Mendee said a recent survey found that 85% of employers look for candidates who have both a degree and micro-credentials. “Micro-credentials give students a competitive edge by highlighting their skills in ways that stand out to employers and graduate schools,” Mendee said.
Transcripts communicate as they are intended to. MCs communicate in a different way, for a different audience.
Current Programming Partnerships Across Academic
Pages 19-20: Brilliant analysis to identify existing partnerships across campus and categorized in smart ways (youth, CE, etc)
Issuers also have an opportunity to include projects to work on or an assessment so learners can apply and better retain what they are learning. 92% of learners want this but only 34% of issuers offer this.
We know that this is a high impact strategy (applying learning helps students get jobs that pay well) and learners say they want it. Yet only a third of us offer it.
issuers should track learner engagement post-launch to optimize their courses. Unfortunately, most issuers aren’t tracking engagement metrics and don’t have a sense of where learners are finding value and where they’re dropping off. Less than half of issuers track what content or courses learners are most engaged with (34%), which learners are most engaged (25%), course completion time (24%), and where learners drop off (14%) — missing out on critical insights to improve their programs
Huge analytics opportunity that supports student success and feeds future funnel. So there's ROI in retention/completion, as well as new future enrollments.
Northeastern University President Joseph Aoun outlines as essential literacies in Robot-Proof: Higher Education in the Age of Artificial Intelligence. In addition to technical and data literacies, he shares two key components of human literacy. First, a set of “catalytic capacities” that include: Initiative and self-reliance Comfort with risk Flexibility and adaptability Second, a set of “creative capacities” that include: Opportunity recognition, or the ability to see and experience problems as opportunities to create solutions Creative innovation, or the ability to create solutions without clearly defined structures Future innovation, or the disposition to orient toward future developments in society
These "capacities" are a blueprint for how HE can notice, name, and credential the stuff that actually matters.
Unlike traditional degrees, digital credentials allow potential employers to verify skills and students to showcase these skills
There's no competition with degrees! Degrees are important, are not under attack, and are already good at what they are intended to do. Innovative credentials address needs the degree isn't necessarily intended to address: verifiability of granular skills and the ability for learners to articulate, demonstrate, and narrate their skills.
For existing students, the priority is immediate recognition of skills and knowledge in the major or complementary to the major, helping the student earn a fellowship or prepare for graduate school, to encourage persistence and completion, and to help students compete in the job market
Naming the important learning => encouraging persistence/success => currency that helps access future opportunities
Each microcredential is a substantive learning experience with set learning outcomes and assessments where student work is produced. While community building or participation in meetings or events can be important parts of the student experience, they do not rise to the level of a SUNY microcredential.
Credentials must be credentialing something.
All work is aligned with key pillars set by SUNY’s Board of Trustees and Chancellor John B. King, Jr., including student success; research and scholarship; diversity, equity, and inclusion; and economic development and upward mobility
2 Keys: this synthesizes with student success, research, and other existing priorities; and executive sponsorship is baked in.
employer verification
In addition, this hints at employMENT verification: this could be a light lift sort of Tier 1 entry point for organizations to be both issuing and consuming credentials. Large employers spend a lot of resources responding to requests to verify former workers' employment histories. If part of off-boarding departing workers includes VCs for official employment verification, that could lead to big savings of time and resources (as long as other employers accept the credentials), as well as accelerate hiring processes that sometimes lead to failed hires bc people find another position that starts sooner. For key HR leaders to start with badging from a place of effortlessly improving their efficiency and costs might be a better place to launch than more involved strategies that offer less immediate value propositions.
Our vision is for members of the UMBC community to amass hundreds of microcredentials throughout their careers
This is first I've seen this explicitly stated by an organization
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
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.
This six-part series tells the ACD story of exploration, innovation, and learning
6 part playbook from Alamo
approaches to align data analytics microcredentials with undergraduate experiences;
embedded MCs
WCET
Report from 2022 WCET workshop
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/
Appendix F: Questions Universities Can Ask Certification Bodies to Assess Quality of Certifications
These questions (I believe) are coming from a place of validating certifications. Experts publish these as helpful guides to understand if and to what degree certifications are trustworthy. In other words, are they worth the paper they're printed on? In the case of micro-credentials, most questions are likely overkill for the proposal process, etc. Given the central role and importance of TRUST however, perhaps providing a version of these questions to stakeholders seeking to propose micro-credentials could be beneficial in pushing their thinking, or at least centering these themes in their thinking.
“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.
t be issued for unevaluated learning accomplishments, such as the mere completion of a series of tasks, attendance at events, or for learning that has not been assessed, as competency and learning accomplishment evaluation is very important.
Criteria must be measurable and assessable.