Lack of standard definitions makes it harder for learners to navigate options and for employers to assess value
This assumption needs to be validated. Would standard definitions be a silver bullet for learner navigation and employer value? To wit: We have standard definitions for degrees and yet the navigation and value problems persist in that domain. What if the more important issue is not what to call these programatic containers but rather how to describe the contents of what they contain?
Increasingly, our partners are interested in building collections - or connecting to - credentials that they don’t own, issue, or offer to show learners the full pathways of learning opportunities that they can pursue.
Example of how this gets operationalized: There will be platforms (think Naviance on big data and personalized data steroids) that will help Learners discover right fit opportunities based in part on the credentials they already have. There will be savvy institutions connecting to others' credentials so as to increase the likelihood that Learners discover those institutions' program offerings. This will be akin to a sort of skill-based SEO approach as a recruitment/admissions strategy.
Examples of these sources would include an established digital walletprovider, or an exhaustive catalogue of digital credentials that are available, such as the repositoryhosted by Credential Engine. Having the curricular data source, which has a connection to the parsingcompanies, also create a connection to credential information opens up a connection, albeit anindirect one, between the non-degree credential information and the parsing activity. Instead ofreceiving just a course name from the resume parser, the intermediary can also receive a non-degreecredential identifier that is sent to the credential data source to look up and return skills information
Opportunity to go deep here. Bread crumb is to check out the issuer directory with Credential Engine, where they are inviting institutions to publish details about their credentials in a standardized format (CTDL) that will hopefully one day be consumed by connections like those hinted at here.
The lack of reliable and consistent information about non-degree credentials presented by candidatesin the hiring process also meant that workshop participants had no information to classify candidatespost-hire. This gap made it impossible to know who among the employee base had earned whichcredentials. Without this basic profile data, HR leaders are unable to gather much-needed insight intowhat types of credentials appear to prepare candidates best for a given role or which credentialsappear to be more effective at training than others
This could play into Credential Quality Assurance work in Higher Ed.
If a member finds that another member's credential has expired, they may issue a Remove that removes that member.
That is strange. You need to periodically pop online to renew credentials or you're kicked out.
SECURE, DIGITALSTUDENT RECORDS
Access to student records is an equity issue. It's now been said. Out loud. Regardless of how essential that revenue is, maintaining barriers to accessing student records amounts to institutional efforts to perpetuate inequities.
We now have the capacity to ensurethat all possible pathways – andthe essential information about allthe providers, credentials, skills,assessments, quality indicators,outcome measures, transfer values,and links to job skills critical tounderstanding and building thosepathways – can be made fully open,transparent and interoperable sothat a new generation of tools tocustom pathways to meet everyone’sindividual need
There is a lot in this little paragraph, and a big point to not miss is the call out of "individual need." There will be dashboards and other tools that purport to serve learners/earners with comprehensive data about the possible pathways that are open to their successful futures. A harmful that we can anticipate many falling into however, will be generalized data that fails to leverage "nearest neighbor" practices that provide users with data based on the outcomes experienced by people with shared characteristics to their own. For example, if a specific pathway has great outcomes that are disproportionately enjoyed by White males under 45 who already work in that industry, then the generalized data may be misleading to a career-changing Black woman in her early 60s who is investigating the next steps in her journey..
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.
Criteria
Specific earning criteria offers transparency.
You are currently allowing your users to choose their own password, and many of them are using the same password they use on other services. There is no other possible way your users are vulnerable to credential stuffing.
t’s important to emphasise that if you don’t reuse passwords, you are literally immune to credential stuffing.
Elevating and calculating the value of postsecondary credential completion to the individual will play a central role in the new plan
"value" is a big concept. We certainly need to move toward serving (l)earners with more comprehensive and transparent data about the economic value of credentials. I believe it will be a miss to not also address more holistic value propositions that may also communicate important data to credentials seekers.
