New on WCET Frontiers
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So, You’re Interested In AI, Instructional Design, Policy & Compliance, Accessibility, and More? There’s a Session for That!
Published by: WCET | 9/10/2026
Welcome to Your WCET 2026 Annual Conference Preview By Betsy Piland An underrated reason to gather with your higher education digital learning community? You get to stop explaining your job to people for just a few days. Phew! All jokes aside, WCET spends months planning an Annual Conference that addresses the most critical issues the digital learning community is facing. We can’t wait to see all […]
Practice
From Knowing to Being: Reclaiming the University’s Purpose in an AI Age
Published by: WCET | 9/4/2026
“The university’s purpose is not to compete with the machine at its own game—speed, scale, calculation, and data recollection—but to transcend it by dedicating itself fully to what the machine can never replicate: wisdom, judgment, and the capacity for love, empathy, and meaning.” — Paul LeBlanc, Tanya Gamby & George Siemens, from Reclaiming Purpose: The […]
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Removing Barriers, Building Belonging: How Family-Inclusive Engagement Supports Online Learner Success
Published by: WCET | 8/27/2026
By Aunjelique Andersen When we think about learner engagement in online education, one question continues to guide our work: What barriers are we unintentionally creating for the students we most want to support? Global Connections, Washington State University Global Campus’ student involvement program, observed a common situation many online students find themselves in: They are balancing coursework while […]
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5 Reasons to Attend the WCET 2026 Annual Conference
Published by: WCET | 8/21/2026
By Betsy Piland Schedules are busy. Budgets are tight. Getting approval to attend a conference can take some serious hoop-jumping! But we’re here to make it worthwhile. If you work in higher ed digital learning, here are five reasons to register now for WCET 2026 in Minneapolis, Oct. 14-16. 1. Connect With Your Community IRL […]
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Online Learning Quality Is Built Beyond the Course
Published by: WCET | 8/13/2026
By Rachel Tasky One of the most persistent public perceptions surrounding online learning is that online courses are inherently less rigorous or lower quality than courses taught in person. The concern surfaces regularly in conversations among prospective students, families, employers, and even faculty who may still associate online learning with earlier generations of digital education […]
Practice
Accessibility is a Team Effort
Published by: WCET | 8/11/2026
By Megan Raymond and Susan Haught Key Takeaways As the deadline for new accessibility requirements approaches, many education leaders are asking the same question: Where do we even begin? The answer, according to institutions that have been working through the process together, is reassuring: You don’t have to start from scratch, and you don’t have […]
Practice
Writing the Next Chapter: Distance Learning in the American Higher Ed Story
Published by: WCET | 8/6/2026
By Van L. Davis, Ph.D. As America marks its semiquincentennial, it’s leading me to reflect on its 1976 bicentennial. One of my enduring childhood memories is of the Freedom Train that traveled around the United States, carrying various historical documents, including George Washington’s personal copy of the Constitution, a replica of the Liberty Bell, and […]
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When the LMS Goes Dark: Rethinking Contingency Planning in Higher Ed
Published by: WCET | 8/4/2026
By Betsy Piland When hackers took Canvas offline in May, institutions quickly learned that “too big to fail” was not a contingency plan. Cynthia Pascal, Northern Virginia Community College’s Associate Vice President of eLearning, detailed a scenario that will sound familiar to hundreds of institutions across higher ed: a ransomware attack that came at the […]
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AI is Reshaping Digital Learner Behaviors and Expectations
Published by: WCET | 7/10/2026
By Dr. Tekoya Boykins There’s no doubt that artificial intelligence has already changed how people work, access information, and develop new skills, but it is essential for those of us working in higher education to understand that it is also changing learners’ expectations. Risepoint’s 2026 Voice of the Online Learner report suggests that AI is […]
Practice
A Historian and Accidental Technologist’s View of Higher Education’s AI Moment
Published by: WCET | 7/2/2026
By Van L. Davis, Ph.D. Hi, I’m Van, and I’m an accidental technologist. (A what? I know. Just stick with me.) The first time I encountered the internet, I was sitting at a terminal in Vanderbilt University’s computer science building, which still housed the mainframe. It was the early ’90s, and I used that terminal to log into the National Archives and pull up the text […]