ITS Digital Services has renewed UNC-Chapel Hill’s Digital Collegium institutional membership. Digital Collegium was formerly known as HighEdWeb. The organization was founded in 1999 and rebranded last year to better encompass all things digital in higher education. Digital Collegium offers benefits for anyone working in higher education accessibility, social media, AI, governance, marketing, and of course, web design and development.
The renewed membership means UNC staff, faculty and students are eligible to join Digital Collegium at no cost for 2025. Existing members can connect their accounts to the institutional membership and new members can join for free.
This is the second year ITS Digital Services has covered the cost of institutional membership. Digital Services offers central web development and hosting for the University through both the self-service tarheels.live platform and sites.unc departmental publishing.
Digital Collegium is an international nonprofit that aims to educate digital professionals who work at colleges and universities. The group hosts a variety of events, including an annual national conference, day-long summits, month-long academies and short webinars. The nonprofit also provides asynchronous opportunities for networking and professional development, like newsletters and a resource library.
Membership benefits
As an institutional member, every Tar Heel has free access to Digital Collegium resources. The membership also includes access to communities of practice and training created specifically for people in higher education.
Digital Collegium membership covers access to both future and past events and materials. The archive includes more than 10 years of conference presentation materials.
Another benefit of Digital Collegium membership is lower conference registration costs. Institutional members can also choose to attend these upcoming summits and conferences:
Regional opportunities
ITS Digital Services first offered institutional membership in 2024, which coincided with another exciting opportunity — the first-ever North Carolina regional conference. UNC hosted the conference on June 18 at UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School and the conference committee included members from multiple UNC groups, including ITS, University Libraries, UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School and The Graduate School.
Digital Collegium members self-organize regional conferences to offer participants a low-cost way to network and learn about digital issues in higher education.
Connect with web professionals at UNC
The Digital Collegium offers a wonderful way to connect with colleagues across the country and there’s another opportunity closer to home. UNC Web Professionals is open to any member of the Carolina community who creates or contributes to Carolina’s web presence.
The group is both a resource and campus community for all things web related and is not officially affiliated with any department or campus unit, including ITS. Organizers are Rachell Underhill of The Graduate School and three ITS employees, Paul Cardillo, support developer, and Gia Branciforte, front-end web developer, both of ITS Digital Services; and Daniel Reeves, ResNET program assistant director for digital services.
UNC Web Professionals hosts monthly meetings in a hybrid in-person/Zoom format and the Microsoft Team has more than 250 members. Members use the Team to informally gather, ask questions and share learning opportunities. You can view the upcoming meeting schedule, see recordings of past meetings and learn more about the group on the Web Professionals website.