C. Edward Watson

Dr. C. Edward Watson is the Associate Vice President for Curricular and Pedagogical Innovation and Executive Director of Open Educational Resources and Digital Innovation. He provides leadership for the association’s national and state-level advocacy to advance quality in undergraduate student learning. This includes programming and a scholarly agenda that focuses on general education, faculty development, teaching and learning practice, and evidence-based instruction enhanced by technology. For the latter, key foci include artificial intelligence (A.I.), digital equity, open learning, and ePortfolios. Teaching with AI: A Practical Guide to a New Era of Human Learning (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2024) is his latest book. His book series on General Education Reform (Routledge) will arrive in early 2025.

Dr. Watson also directs AAC&U's Institute on AI, Pedagogy, and the Curriculum, the Institute on Open Educational Resources, and the Forum on Digital Innovation and co-directs the Institute on General Education, Pedagogy, and Assessment and the Conference on General Education, Pedagogy, and Assessment. Additional areas of leadership include an array of curricular and pedagogical improvement efforts, including the development of assignment design tools which align with AAC&U's VALUE rubrics.

Prior to joining AAC&U, Dr. Watson was the Director of the Center for Teaching and Learning at the University of Georgia (UGA) where he led university efforts associated with faculty development, TA development, student learning outcomes assessment, learning technologies, media production services, classroom support and learning spaces, and the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. He also taught a range of courses on college teaching, student learning, and course design. He continues to serve as a Fellow in the Louise McBee Institute of Higher Education at UGA.

Dr. Watson is the founding Executive Editor of the International Journal of ePortfolio and recently stepped down after more than a decade as the Executive Editor of the International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. In addition to the aforementioned books on A.I. and general education, he is also the author ofMaking the Case for Open Educational Resources (AAC&U),Leveraging Open Educational Resources to Advance Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: A Guide for Campus Change Agents(AAC&U), Teaching Naked Techniques: A Practical Guide to Designing Better Classes (Jossey-Bass) and Playing to Learn with Reacting to the Past: Research on High Impact, Active Learning Practices (Palgrave MacMillan).

Areas of Expertise

• Evidence-based Pedagogical Practice
• Educational Research
• Teaching with Artificial Intelligence (A.I.)
• General Education Reform and Assessment
• Faculty Development
• High Impact Practices
• Digital Learning
• ePortfolios/documenting learning
• Open Educational Resources
• Institutional Change
• Digital Equity