The arrival of AI has had a very disruptive impact on our campuses and Distance Learning programs. We all know that disruption is not necessarily bad; but in the realm of higher education, it can be. 

Higher education is, after all, very resistive to change. Always has been and regrettably, always will be. In conversations, I have often used the example of Colleges of Education (not sure if this is a controversial topic for us – perhaps once you digest my view on this it will be?). All of us know we have a crisis in K-12 education.  Personally, I’ve always blamed the Colleges of Education which have boldly been leading us into the early 20^th Century of thought and practice for the past 75 years! The approach has diminished content expertise (the basis for teaching prior to the rise of Colleges of Education) and focuses on ritual and bureaucracy rather than learning how to teach and manage the modern classroom (few lessons on how/what to teach, no training on dealing with classroom disruptive behavior or disruptive parents both of which dominate these days).  

We fully understand that many community colleges are dealing with budget issues right now, and that attending a national conference is not possible/no travel funds available. That said, we did have a wonderful conference in Austin, Texas last week (March 13-15). It was hosted at the Austin Community College Highland Campus. The location was unique and is known nationally because it was a failed retail mall complex that ACC has been revitalizing for the past 10 years.  It was downright exciting to spend the entire conference in that space, along with the fantastic hospitality of ACC staff. 

This was our first conference hosted at a community college. Like many national organizations, the ITC has taken a financial hit at hotel-based conference space. It has become so expensive – OLC actually filed bankruptcy because of this reality last year. The ITC Board of Directors decided to return to a practice the ITC has used originally – meeting at community colleges. It is essential to have a hotel within walking distance (or to have a transportation plan), but the result was a wonderful experience for attendees as well as a significant cost-savings from the traditional hotel conference model.

The Learning Management System (LMS) at your campus is seemingly just taken for granted these days. Obviously, the LMS is the virtual classroom for online classes. BUT, did you ever consider the many other ways you could use the platform?

At my campus, we create an LMS shell for every course each term. Logically, the fully online and hybrid courses – and now, Hi-flex courses utilize the LMS. But we also create an assisted-web section for every traditional class. We were doing this before March 2020 and realized just how brilliant that strategy turned out to be. It made the transition much easier. For my traditional course, the assisted-web section is the go-to for:  the syllabus, chapter quizzes for the textbook,  the textbook itself (OER PDF), my course PowerPoints, class handouts, class assignments, drop boxes for class assignments, course mail (keeps it out of my regular email), AND the gradebook (with the auto posting as I grade assignments).  Students love it. I can also post assignments if there is an unexpected snow day or I need to travel.  

In preparation for the rapidly approaching ITC National Conference, I included an article in this week’s digest entitled: “After the conference: how to turn ideas into institutional impacts.” It raises an issue I have had for a long time – most campuses provide some degree of financial support for attending conferences. But most of those campuses do not have a practice of encouraging conference attendees to share what they learned when they return.

For those of you able to join us in Austin next week, I encourage you to have a plan of attack for the conference. Whether you are coming alone OR coming as part of a team, now is the time to review the conference sessions.  Our conference features a number of session tracks—if  you are coming for a specific focus, that can save you a lot of time. Otherwise, you have the opportunity to focus on topics or themes or eclectically explore sessions. Be sure to attend the keynotes – they are designed to introduce you to current hot topics or—because it’s a keynote – give you a deeper dive on a contemporary topic.  In addition, we have the annual Grand Debate – taking on the issue of AI this year—as well as our great Panel of Experts—discussing everything from the Impact of Federal Government actions in the past year to prognostications about the future of Distance Learning. 

Many of us have been dealing with the new accessibility requirements that take effect in late-April. I have been a member of a special Accessibility Taskforce on my campus since this fall. Our webmaster headed up the effort, the taskforce members helped flesh out a strategy for compliance, needed policy changes, the cataloging of all web-hosted software so as to find out where we were with new accessibility requirements, and a strategic plan for implementation of the new standards. We met today and took something of a victory lap as the materials were presented to the President’s Council this week for the 1^st policy reading – and was well-received. There is still more to do but we are on track to be ready in time for the April deadline.  

