New on WCET Frontiers
Practice
Supporting the Whole Online Learner: Innovative Approaches to Student Behavioral Health and Well-Being
Published by: WCET | 6/29/2026
By Karly Dickinson, Psy.D. When we talk about supporting online learners, we’re quick to focus on course design, technology, and academic support services—and rightfully so! Those are all critical aspects of a successful digital learning experience. But those students are more than just learners logging into an LMS. They are employees, caregivers, military service members, […]
Practice
Students Aren’t Just Learning With AI—They’re Leaning on It
Published by: WCET | 6/18/2026
By Ashleigh Golden, PsyD, MSCP, Chief Clinical Officer, Wayhaven; Adjunct Clinical Faculty, Stanford Medicine Tens of millions of people across the U.S. and Canada are turning to general-purpose AI for help with anxiety, decisions, loneliness, grief, and the general overwhelm of being human. A meaningful share of those people are college and university students, many […]
Practice
Report: Online Students and Faculty are Aligned on GenAI Use
Published by: WCET | 6/11/2026
By Mary Ellen Dello Stritto, PhD, and Naomi Aguiar, PhD You’ve likely heard that students and faculty are on opposing sides in their perceptions of how generative AI (GenAI) tools are used in higher education. These narratives are based on assumptions and stem from personal stories or any number of recently published opinion pieces. To […]
Practice
Building Internal Capacity: How the University of Pittsburgh School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences Moved Beyond Its Online Program Manager
Published by: WCET | 5/14/2026
Authored by Rae Mancilla, EdD, Executive Director of University Digital Education; Natalie Baney, MBA, Executive Director of Digital Enrollment; Anthony Delitto, PhD, Associate Provost of Digital Education; and University of Pittsburgh Center for Excellence in Digital Education (Pitt EDGE). Institutional Tradeoffs of Outsourcing the Online Enterprise Institutions of higher education have faced mounting fiscal pressures […]
Practice
Online Education Has Come a Long Way—So Why Do the Myths Persist?
Published by: WCET | 5/7/2026
A recent Washington Post article about online education, competency-based education, and accelerated degree programs elicited the comments you might expect. I lost count of those decrying such programs as degree mills. Not surprising. We continue to see a general misunderstanding of online education—even though the majority of students today are enrolled in at least one […]
Policy
SARA, Sovereignty, and Access: Exploring Policy Change for Tribal Lands
Published by: WCET | 4/16/2026
Authored in collaboration with Cheryl Dowd, Senior Director, SAN & WCET Policy Innovations, Erika Swain, Assistant Director of Academic Compliance and Authorization, University of Colorado Boulder; and Mitchell Tiedman and Ella Reichard, University of Colorado Boulder, Colorado Law Clinic. The compliance challenges and negative outcomes that can arise around interstate distance education are well-documented: barriers […]
Practice
From Checklist to Catalyst: Transforming Online Learning with the WCET Quality Rubric and Toolkit
Published by: WCET | 4/8/2026
Institutional leaders are quickly realizing that “quality” isn’t an end-goal; instead, it’s an ongoing journey toward continued improvement. This idea, coupled with WCET’s commitment to supporting institutions as they face increasing pressure to innovate, is behind the launch of the new WCET Online Learning Quality Rubric Toolkit. The WCET Online Learning Quality Rubric Toolkit has […]
Practice
Known and Knowing: The Case for Community in Online Learning
Published by: WCET | 4/2/2026
I came out of a graduate program that focused on research over teaching. I received one day of pedagogical training, which (because, as a historian, I was tapped to teach freshman composition) was half a day more than my peers. During my first few years of teaching, I floundered and struggled to find ways to […]
Practice
Agentic AI, Academic Integrity, and the Question We Are Avoiding
Published by: WCET | 3/26/2026
Recently, I was participating in a nationwide AI workgroup where someone suggested that the very phrase academic integrity is problematic. The argument was that it implies students lack integrity or are cheating when they use AI. In that same conversation, there was an undercurrent that anyone focused on integrity concerns might be a Luddite, someone […]
Practice
A Human-Centered Approach to Generative AI in Accessibility Review
Published by: WCET | 3/12/2026
What We Built at UCF When reviewing a tool for accessibility, we ask whether it will work for students in real course use. In practice, that question usually runs through a Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT®). VPATs are widely available and a standard part of many review processes, but they are often highly technical and […]