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.

Rebekah Willett: assistant professor, School of Library and Information Studies, University ofWisconsin–Madison. Willett has conducted research on children’s media cultures, focusing onissues of gender, play, literacy, and learning. Her most recent research examines maker-focusedprogramming in the Madison Public Library system, with a specific focus on learning throughmaking. Her publications include work on playground games, amateur camcorder cultures, youngpeople’s online activities, and children’s story writing. Before moving to Madison, Willett was alecturer at the Institute of Education, University of London, and a researcher in the Centre for theStudy of Children, Youth and Media. E-mail: rwillett@wisc.edu

Some have likened anyone being able to issue a verifiable credential being like a shop clerk deciding if they should accept an out-of-state license as proof of age when purchasing alcohol.

However, with verifiable credentials in a Solid Pod, the university issues some information stating that a student completed a course and cryptography signs that information. This is a verifiable credential. They then pass that credential to the student who stores it in their Solid Personal Online Datastore (Pod). When the student wants to apply for a job, all they need to do is grant access to the credential so the company can read it. The company can confirm that the credential isn’t faked because its cryptographically signed by the university.

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.

Number of incremental credentials increased from 32 at the start of the US Department of Education IES grant to 131 within the three original states (Colorado, New York, North Carolina)

National Student Clearinghouse Research Center report documents an increase in learners with college credits but no credential and finds they are returning to college at lower rates than in the past.

Criteria

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%

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

credentials need to be enhanced with additional data aboutindividual courses/modules a person has studied, together with the learning outcomes(skills/knowledge) obtained in each of those modules and other documentation of ability.Credentials should also be used to connect to evidence of achievement such as architecturalportfolios or coding projects. Wherever possible, credentials should refer to occupational standardsor sectoral competence frameworks to increase the ability to interpret them in a specific context

Multiple initiatives have tried to make various kinds of social recommendations by issuingcredentials. However, up to this point they have worked better in closed social networks rather thanas open credentials due to the ability of social networks to tie a recommendation with the profile(and identity) of the recommender. There are also several nascent initiatives to create open linkeddata around which skills, credentials and issuers are valued by employers.

This includes candidates whose experience has been in a different industry, andwho may not use the appropriate terminology when describing their own skills or even be awarethat they would qualify for jobs in a separate industry even though they have all the skills required

“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.”

while with server/externalFetch there is no direct way to pass cookie headers from the original request to the external one

Right now I am working around this issue by having an internal [...api].js, then call fetch for that endpoint (which automatically passes on cookies) and from there hit the actual external endpoint. It works, there is no risk of leaking anything, but imo shouldn't be necessary.

Sure you can abuse session but I don't like that since there is the risk of exposing credentials to client side code.

More points were awarded to candidates with master’s degrees and more years of experience in similar fields. While this approach seemed to provide a neutral method for evaluating candidates based on qualifications, it soon became apparent that the process, with its reliance on education and experience to the exclusion of other important qualities, was deeply flawed and created barriers to hiring talented, diverse candidates

I don't know how much workaround is it, but for now I'm using this approach:

This is just the tip of the innovation iceberg in a new deep-truth reality that is here today

This is just the tip of the innovation iceberg in a new deep-truth reality that is here today

Digital credentials are at the forefront of broader technological innovation in the academic sector and signal the possibility of broader cooperation between higher education and the labor market

Moving to a Web of Linked Data for Credential Ecosystems

Ian O’Byrne, an assistant professor of literacy education at the College of Charleston, replied, “In the future we’ll see more opportunities for online, personalized learning. This will include open, online learning experiences (e.g., MOOCs) where individuals can lurk and build up capacity or quench interests. I also believe that we’ll see a rise in the offering of premium or pay content that creates a space where one-to-one learning and interaction will allow mentors to guide learners while providing critical feedback. We will identify opportunities to build a digital version of the apprenticeship learning models that have existed in the past. Alternative credentials and digital badges will provide more granular opportunities to document and archive learning over time from traditional and nontraditional learning sources. Through evolving technologies (e.g., blockchain), this may provide opportunities for learners to document and frame their own learning pathways.”

Implications for Policy, Leadership, or Practice

separate learning from credentialing

micro-credentials are the career building mechanism of the future

While I’d struggle to tell you how I learn best, there is one question that I’d always be able to answer enthusiastically: What would you like to learn next? Right now I’m learning JavaScript and have plans to give Spanish another go. I should probably pick up those guitar lessons again soon as well. Thankfully we live in a time when it’s trivially easy to gain access to resources and to learning activities. The problem is finding out the ones that work best for you. Perhaps that’s why we carry around in our pockets devices that can access pretty much the sum total of human knowledge yet use them to LOL at amusing pictures of cats. What are the barriers here? I’d suggest there are three main ones: 1 Curriculum - the series of activities that build towards a learning goal 2 Credentials - the ability to show what you know 3 Community - the cohort of peers you feel you are part of, along with access to ‘experts’