New Study: Over Six Million Students Now Enrolled in Distance Education

Distance education enrollment growth continues, even as overall higher education enrollments decline (Wellesley, MA) – The Distance Education Enrollment Report 2017, conducted by the new Digital Learning Compass organization, reveals the number of higher education students taking at least one distance education course in 2015 now tops six million. Growth, however,... Read More>

What's keeping higher ed leaders up at night?

Education Dive | April 28, 2017 -  Dive Brief: Higher ed professionals worried their schools were not compliant with regulations, and were anxious about enrollment growth and faculty buy-in to online learning, according to focus groups held by the Online Learning Consortium and the WICHE Cooperative for Educational Technologies. Focus groups attendees were... Read More>

Driving Innovation and Supporting Non-Traditional Access and Success

Evolllution | April 12, 2017 - Though non-traditional students make up the majority of learners enrolled at colleges and universities across the United States—and that’s without including students enrolled in non-credit offerings—they are still broadly underserved by the policies that regulate the postsecondary space. For institutions and divisions that focus... Read More>

Instructing Instructional Designers

Inside Digital Learning | April 12, 2017 - Instructional designers have become invaluable to many faculty teaching online courses. But because the profession is new -- just about 20 years old -- IDs had no clear or common career path. Now formal education is becoming widespread, and most institutions are supplementing with their own training... Read More>

Many Voices are More Impactful Than One: The National Adult Learner Coalition

Evolllution | April 10, 2017 - Though non-traditional students have morphed into the new majority students on college and university campuses across the United States, public and institutional policy has largely remained focused on the “traditional” 18-22-year-old demographic. Unfortunately, this has created an environment that leaves the majority of students underserved... Read More>

Coming Together to Effect Change for the Contemporary Student Demographic

Evolllution | April 11, 2017 - The Presidents’ Forum, an extension of Excelsior College’s mission to serve adult learners at a distance, was founded in 2002 on the premise that there is tremendous benefit in collaborating with institutions and organizations with similar missions and goals. At a time when new... Read More>

Online Learning Consortium Opens Call for Submissions for 2017 Digital Learning Innovation Award Competition

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE  Now entering its second year, the #DLIAward competition recognizes faculty-led teams and institutions for advancing student success through the adoption of digital courseware. NEWBURYPORT, Mass. (March 28, 2017) — The Online Learning Consortium (OLC), the leading professional organization devoted to advancing the quality of online learning worldwide, today announced it... Read More>

Report: Alternative Credentials Still Mostly a Hit-and-Miss Process

Campus Technology | March 14, 2017 - Just how do institutions work with the alternative credentials that their adult learners have earned through personal and professional development experiences? SUNY Empire State College in New York runs an "individualized prior learning assessment" process, by which students can explain and document their college-level... Read More>

Great Marketing Tool – but That’s About All

Inside Higher Ed | March 15, 2017 - Getting on U.S. News & World Report's annual list of online programs gives colleges bragging rights, and administrators say it also helps them improve the quality of programs. But critics say they provide little value for students.  Now in their fifth year, U.S News &... Read More>

A+ for E-Learning

AARP | March 2017 - This article, by Nancy Dunham, was originally posted in AARP. I found my Zen in an online class At the age of 57, I am going back to school, sort of. My husband and his friends were so addicted to online courses, talking about them like young hipsters discuss... Read More>