More timely disaggregated data connected to workforce outcomes will enablemore effective interventions. Better data will also enable transparency for learnersabout what they can expect from an educational pathway—from the skills andcompetencies they will acquire to the career outcomes those competencies lead to
Skills + competency data => transparent credentials
Required: Transparent evidence of thecompetencies mastered by credential holders
Clear, measurable criteria that is assessed
Information about credentials should be valid, reliable,and transparent. Without sound, transparent informationindividuals and others do not know if credentials are en-abling individuals to achieve their goals
Transparent Credentials
In previous versions of Open Badges, the creator of an Achievement (known as a "BadgeClass") was the only entity that could issue it, but in v3.0, the door opens to many issuers recognizing the same achievement based on their own assessment. This practice of shared achievements enables skill assertions, where multiple issuers use a shared achievement definition to recognize achievement of a skill with each issuer doing their own assessment. In addition, further recording of related skills, competencies, standards, and other associations are enabled by the alignment of an Achievement
Big deal: credentials with disparate names, from disparate issuers, nonetheless asserting a shared achievement definition. For example, competencies in my Spanish 4 class assert Intermediate-Low language proficiency, but a teacher whose class is more advanced than mine even though it's also called Spanish 4 could assert Intermediate-Mid proficiency while their Spanish 3 assertions is for Intermediate-Low.
Economists explain that markets work bestwith “perfect information.” And visibilityfeeds this market by translating and sharingskills. But the price of transparency in themodern age is invaded privacy, as well as biasinherent in automated products and services
DEGREES AS CREDENTIALSDON’T GO AWAY
They are redefined as the skills that make up the degree, and learners can achieve mastery by other means. What does change is the emphasis on proficiency. Being able to demonstrate and validate skills proficiency will provide much more information to employers and (l)earners.
Universally accepted assessments ordemonstration opportunities, particularlyfor softer skills, could help learners andworkers validate any type of skill withoutbeing told that they will have to “go backand get a degree” before being consideredfor professional track careers
Universally accepted assessments can also add trust to college and university credentials. There is merit to the notion that higher ed institutions have a conflict of interest when it comes to serving as both learning provider and validator of that learning.
Skills visibility is about making the skills a (l)earner hasacquired open, transparent, and accessible to the(l)earner, providing agency to showcase their curated skillsand competencies to employers in the marketplace
We are now tantalizingly close to a worldwhere my skills are telegraphed digitally to any employer around the nation,or even the world, looking for that skills cocktail. And it works the other way:all employers looking for certain skills can feed into a real-time skills tickertape, signaling to learners and the learning providers that serve them whatcombination of skills will yield employment
Develop Credential Quality Guidelines and Processes
Noteworthy that the recommendations for quality prioritize 1) The granularity of documenting learning outcomes; and 2) that credentials use standards that can be independently verified and validated.
that envisions credential transparency and open data as tools to unlock the learn-and-earn ecosystem nationwide and help every learner make more informed decisions about the credentials they might pursue
WHY this stuff matters. It's a responsibility to our learners (eg consumers)
Credential Engine Learning and Employment RecordsAction Guide
14 page playbook on LERs
The Google Career Certificates Employer Consortium consists of over 150 U.S. companies like Deloitte, Infosys, Snap Inc., Target, Verizon, and of course, Google. These companies span multiple sectors and are committed to considering Google Career Certificate graduates for entry-level jobs. Upon completion of a Google Career Certificate, you will gain access to an exclusive job platform where you can easily apply to opportunities from employers with open jobs. https://grow.google/certificates/it-support/#?modal_active=none
The consortium consists of 150 companies in December, 2021. This will increase. Significant community college reaction is (wisely?) sensing an opportunity instead of a threat. They are collaborating and indications are they will benefit across multiple verticals. I'm excited to see how this plays out in 4-year spaces of Higher Ed:
The practice of throwing a bunch of purloined user names and passwords at various services to see what sticks is known as credential stuffing, and it’s hit the media industry particularly hard in recent years.
I don't think I've ever seen a name for this practice before.
Credential stuffing is a serious attack vector that is underrated because of its unintuitive nature
Defending against credential stuffing attacks
Credential stuffing is the automated injection of breached username/password pairs in order to fraudulently gain access to user accounts.
Moving to a Web of Linked Data for Credential Ecosystems
Oh? Credentials going Semantic? CBE going TBL?
Might be worth a deeper discussion with @jeffgrann, at some point.
school often neatly reinforces the hierarchies of our socio-economic world
Though it came out a few years after the texts listed in the previous paragraph, Randall Collins’s Credential Society would be relevant.