I’ve been the academic representative on our campus taskforce. Our WebCollege is also represented as is our Disability Resource Center and the Leadership team.  At today’s taskforce meeting, I embraced my role as something of a contrarian.  I had avoided the wordsmithing of the various documents – we had plenty of cooks in that kitchen. I focused on our potential vulnerability as an institution once the new requirements take effect.   I assume many institutions expect there will be a grace period to allow for software exceptions that will not be compliant.  However, the Federal government has normally seen the deadline date as THE compliance date.  In other words, there are institution-related risks for not being fully compliant on day 1.  Those of us that have been involved in online learning long-term, will remember the American Society for the Blind lawsuits leveled at a surprising number of higher ed institutions for failing to have every classroom ADA compliant. That type of advocacy likely will quickly re-emerge. After all, the tactic is effective and more rapidly advanced full compliance of institutions which in turn greatly benefits statements needing accessibility solutions.  

It has been a crazy start to the spring term. I’ve never really been a procrastinator and honestly do find that I am more efficient and more focused when I’m dealing with multiple deadlines and stress issues. I have felt disrupted this term, but I think it is because I was on sabbatical in the fall. I’ve previously had one other semester sabbatical – and I find that I had the same issues returning from that time off as well. I know, understandable, but I feel like I’ve been procrastinating for the entire fall term and feel a bit whelmed – not overwhelmed – just feel like I’ve been playing catch up for weeks.

I have also been in a life muse of sorts – realizing that I should start backing off/slowing down/learning how to say “no”. I suspect many of you find yourself dealing with the same issue from time to time. That work-life balance thing – tricky. I have a colleague that restructured her commitments to make room for a big project this year. I respect that – but so far, I don’t have the inclination to do so. I’ve imagined what I could do to reduce commitments and workload, but also realize that if I actually did that, I would somehow find a way to over-commit in new directions. They (not sure who “they” is) should have an intervention protocol for this sort of thing. 

I can assume that we are experiencing a range of enrollment trends as we start the Spring term at our institutions. The National Clearinghouse indicated that for the 2025 Fall term, overall enrollment at institutions of higher learning increased just over 1%. As eCampus News suggested in their article, “Rethinking higher ed enrollment trends for a plateau era”, Higher education has entered a plateau era–not defined by temporary fluctuations, but by long-term demographic and behavioral shifts that are reshaping how institutions must operate. 

In other words, the higher education world we have known – with predictable increases in enrollment – is over for most of us.  A variety of factors are combining to impact our enrollments, including:

Many of us are engaged in the start of the 2026 Spring term—the recent Holiday Break is now in our rearview mirror, and we are hitting the proverbial “gas pedal” into the first weeks of classes. It may not surprise you—but an article in this week’s ITC eNews confirms that college staff feel overworked—and Technology Departments are the standouts for an exhausting workload. 

I’ve opined in the past regarding how under-staffed our Distance Learning programs are—and our kindred colleagues from IT are equally buried with too much work/not enough staff as well.  There are a variety of reasons to explain this, including:

One of the many benefits of ITC membership is our monitoring of Federal Government actions related to higher education – and when relevant – EdTech Tech infrastructure. We recently learned of a set of new Negotiated Rulemaking (Neg-Regs) by the USDOE. Specifically:  an “accountability framework” related to Demand-driven Workforce Pell (AHEAD). This does not specifically impact your online program, but it is important that your campus is aware of this new framework (share this with your Workforce Dean, VPAA, CTE administrator, and/or President).

ITC ALERT

Last week, the U.S. Department of Education announced a new federal accountability framework reached during the Accountability in Higher Education and Access Through Demand-driven Workforce Pell (AHEAD) negotiated rulemaking sessions. The new agreement requires all postsecondary programs to pass an earnings test. This framework consolidates several existing accountability requirements and outlines conditions under which academic programs could lose eligibility for federal student loans and, in some cases, other forms of Title IV aid. The legislation was passed in July 2024 as part of the “Big Beautiful Bill”

Many of us have devoted our lives to a career in higher education, and we have focused on positions dealing with online learning/edtech. As I reflect on my life and career track, more than 90% of it has been within the constructs of higher education – as a student, a faculty member, and an administrator. 

During my career, life at a public institution of higher learning has proven interesting I had anticipated a work environment that would be financially stable, generally free of controversy, and a work culture that valued new ideas and change.

