Skip to content
‹ Back to IndustriesEducation Technology

Exploring the State of University Online Learning

This episode of the MarketScale Online Learning Minute featured Ray Schroeder, professor at the University of Illinois Springfield (UIS), senior fellow of the University Professional and Continuing Education Association (UPCEA) and founder of the Center for Online Learning, Research, and Service. Ray has been a pioneer of the online learning field and launched the UIS’s…

This story was produced through MarketScale. See how Education Technology teams put it to work with Executive Thought Leadership.

Share
Exploring the State of University Online Learning

Free workspace

Turn your Education Technology expertise into content.

Record interviews, organize footage, and write with AI on a free trial of the MarketScale platform for qualifying companies. No demo required, no credit card.

Try it Free

This episode of the MarketScale Online Learning Minute featured Ray Schroeder, professor at the University of Illinois Springfield (UIS), senior fellow of the University Professional and Continuing Education Association (UPCEA) and founder of the Center for Online Learning, Research, and Service. Ray has been a pioneer of the online learning field and launched the UIS’s first online course in 1997.

Schroeder and host Brian Runo discussed the state of online learning for universities as the world faces the COVID-19 pandemic. With predictive models showing possible new surges of cases in the fall, some universities are going to continue online, while others will reopen for fall with safety precautions in place.

“Universities had about a week to suddenly transition to online learning, which is an undertaking that would normally take years. This quick transition meant that many courses lacked engagement and interactivity, as they weren’t designed for online learning,” Schroeder said.

Due to the fast shift in learning mediums, many of these courses lacked engagement, making it easy for students to drift away. While this happens in in-person classes, too, there are many possibilities when it comes to remote learning platforms.

“People can pay attention to the small screen for about 15 minutes without interaction and engagement,” Schroeder said. “There is an opportunity to take advantage of the medium with visuals and audio, but that wasn’t feasible.”

Schroeder encourages faculty and institutions to start with the objectives of building a course and using technology to help accomplish these learning outcomes. Universities can start by looking at their summer courses, most of which are online. It requires innovation, and all stakeholders collaborating to improve the online learning community.

Schroeder and Runo also chatted about what to expect from online learning in the future and how universities can prepare for education in the future.

For the latest news, videos, and podcasts in the Education Technology Industry, be sure to subscribe to our industry publication.

Follow us on social media for the latest updates in B2B!

Twitter – @MarketScale

Facebook – facebook.com/marketscale

LinkedIn – linkedin.com/company/marketscale

Your experts belong here

Every story in MarketScale Education Technology starts with a company putting its implementation leads, instructional designers, and district partners on the record. Buyers are already reading this topic. The only question is whose experts they find.

Procurement teams read long before they ever call, and your implementers get to answer their questions first.

Book DemoSee how it works15 minutes, straight to a calendar.
B2B Weekly

The week in Education Technology, and sixteen other industries, every Monday.

Ten stories, one-line takes, five minutes. Free.

Education Technology: are you visible to AI?

Before they reach out, Education Technology buyers ask AI engines which vendors to trust. Explore how your experts, customers, and partners can become useful content for buyers and AI search.

Free Trial

You just read one Education Technology expert. Your company is full of them.

This article was produced through MarketScale. The same platform turns your implementation leads, instructional designers, and district partners into the articles, video, and social content Education Technology buyers are searching for. Start a free trial and see it with your own people. For qualifying companies, no credit card, no demo required.

NPS +73 · 1,000+ creators · 38+ countries

What your free trial includes

Hands-on access to the MarketScale platform
Media requests to your crowd, remote recording, AI writing tools
No demo required. No credit card.
For qualifying companies. Company confirmation required.

More Education Technology Insights

Impact Public Schools wants software to sort students into intervention tiers

Impact Public Schools wants software to sort students into intervention tiers

Impact Public Schools, a Washington charter network, wants a custom tool that sorts students into Tier 1-3 groups from benchmark data and recommends interventions for students in Tiers 2 and 3. Proposals are due Oct. 9. Missouri's North Kansas City Schools wants a dashboard that consolidates data from its student information system and its assessment, attendance and behavior systems. Side by side, the requests suggest one buyer wants to see its data and the other wants to act on it.

  • 01A decade after the national ed-tech plan made dashboards a priority, a 1,751-student charter network is asking software to do the student grouping itself and recommend Tier 2 and 3 interventions.
  • 02North Kansas City's dashboard request is a useful spec to measure against: student information, assessment, attendance and behavior data in one platform, built for district leaders, principals and teachers.

Sep 27, 2026

Ellucian brings AI built on 10,000 cataloged college processes to EDUCAUSE

Ellucian brings AI built on 10,000 cataloged college processes to EDUCAUSE

Ellucian's campus AI pitch rests on process context.

  • 01Ellucian is selling its campus AI on a map of about 10,000 codified college processes, so fit with local workflows is the thing to test in a demo.

Sep 27, 2026

Organizational support is positively tied to faculty agility in a survey of 497 faculty

Organizational support is positively tied to faculty agility in a survey of 497 faculty

A study of 497 faculty at public and private universities in India finds organizational support positively and significantly associated with faculty agility. Agility, in turn, partly links digital transformation to sustainable work outcomes.

  • 01Faculty agility partially mediates the link between digital transformation and sustainable work outcomes; the article frames the takeaway as a conditional: campuses adopting AI may need to plan for faculty readiness and support alongside measuring adoption, rather than treating it as a software purchase alone.
  • 02The findings come from a cross-sectional survey, so they show association rather than cause, and they sit alongside other research where the proposed middle step did not carry AI's effect through.

Sep 26, 2026

Explore More Education Technology Insights

Read more expert perspectives from across Education Technology.

Browse Education Technology Hub

For B2B teams

Your experts could be publishing here

Stories like this one run on content MarketScale captures from real practitioners. See how your team's expertise becomes coverage in Education Technology and beyond.

Book a Demo

Or call us. No forms required. We pick up. 214-945-2512