Biography
Bill Cope's R&D explores the pedagogical affordances of technology mediated learning environments. From 2010-2013 he was Chair of the Journals Publication Committee of the American Educational Research Association.
Research Interests
Bill Cope is a Professor in the Department of Educational Policy Studies at the University of Illinois. He is Principal Investigator in a series of major projects funded by the Institute of Educational Sciences in the US Department of Education, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the National Science Foundation, researching and developing educational technologies. He has co-authored or co-edited: New Learning: Elements of a Science of Education, Cambridge University Press, 2008 (2nd edition, 2012); Ubiquitous Learning, University of Illinois Press, 2009; Towards a Semantic Web: Connecting Knowledge in Academic Research, Elsevier, 2009; Literacies, Cambridge University Press 2012 (2nd edition, 2016); A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies, Palgrave, 2016; e-Learning Ecologies, Routledge, 2017; and a two volume grammar of multimodal meaning: Making Sense: Reference, Agency and Structure in a Grammar of Multimodal Meaning, and Adding Sense: Context and Interest in a Grammar of Multimodal Meaning, Cambridge University Press, 2020.
Courses Taught
Bill Cope is lead in the Learning Design and Leadership concentration in the Department of Educational Policy, Organization and Leadership, offering certificate, masters and doctoral degrees.
Additional Campus Affiliations
Professor, Education Policy, Organization and Leadership
Professor, Information Trust Institute
Professor, Health Care Engineering Systems Center, Coordinated Science Lab
Professor, Center for Global Studies
Professor, Lemann Center for Brazilian Studies
Affiliate, Siebel Center for Design
Recent Publications
Cope, B., & Feinberg, W. (2025). Arguments for Learning: An Intellectual History of the College of Education at the University of Illinois. University of Illinois Press. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/jj.23212024
Kalantzis, M., & Cope, B. (2025). Literacy in the Time of Artificial Intelligence. Reading Research Quarterly, 60(1), Article e591. https://doi.org/10.1002/rrq.591
Tzirides, A. O., de Castro, V. C., Cope, B., & Kalantzis, M. (2025). Multimodality and transposition in collaborative language learning. In Multimodal Literacy in English as an Additional Language in Higher Education (pp. 67-86). Taylor and Francis. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003429876-5
Zapata, G. C., Cope, B., Kalantzis, M., Tzirides, A. O., Saini, A. K., Searsmith, D., Whiting, J., Kastania, N. P., Castro, V., Kourkoulou, T., Jones, J. W., & Abrantes da Silva, R. (2025). AI and peer reviews in higher education: students’ multimodal views on benefits, differences and limitations. Technology, Pedagogy and Education. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/1475939X.2025.2480807
Cope, B., & Kalantzis, M. (2024). A multimodal grammar of artificial intelligence: Measuring the gains and losses in generative AI. Multimodality & Society, 4(2), 123-152. https://doi.org/10.1177/26349795231221699