Happy New Year! I share this greeting on behalf of the entire ITC Board of Directors AND your fellow ITC members! We are a community of Distance Learning and Ed Tech professionals and have a lot in common:

1. We recognize the importance of technology in higher education and see it as THE critical priority
2. Most of us had no real background in technology BUT gravitated to our current career track because of #1
3. We have chosen a career track with an insane workload – but we show up every day because of #1
4. We remain something of an enigma at our campuses – no one fully understands what we do
5. If asked, most of us would agree that we likely should have our heads examined – but we just don’t have the time to do so!

Said another way, misery love company – we have the opportunity to learn from each other – to help others when we can and to seek help when we need to. 

We have devoted a great deal of space to AI-related articles this past year.  AI is seemingly everywhere these days. Every week, we learn of a new application or adaptation of AI –and AI has been doing a lot of growing and becoming in the past year. AI is having a greater impact than ever – and is now coming to our online class LMS! I wanted to share a few recommendations to help you “move the needle” in addressing faculty/staff concerns as well as helping those learn how to effectively use AI.

AI Coming To Your LMS

There is an opinion piece this week that discusses the critical need to re-examine the traditional LMS in light of the arrival of AI. AI is – or at least should be – redefining what we teach and how we teach. This is true in the traditional classroom and needs to occur in the online classroom as well. I’d encourage checking out this article and then schedule a conversation with your LMS account representative to learn how your LMS is using/will be using AI and when these adaptations will occur. You need to plan and prepare – yes, your job and what you do is evolving as well. Ultimately, AI will help our faculty and instructional designers create ADA-compliant content, develop more engaging student material, provide assistance for your creation of content and for student projects and assignments, help create more complex course discussions, and will help faculty provide informed/detailed assessments of student work.  

‘Tis the Holiday Season – as your fall term rushes to the finish line, this is a great time of the year to let those you work with just how much you appreciate them! Certainly, you can do this anytime during the academic year, but the Holiday Season provides a wonderful backdrop to your efforts.

For years, our online program distributed an electronic greeting card at this time of year (usually a Jib-Jab primarily because it was fun-loving and we could include everyone from our department in the card. It can be a great way to express good wishes and appreciation to everyone you work with in a given year. There is a free version and also a subscription option.  Otherwise, there are also free ecard solutions to at least facilitate distribution.

Hi everyone, if you have not already done so, PLEASE take a few minutes to complete the 2025 ITC National Survey—we have greatly reduced the number of questions—and will instead conduct several (smaller length) surveys throughout the year. The data generated will help you to compare your program to national trends and practices.  PLEASE participate!!

How can it already be early December??  The terms seem to fly by. Our roles are complicated and demanding. It can be very challenging to keep track of time, and I’ve often found I thought I had more time for a project—and didn’t. 

The 2025 Fall term has raced by, AND you have never felt so overwhelmed with work, right? You are not alone. I hear from a surprising number of you. For some, it is the unexpected uptick in workload after a promotion. The surprising "7 days a week" attitude as you move up the administrative ladder is common. But the most common complaint is that the workload continues to increase – more online sections to serve more online students – and the need to train and support more online faculty, with no additional budget or staffing. Sadly, that too is VERY common.

We are, after all, unicorns. The administrative and staff roles of a Distance Learning program are still rather undefined. We don't really fit in the organizational chart either. We seemingly support everyone in academics and work with everyone in administration. We are NOT a silo operation; quite the contrary, we are everything, everywhere, all at once.

As we cycle through the fall national conferences and meetings related to EdTech (chief among them being Educause and WCET), the emerging consensus regarding AI in higher education includes:

• Generative AI is here to stay—as you will recall, I teach Political Science (Government) – I tell my students you may hate politics—you don’t have to like it, but you do need to understand it and get involved. The same is true for AI.
• Faculty are exercising strong influence over the specifics of implementing AI on our campuses. There are debates over appropriate parameters amongst faculty, on the administrative side of the house, not so much. Administrators tend to accept the inevitability of AI.
• Students want our colleges and universities to get our collective act together and help them to better prepare for the expectations and needs in the 21^st Century workplace
• AI will seemingly be everything, everywhere, all at once for the foreseeable future. Every software will eventually have an AI component.
• Users do not like the excessive power needs of AI and expect the industry to find ways to greatly reduce the power drain
• Effective, adaptive AI professional development training is needed for students, faculty and administrators

