There is a lot of conversation right now around lifelong learning, employability, stackable learning, and speed to market. And rightly so. Institutions are under growing pressure to create learning that is flexible, relevant, and easier to access for learners whose needs do not fit neatly into traditional structures.
But as we all know, not everything can be rainbows and sunshine and a bit of glitter. Scaling continuing education is not just about launching more courses. It is about building the right foundation behind them. That is exactly why our recent webinar with the University of Edinburgh and Instructure was such an important conversation.
What stood out most was that this was not simply a technology story. It was a story about institutional alignment, learner experience, and what it really takes to unify a fragmented short course landscape.
The challenge is often not a lack of learning. It is fragmentation.
When the University of Edinburgh took a closer look at its short course ecosystem, it found more than 1,000 non-credit short courses spread across more than 50 university websites. That is a familiar challenge for many institutions.
There is often already a lot happening. A lot of great work. A lot of innovation. But it is spread across schools, systems, teams, and workflows.
The result is friction everywhere. Learners struggle to find the right offering. Staff deal with inconsistent administrative processes. Reporting becomes difficult. And institutions lack a full picture of what is actually happening across continuing education.
One of the biggest lessons here is that institutions do not always need to build more. Sometimes they need to unify more.
Continuing education needs a different kind of infrastructure
One of the themes that also aligns strongly with the thought leadership work we recently did with Instructure is this: continuing education does not operate like traditional degree education.
Non-matriculated learners do not follow the same journey as traditional students. They often expect a more consumer-like experience. They want to browse, register, pay, and begin learning without running into institutional complexity.
That means the operational layer matters just as much as the learning layer.
An LMS is a critical part of the experience, but on its own it is not enough to support continuing education at scale. Institutions also need the infrastructure around enrollments, payments, course catalog management, reporting, and learner administration. When those pieces come together well, institutions can create a much smoother experience for learners while reducing the administrative burden on staff.
Stakeholder alignment is not a side note.
A real golden nugget from the webinar was how strongly the University of Edinburgh focused on stakeholder engagement throughout the process.
This was not a case of choosing a platform and rolling it out from the top down. Stakeholders from across the institution were involved throughout procurement, demos, implementation, governance, and ongoing service development.
That matters because if you are trying to unify continuing education across 25 schools, you are not just implementing systems. You are bringing together different expectations, workflows, and ways of working.
What made this journey so strong was that decisions were not based on assumptions alone. They were backed by engagement, evidence, and research.
Research should shape the experience
Another golden nugget was how much user research informed the work.
The team spoke about using years of user experience research to help shape a more consistent learning experience. That consistency matters more than many institutions realize. It helps learners navigate courses more confidently, reduces friction, and supports accessibility.
Whether a learner is taking a beginner language course or a more technical offering, they should not have to relearn the environment every single time.
Consistency in structure, language, and design may sound simple, but it has a huge impact on learner confidence and success.
You cannot let edge cases lead the whole strategy
One of my favorite takeaways from the session came from Myles, who talked about not being led by the edge.
In every institution there will be highly specific requirements and unique cases. Some absolutely need to be addressed. But if you try to build everything around the most unusual use case from day one, you risk slowing down progress for everyone else.
The University of Edinburgh focused first on the core workflows that served the majority of needs. That allowed them to create a strong foundation and then continue evolving from there.
That is not about ignoring complexity. It is about being practical enough to move forward.
The results are strong, but the honesty matters too
The results speak for themselves. The University of Edinburgh has seen rapid growth in learner numbers, strong engagement, increased visibility through reporting, and a much more unified approach across its short course ecosystem.
But what I appreciated most was the honesty.
This was not presented as a perfect story. Not all schools are on board yet. Some areas have been harder than others. More work still needs to be done. And that is exactly why the story is so valuable.
Because institutions do not need another polished transformation story that pretends everything was easy. They need real examples of what it takes to make change happen and what can be learned along the way. But at the same time, looking at the massive growth in numbers even from the moment we started promoting this webinar to when we held the webinar has been massive.
If you want to get even closer to the process itself, in a raw and honest way, you can read Myles’ perspective here.
Final thought
What the University of Edinburgh’s journey shows so clearly is that scaling continuing education is not about adding more disconnected activity. It is about creating a joined-up ecosystem that works better for learners, staff, and the institution as a whole.
It takes strategy, research, stakeholder buy-in, and yes, it takes patience for sure as well.
But when those things come together, institutions can move beyond fragmented delivery and start building continuing education in a way that is truly ready for the future.
And that is also why stories like this matter so much. Not because they are polished with a bit of glitter, but because they offer practical lessons that help the rest of the sector move forward without having to reinvent the wheel.
Thank you so much again to the University of Edinburgh team for sharing their story and for Kevin Martin to explain the importance of partnerships in enabling institutions to make this kind of change happen. I cannot wait to see where the results will stand next year. Good luck, Edinburgh team!
About the Author: Mieke Ridderhof
