Thomas J. Tobin is a founding member of the Center for Teaching, Learning, and Mentoring (CTLM) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, as well as an internationally recognized scholar, author, and speaker on quality in technology-mediated education—especially copyright, evaluation of teaching practices, academic integrity, accessibility, and universal design for learning. 

He holds a master’s and Ph.D. in English literature, an information science master’s, a professional project management certification, a master online teacher certification, the Quality Matters reviewer certification, the Professional in Accessibility Core Competencies (CPACC) certification, and the Penn State Academic Leadership certification (he tells his nieces and nephews he is in 47th Grade). 

Tobin’s career has focused on extending higher education beyond traditional audiences. He advocates for the educational rights of people with disabilities and from disadvantaged backgrounds. He served five years as the Coordinator of Learning Technologies at Northeastern Illinois University, seven years on the Learning, Talent, and Communication team for Blue Cross and Blue Shield, and four years as the Program Area Director for Distance Teaching and Learning at UW-Madison. 

As a 2018 Fulbright Scholar, Tom helped Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest to develop its first faculty-development program, and provided workshops and training to twelve other Hungarian colleges, universities, and military programs. 

He was named to Ed Tech Magazine’s 2020 “Dean’s List” of Educational Technology Influencers, was honored with the 2022 Wagner Award for Outstanding Leadership in Distance Learning Administration, and Eduflow named him in 2023 among the world’s Top 100 Learning Influencers. 

His books include  

• Evaluating Online Teaching: Implementing Best Practices (2015) with Jean Mandernach and Ann H. Taylor.  

• Reach Everyone, Teach Everyone: Universal Design for Learning in Higher Education (2018) with Kirsten Behling. 

• UDL for FET Practitioners: Guidance for Implementing Universal Design for Learning in Irish Further Education and Training (2021) with Ann Heelan and Dara Ryder. 

• UDL at Scale: A Guide to Adopting Universal Design for Learning for Higher Education Leaders (forthcoming 2025). 

Find him on various social media and at thomasjtobin.com. 

Keynote Description: 

Online learners trade convenience for distance—both literally and metaphorically. To reach and retain our online learners, we need a systemic approach to lowering access barriers and creating supports that address learner needs where, when, and how they arise. The universal design for learning (UDL) framework has been shown to lower barriers and increase learner persistence, retention, and satisfaction in colleges and universities worldwide (CAST, 2024). Large-scale studies within the past five years are demonstrating that learners who have a sense of voice, choice, agency, safety, and belonging in their online programs are significantly more likely to complete their educational goals successfully (Tobin, 2018). 

Further, the adoption of inclusive design practices of all kinds, including UDL, is most effective at the systemic level (Tobin, 2019). Much of the literature focuses on steps that individual instructors and designers can take; the field of campus-wide and systemic UDL application is relatively new, and theorists and practitioners are creating new approaches to help colleagues to discover the most needed places in their services and offerings where lowered barriers will have the greatest initial impact (cf. Cameron, 2016, Tobin & Behling, 2018, and Nave, 2019). 

This interactive keynote introduces participants to these new approaches to system-wide adoption of online inclusive-design practices, using data and evidence from recent large-n studies (such as King-Sears, et al., 2023). By attending this session, participants will be able to:

• Define how online UDL considerations shift at the institutional and system-level scales; 

• Create action plans for online UDL along three strategic pillars of access, inclusion, and predictability; and 

• Attract funding, resources, and time for systemic online UDL application and assessment. 

This interactive keynote is intended to be a guided-practice exploration of large-scale online UDL applications. In addition to the core accessibility practices of audio image description, text labeling, and chat-based conversation, the presenter plan to incorporate four multi-format engagement strategies: 

• Built-in time for reflection and structuring. Participants will have 2-minute reflection/thought times built into 4 segments throughout the hour of the session. Their notes can take the form of private comments, shared comments in the Zoom chat feature, or sharing via the Zoom microphone and/or video. 

• Participant-led application. For each of the three key pillars of the UDL-at-scale practices, participants will engage collaboratively in order to build one system-level interaction with UDL characteristics. 

• Post-session details. Because the session is intended to be an intermediate-level use-them-tomorrow examination of the three pillar practices, handouts, white papers, and a bibliography will serve to guide further practice beyond the conference session. 

Panelists will share their experiences interacting with students while serving as a Teaching Assistant and give their perspective on some of the latest developments in distance education pedagogy. Panelists will address a mix of moderated questions as well as questions from attending participants. If you’ve ever wondered about what it’s like being a TA for an online course or what unique challenges they face, join us for this session.

Gholami, Hamby, and Ilhan are Georgia Tech online TAs and Head TAs who recently won the 2025 Institute-wide TA of the Year Awards.  

Universal learning design invites us to see teaching as cultivation—creating conditions where every learner can grow. In this talk, online biomedical engineering education serves as the garden bed for applying UDL principles to structure, flexibility, and engagement. The course framework blends daily micro-incentives with transparent organization and automated reminders, helping students maintain steady progress while accommodating diverse needs. Flexibility is balanced with rigor through short, daily extra-credit opportunities that reinforce participation and practice. Beyond structured learning, timed “back-of-the-envelope” case studies encourage real-world synthesis and on-the-fly reasoning, mirroring how engineers problem-solve under uncertainty. Together, these practices form a resilient, inclusive learning ecosystem—one that nurtures both discipline and discovery in the digital classroom. 

Cassie Mitchell won Tech’s 2025 Teaching Excellence Award for Online Teaching. Learn more about Mitchell’s work.

This session will provide strategies and lessons learned from AccessCORPS, a Georgia Tech VIP that trains students to improve course accessibility at scale. This session highlights a collaborative model that equips students with accessibility skills, supports faculty, and builds campus-wide capacity through hands-on remediation and field-tested practices.

Learn more about Norah Sinclair and Bruce Walker.

Streamline your Canvas course design while meeting Title II accessibility standards! This workshop introduces the Canvas Course Template and highlights features that make it easier for you to create consistent, inclusive, and compliant courses. We’ll explore how use of the template supports accessible navigation, content organization, and universal design principles. Make your courses easier to build while improving the learning environment better for all students by using the Georgia Tech Template. 

Learn more about Lauren Barbeau.