There are several articles this week about the recent Canvas Ransomware event.  For our campus, it occurred during the week before the last week of the spring term.  That week is a big deadline week – usually writing assignments are due.  We were disrupted – for a day.  Canvas contacted all of the campus IT and Distance Learning administrators with the guidance to not have anyone try to log in.  Our president also sent out a campuswide message.  And we waited.  I sent a campus email message to each of my classes to reassure – I’m not a deadline guy and my students already know that, but many indicated they appreciated the reaffirmation that all of my dropboxes are open until the last day of the class.  Turned out, that worked very well and reduced any angst.

Many of us are on Canvas – it has 41% of the market share in higher education with over 9000 individual institutions.  Plus some 3000 K-12 schools as well.  And the sad reality is that any of the LMS solutions – as well as our various enterprise services on our campuses – are vulnerable to this type of an attack.  In fact, with the arrival of AI, the risk of ransomware attacks has increased.

As you know, ITC has offered an outstanding Leadership Academy for the past eighteen years.  We have now had nearly 300 complete the training, and have offered the Academy from St. Petersburg FL to Milwaukee, Wi; from Asheville NC to Portland, ME; from Reno, NV to Costa Mesa, CA; from Minneapolis, MN to Buffalo, NY;  from Portland OR to Ft. Worth TX; and from Glassboro, NJ to Charlottetown PEI Canada. 

This year, the ITC Leadership Academy will be hosted at Lane Community College in Eugene, OR.  The three-day training has a robust schedule of sessions designed to prepare the next generation of leadership.  Over the years, we have had a wide variety of participants with a wide variety of backgrounds.  Certainly, we do include Distance Learning and Technology, BUT we prepare leadership to lead ANY program or department. 

The recent Federal Government announcement that Title II Accessibility compliance was being delayed for a year was quite a surprise.  I know so many of you had been working so hard this past year to ensure you would be ready by the original deadline – I actually heard more frustration than relief.

Why?  For those who work directly in the world of accessibility compliance, it has often been hard to get others on campus to buy into what is needed to comply.  The Federal deadline had finally gotten everyone on the same page – and the unexpected delay, may now be counter-productive to the progress made.   There can be no expectation that the new deadline for next year will be extended, so it remains “all hands on deck” in identifying deficiencies and framing a set of solutions most appropriate for your institution.  

At this year’s ITC National Annual Conference, Ian Coronado and I presented on the results of the 2025 national survey.  For any of you that have been members for any length of time, you know that the ITC has conducted an annual survey since 2004 – focused on Distance Learning, it surveyed consistent data points to build a longitudinal understanding of the challenges and successes of Distance Learning at America’s community colleges.  We missed a beat during the first year of the pandemic – we were all very distracted at that time – but have otherwise annually reported the seemingly continuous growth of Distance Learning.

Our membership has repeatedly expressed appreciation for the data – our survey results have been used extensively at many campuses to improve budgets, staffing and/or adoption of key practices to improve the quality and success of Distance Learning.  Our membership also pointed out that completing the annual survey was becoming a struggle – so many questions!!

When I served as our campus’ dean of WebCollege, I was able to enshrine a set of “Standards for Teaching Online”.  Honestly, it was edgy for the time.  And the proposal met with headwinds from those that wanted as limited set of expectations as possible.  Nonetheless, the Online Standards were adopted and have provided a baseline of quality for the past several years.

Fast-forward to this semester, and the WebCollege Committee – now a standing committee of the Faculty Senate – has been developing a set of updates and timely improvements to the original document.  I had the opportunity to review their draft – and was very pleased to see how they had further strengthened – and expanded the document.  It still has to go before the Faculty Senate for approval, but keeping my fingers crossed.

For those of you that joined us in Austin, Texas for the ITC Annual National Conference – thank you!!!  It was a wonderful conference – and represented the ITC’ return to staging our annual conference on a community college campus.  A major “tip of the ITC hat” to our host, Matt Evins, the director of Academic Technology at Austin Community College. He, and his wonderful staff, made everything work and flow so well. The tech support was wonderful, the food and refreshments were wonderful, the Highland Campus (one of twelve campus locations) was gi-normous but worked well for our conference.  As you can imagine, most of the board members were immersed in selecting session applications, arranging for keynote speakers, coordinating the Grand Debate or the Awards Ceremony, hosting/participating in our “power panel session, recruiting exhibitors, creating awards and give-aways, planning receptions and facilitating sessions.   And the ITC board leaders were “everything, everywhere, all at once” for the entire conference.  All deserve a hale and hearty “Hizzah!!” for a fabulous job!

There were many highlights at the conference, but some of our best news concerned the introduction of our new ITC management team as well.  No surprise here – you’ve been interacting with our team:  Craig and Holly, as they helped with membership renewals and conference registrations over the past eight months – as well as fielding any questions or needs from our membership. But to make this sound official, we formally introduce:

As you know, I have been connecting with you every week for a long time now.  This adventure started in November 2015 – I’ve mused in the past that I have a knack to commit to projects that just keep going. I did the first ITC National Distance Learning Survey in 2004 – had Ian Coronado and I just reported out the 21^st survey results at the recent ITC conference (the results will be shared with all members – Ian has developed a wonderful infographic! And this weekly endeavor is like a Timex watch – it just keeps ticking!  

One of my absolute joys is seeing so many of you at the annual conference. And you have been so kind to indicate your commitment to reading the weekly tomes. I appreciate any feedback, and I feel that the weekly communication has pulled us closer together over the past 10+ years.   I’ve been told that especially career and job related topics seemingly are so well-timed and resonate just when you needed to know that you weren’t alone. I get it. I’m a recovering administrator and have dealt with an abundance of crazy over time. I’ve been lucky over the years and enjoyed the many administrators I worked with. But enrollment downturns and budget cuts are brutal.  As the need to consolidate vacant positions accelerates, remaining administrative positions transform into an amalgamation of responsibilities – and workload.  For me, it hit after the 2008 recession. My dream administrative job became overwhelming.  At ITC board meetings, I often updated what my job entailed – it kept changing and represented such an eclectic combination of responsibilities. The list would not fit on a business card, and I indicated my title had become the “dean of stuff”. 

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.