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.

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.

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.