21 Matching Annotations
  1. Feb 2024
    1. The mainfactors limiting the level of trust include: doubts about the quality of somemicrocredentials, no agreed standards for quality assurance, and uncertainty as towhether certain microcredentials will be recognised by national authorities,employers or education and training providers

      Seeds of doubt on MC quality

    2. Assigning credits to learning outcomes allows for the accumulationof units of learning and provides for transferability from one setting to another forvalidation and recognition. Interviewees representing countries in which VETsystems are modularised indicated that modules are designed to indicate a set oflearning outcomes that are expressed in terms of credits. The interviewees fromnational authorities and VET providers commonly agreed that the introduction ofmodular structures in VET and the application of a learning outcomes-basedapproach was set to provide more individualised training paths, enabling accessand progression for learners.

      Align Learning Outcomes to Credits (key for meaningful unbundling/bundling)

    3. The European approach to microcredentials(European Commission, 2020a) also highlights the importance of clearly definedlearning outcomes as a way to promote overall transparency and provide detailedinformation regarding what a learner is expected to know and is able to do

      Purpose of Learning Outcomes

    4. microcredentials must be transparent and understandable and shouldinclude summary of critical information such as:(a) the title;(b) the duration of a learning activity;(c) provider of the course;(d) description of the content;(e) learning resources;(f) type of assessment;(g) credits attributed to the course;(h) prerequisites needed for enrolment;(i) learning outcomes;(j) body ensuring the quality of the course;(k) options for stackability, if any

      11 data elements for transparency

  2. Jan 2024
    1. Recruited 30 new members to the Network to engage in planning and implementation of incremental credentials. Among those are state systems of Hawai'i, Minnesota, the University of Texas, and the City University of New York (CUNY) System; and 24 public and private colleges and universities across 22 states.

      Proliferation of HE commitment, including state systems.

    1. alternative credential programming and financialmodels are highly decentralized across an institution – so much so that it may bedifficult for an institution to have a good grasp of its entire portfolio. Adding alternativecredentials to an institution’s strategic priorities will firm up program and business modelplanning and execution

      Inconsistent processes for establishing programs, funding programs, and pricing programs

    2. First is the strategic priority within their institution. Ifalternative credentials have been embraced by senior leadership and included in thestrategic plan, they are more likely to have the necessary resources allocated to them

      Executive sponsorship => resources allocated.

  3. Aug 2023
    1. Americans’ views of what a college education should be tend to prioritize specific, workplace-related skills and knowledge rather than general intellectual development and personal growth. Half of Americans say that the main purpose of college should be to teach specific skills and knowledge that can be used in the workplace, while 35% think its main purpose should be to help students grow and develop personally and intellectually and 13% volunteer that these objectives are equally important.

      The majority of people in the US believe workforce-relevant skills and knowledge should be a priority for college education. Regardless of whether faculty intentionally and overtly design learning to focus on these skills and knowledge, I believe that nearly all high quality offering in Higher Education implicitly include skills and knowledge with valuable transfer to the workplace. And Best Practices in digital credential design allow us to notice, name, and formally recognize though our credentials where they show up in our learning opportunities and when learners acquire them.

    1. At BYU-Pathway Worldwide, this approach has been associated with a 20% increase in student retention (Marcus, 2020). These examples demonstrate the positive impact of earning a certification or certification on persistence, retention and graduation rates for learners in baccalaureate programs.
    2. One study examining short-term credentials embedded in associate degree programs found that these short-term credentials had positive impacts on retention and degree completion

      Although there are equity concerns that are essential to consider, the Student Success piece is a compelling element to consider: In addition to supporting learners' needs for acquiring skills and providing them with credentials to communicate about their skills, the possibility of credentials supporting completion and attainment could be a valuable consideration in program design.

  4. Jun 2023
    1. gauge the value of the microcredentials they offer, a step I suspect many have not yet been brave enough to take. That calls for tracking how often learners claim their awarded microcredential and share it to a professional networking site like LinkedIn, and for collecting feedback on why they did or didn’t. Another suggestion from the primer: track the number of microcredential learners who go on to enroll in a degree program

      Interesting data to collect. Relates to the Equity report from Credential Engine: https://credentialengine.org/credential-transparency/equity/

  5. May 2023
    1. However, the graduation certificate is still paper-based and does not fit employers’ digitized recruitment processes. Digitizing the graduation certificate is overdue to align with the digitized processes of employers and universities. However, there is only a few research on that issue. This paper aims to conduct a systematic literature analysis. Therefore, we investigated 147 articles in the context of research on digital credentials.

      Consumption issue: the outgoing recognition is valued by the sender but not in a format that is appreciated by the receiver. The problem with putting highlights on a laser discs is that it requires someone to have a laser disc player.

    1. It is also important to note that this positive evidence for low-income certificate-earners stands in con-trast to findings for other historically underserved groups; studies indicate that individuals of color and older individuals go on to stack credentials at lower rates and see smaller earnings gains relative to White individuals and younger individuals (Bohn and McConville, 2018; Bohn, Jackson and McConville, 2019; Daugherty et al., 2020; Daugherty and Anderson, 2021). Although we suspect many low-income individuals are also individuals of color, the findings suggest that there are inequities within stackable credential pipelines that might be more strongly tied to race, ethnicity, and age than to socioeconomic status. It is also possible that many low-income individuals never complete a first certificate and thus do not enter a stackable credential pathway

    2. Important note on Equity: The positive findings for credential-stacking among low-income individuals stand in contrast to findings for other historically underserved populations, such as older learners and individuals of color, which show some evidence indicating lower rates of stacking and lower returns from stacking relative to younger individuals and White individuals.

  6. Mar 2023
    1. If non-degree or alternative credentials were stackable, overhalf (56%) of respondents said this would increase theirorganization’s interest in non-degree or alternative credentials.Stackable credentials would greatly increase interest for 24%

      75% would have increased interest if the credentials are stackable. For a group that also claims to not know what these things really are, tough to know how much to read into this. On it's face, it's powerful encouragement for incremental credentialing.

    2. Respondents most often agree or strongly agree that non-degree or alternative credentials have helped their organizationfill existing skills gaps (74%) and that they are helping to improvethe quality of their workforce (73%)

      While data is kind of all over the place, this seems like a reliable response. Regardless of how well they understand non-degree credentials and how much meaning is mixed in other areas of the survey, it's straightforward that a super majority see MCs filling skills gaps and improving the quality of their workforce.

  7. Feb 2022
    1. “Public research universities are committed to improving the workforce outcomes of their students and to addressing the workforce needs of local economies. This approach can ensure students that their credentials will have value to the labor market, and it can ensure employers that graduates have the skills required to perform in the workplace.”

      For some, this is reasonable and rationale. It's the point of the whole enterprise. Yet for others, this take is controversial, as it may threaten the ideals and/or visions of the purpose of Public Education. These stakeholders may ask, "Is it the job of public education to serve industry's needs by preparing proper cogs for the workforce wheels?" At the same time, others may wonder, "Is public education willfully performing a disservice to our students if our credentials are not valued by employers?"

      These are important questions to ask, and to answer.