institution has its own learners, structure, culture and constraints. But the ingredients are often much more familiar than we first expect. That is one of the things I did not expect, the added value of me joining these conversations as well, even though I am not part of an institution myself. Through Drieam’s work with continuing education teams across the US and internationally, I can often bring a pattern from one or more institutions into a conversation where another institution is facing the same thing. The positive response to that has been one of the most unexpected and rewarding parts of being here!ed

Research gives us a map, community adds the landscape

This is also why the research shared through communities such as UPCEA is so valuable. Recent UPCEA work, including its Predictions 2026: Insights for Online & Professional Education and Benchmarking Online Enterprises: Insights into Structures, Strategies, and Financial Models in Higher Education, gives leaders a view of the larger forces reshaping the sector.

Research helps us see the patterns. Community conversations help us understand how those patterns appear in practice.

A report may show that governance, funding, learner demand or technology is changing. A conversation can reveal what that means on Monday morning for a small continuing education team trying to launch a new program, serve an employer partner and improve the learner experience at the same time.

That exchange also makes the research more useful. Someone may share a finding from UPCEA, ListEdTech, Instructure, D2L or an independent analyst. Another person may connect it to what is happening at their institution. Someone else may recognize the same pattern in another country or learner population. Suddenly, separate pieces of information begin to form a much clearer picture.

That is when research stops being something we simply read and becomes something we can act on and I really value being able to put those things together.

Technology partners need to learn across ecosystems

At Drieam, working across both the Instructure and D2L ecosystems has widened the range of institutions and perspectives we can learn from. Engaging with institutions using different learning environments gives us a broader view of the opportunities and challenges continuing education teams encounter as they work to scale their programs.

The value of that perspective is not only technological. It helps us understand more clearly where the LMS and other technologies fit, which capabilities matter to online, hybrid, and on-site learners, and what institutions need around the learning experience to make continuing education work operationally.

No single company has the full view. Institutions, associations, researchers and technology partners each see a different part of the landscape. We make better decisions when those perspectives meet.

Community is something you practice

For me, being part of a community cannot be something we do only when there is time, or when we have something to announce. It means showing up consistently, contributing what we know, and being honest about what we are still learning.

I keep doing it because I almost always leave with a new question, connection, or insight that helps me see our work differently.

Those conversations have also reinforced my belief that the next chapter of continuing education will require institutions to think beyond individual courses and programs toward the infrastructure that allows lifelong learning to scale: across learner types, employers, modalities, systems, and credentials. Technology partners have a role to play in that transition, but only if we stay close enough to institutions to understand the problems worth solving.

That is what I appreciate so much about UPCEA. It brings together people who may sit on different sides of the education ecosystem, but who are working towards a shared goal: helping institutions create meaningful, sustainable opportunities for people to keep learning throughout their lives.

If we believe in lifelong learning, we should practice it ourselves. We should keep listening, keep sharing, and keep making connections between what research tells us and what institutions experience every day.

That is how expertise becomes useful. It is how trust grows. And it is how a professional network becomes a real community.

I cannot wait to see what other interesting conversations and events will happen and where I can learn even more.

Warm regards,

Mieke Ridderhof, CMO and Managing Director at Drieam, the makers of Eduframe.

Eduframe by Drieam is the Continuing Education Storefront & SIS for Canvas LMS, designed to convert more non-traditional learners and create engaging online experiences for your professional, continuing, and online education units. From the first learner touchpoint to course completion, Eduframe streamlines manual processes, automates workflows, and delivers a modern learner experience.

Mieke Ridderhof, Chief Commercial Officer at Drieam, has been in the EdTech space for over a decade and has had the pleasure of working with Higher Ed and Continuing Education institutions all over the world. Her passion lies with making a difference through education with EdTech that makes sense and enhances the learning journey which in turn aids in employability of learners. She absolutely loves hearing stories about how EdTech is being used worldwide to form a well educated opinion on trends, challenges and possibilities.