Given the rapidly changing nature of AI, attending a national edtech conference every year is highly recommended. If you are relatively new to attending a national conference. It is important to find the conference(s) that fit your specific needs. I remember attending a conference early in my career that was sponsored by a major brand—turned out to be a waste of time. It was excessively university-centric and solutions required a very large (40+) staff. I quickly learned that “right-sizing” was important to maximize the experience. For me, the ITC has always been my preferred annual conference.  It is community college focused, it is more affordable than the “big conference”, and I have been able to more effectively network. I also come back every year with great ideas, proven solutions and probably 15 new friends.  I hope you will consider joining us in Austin, T March 13-15. Take a minute to check out the specifics about the conference on our webpage.

Have you submitted a session proposal for ITC’s 2026 Annual eLearning Conference – to be held in Austin, TX. March 13-15 and hosted by Austin Community College? If you haven’t attended for a while, this is the year to join us! Think of all of the changes we have been dealing with – AI is everywhere in higher education – and certainly expanding into online education as you read this.  Enrollment is growing again at community colleges, but our demographic is changing. We are dealing with the rise of dual-credit, which has become the source for much of the growth in our enrollments. 

The ITC national conference is right-sized – big enough to provide great keynotes and sessions but small enough to make friends and to network. Austin is a fabulous place to have a conference. Recently, ITC shifted to holding its annual conference on community college campuses, and we’ve shifted the conference days to Friday-Sunday which works very well for minimizing disruption to your class schedule/regular work week. 

All campuses have been dealing with the ADA Title II compliance requirements effective April 24, 2026 campuses with more than 50,000 enrollments) or April 27, 2027 (for campuses with fewer than 50,000 enrollments). Specifically, covered institutions must meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 Level AA standards by the appropriate April deadline. 

I serve as a member of my campus’ taskforce, and we have been discussing what is encompassed by the DOJ directive. In the meetings we have had to date, it has felt a bit like “déjà vu” as we have had similar conversations over the years—attempts to organize, coordinate, track, and inventory the array of technologies (hardware/software) that have been adopted, licensed, or contracted. I think some campuses have had better luck than others, but there has historically been an inherent risk–and ability–for individual departments and colleagues to go rogue when procuring a new technology solution. 

This week, the ITC is launching the ITC Faculty & Administrator Survey with a focus on online learning and accessibility topics. The very first ITC survey was launched in 2004 – and has been conducted annually (save for 2020 – we all know why). From its inception, the survey has been the only survey that focused on Distance Learning at community colleges. For years, we produced a substantive report and discussion of the results. Just as distance learning has evolved in the past 20 years, so has the ITC survey. We abandoned the substantive report prior to the pandemic and pivoted to a very useful infographic and more of an executive summary of major findings. We have also been trying to reduce the sheer number of questions. We know – and you know – that it had just gotten out of hand.  We meant well. For many of our members, certain data has great relevance and value for their programs. Unfortunately, all of us have less bandwidth than we used to, and completing a lengthy survey became a very real disincentive.

This year, we are initiating a number of important changes to the survey. We’ve decided to break up the survey into several SHORTER/MORE FOCUSED efforts – which will ensure it only takes a few minutes to complete each one. We are starting with faculty and administrator questions but will be doing a student-centered survey in the spring as well as a survey that focuses on programmatic issues and concerns later next year. 

We’ve discussed before the profound impact of The Pandemic on our community college online programs. I’ve had numerous conversations with administrators, designers and faculty – all have shared the trauma of the rapid full shift to online, the lack of staff and training to facilitate this, and the overwhelming day-after-day workload this represented. 

We are now “years” away from The Pandemic, but a variety of stress points are still present in our online programs. Specifically, the shift to fully online led to an increase in the number of faculty that wanted to teach online (it also increased the number of students as well). This fostered greater demand BUT our programs have not experienced increases in staffing, and especially have not been able to increase the number of instructional designers needed to address chronic issues with our online classes. Chronic issues????  Yes, for most of use, our online classes lack consistency, often are not compliance checked (ADA), are woefully lacking the benefits of professional design, and many of our faculty lack the training needed to create a learning experience that is engaging and embraces the unique needs of learning online. As a result, we have actually witnessed a decline in online student learning experience and completions.