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The leader in practice, policy, and advocacy of tech-enhanced education
In 1988, in response to emergent educational technology and the need to bring together higher education leaders, innovators, and practitioners, WICHE established WCET – the WICHE Cooperative for Educational Technologies. A national, member-driven, nonprofit unit of WICHE, WCET brings together colleges, universities, higher education organizations, and companies to collectively improve the quality and reach of technology-enhanced learning programs.
Over 30 years later, WCET is well recognized among North America’s most informative, reliable, and forward-thinking organizations serving technology and innovation in higher education. Demand for its services, expertise, and forums–throughout and beyond WCET’s 365+ member institutions–continues to grow.
Defined broadly, technology-enhanced learning is a field that encompasses all ways and levels at which technology can improve teaching and learning–not only at the level of individual classroom or platform innovations, but also how these innovations can better infuse higher education’s DNA to improve student access and opportunity.
WCET serves this field by providing timely and relevant information and resources for its network. WCET members enjoy distinctive opportunities to connect and work with peers on policies and practices that can increase student success by leveraging educational technology.
WCET’S Primary Focus Areas Are:
1Emerging Technologies
WCET conducts research on innovations in educational technologies and builds upon the experiences of its institutional showcase the evaluation, support, and utilization of these tools to advance teaching and learning.
2Institutional Success
Through various research endeavors and engagement with our member community, WCET explores the varied solutions that higher education leaders use to meet such challenges.
3Policy & Regulation
WCET helps members understand laws and regulations with impact on institutions offering distance and technology-enhanced learning. WCET follows emerging regulations and helps shape those proposals before they are enacted. Once in place, WCET helps interpret requirements and determine methods institutions use to comply.
4Student Success
WCET, through its community of dedicated higher education professionals, works to identify promising practices to advance student success in technology-enhanced higher education.
WCET conducts research on innovations in educational technologies and builds upon the experiences of its institutional showcase the evaluation, support, and utilization of these tools to advance teaching and learning.
Through various research endeavors and engagement with our member community, WCET explores the varied solutions that higher education leaders use to meet such challenges.
WCET helps members understand laws and regulations with impact on institutions offering distance and technology-enhanced learning. WCET follows emerging regulations and helps shape those proposals before they are enacted. Once in place, WCET helps interpret requirements and determine methods institutions use to comply.
WCET, through its community of dedicated higher education professionals, works to identify promising practices to advance student success in technology-enhanced higher education.
Underneath each Focus Area, WCET members make key collective contributions through guest blogs, webinars, summits, discussions, and research that are highlighted on several WCET Issue Pages, segmented by key underlying topics.
Member Engagement
Emails and Blog Posts: WCET’s members-only email lists enable our cooperative to discuss current higher education topics and stay up-to-date on technology-enhanced learning news and events.
- WCETNews is an email list used to distribute a weekly digest of articles related to higher education and technology, share breaking news items and announcements, and publish discipline-specific job postings submitted by members.
- On WCETDiscuss, members share perspectives and resources related to the implementation of technology-enhanced learning, in response to daily WCET-moderated questions that prompt solutions-oriented member dialogue and provide practical guidance.
- On the WCET Frontiers blog, WCET staff and guest authors post weekly on topics ranging from accreditation and degree-completion to regulation and instructional design.
Events
To remain ahead of the curve on technology-enhanced policies and practices, WCET hosts events to engage members and non-members alike, including:
- A national WCET Annual Meeting that each fall brings together leaders and practitioners in higher education and technology-enhanced practices to discuss major topics facing institutions and organizations.
- A WCET Leadership Summit that each summer focuses on a designated topic of current relevance in technology-enhanced learning–ranging from adaptive learning, to 21st century credentials, to innovation in teaching and learning.
- Free and open to the public, but with priority registration for members, WCET Webcasts focus on hot technology-enhanced learning topics presented by experts in related fields.
WCET Initiatives
- The State Authorization Network (SAN), which serves a membership beyond WCET’s primary cohort, includes individual and collective institutional stakeholders who work collaboratively to navigate regulatory requirements for higher education activities across state lines. SAN provides training workshops, networking, and access among experts and members through regular convenings (in person, and via webcast and web conference). SAN also supports development of relevant resources, reciprocity guidance, advocacy, and a rich digital library of related resources.
- Every Learner Everywhere is a newly developing network-centric approach to strengthening digital learning in postsecondary institutions, focusing notably on improving outcomes for vulnerable populations. WCET is the intermediary of this 12-partner network, which develops services and resources to advance the use of digital courseware in support of student success.
- The Z Initiative (Z refers to “Zero Cost”) brings together Open Educational Resources (OER) leaders, champions, legislators, state higher education systems, and educational technologists with the goal of developing and promoting best practices and policies on adoption, implementation, scalability, and sustainability of OER and zero-cost curricula.
WCET exemplifies WICHE’s mission and longtime commitment to helping states, students, and institutions adapt and thrive in an era of rapid technological innovation.
