Connecting Credentials with Extended Transcripts: The Power of Collective Impact

1. Connecting Credentials with Extended Transcripts: The Power of Collective Impact  Deb Everhart, VP Design and Innovation, Learning Objects @ariadne4444 Mark Leuba, Vice President, Product Management, IMS Global @LearningImpact JoellenShendy, Associate Vice Provost & Registrar, University of Maryland University College @JoellenShendy

2. The Problem:The Credentialing Marketplace is a Confusing Maze certificates degrees badges Licenses certifications microcredentials

3. What do we mean by “Credentials”? A documented award by a responsible and authorized body that has determined that an individual has achieved specific learning outcomes or attained a defined level of knowledge or skill relative to a given standard. • Umbrella term that includes: • Educational degrees and certificates • Professional and industry certifications • Apprenticeship certificates • Licenses • Micro-credentials • Badges • Innovative emerging credentials from ConnectingCredentials.org

4. Current credentialing problems Fragmented, multi-faceted, complex credentialing system that doesn’t work well for credential seekers, employers, or educators Highly diverse and decentralized Many types of credentials • different purposes • different quality assurance mechanisms • different regulations • different metrics for awarding credentials • different value in different contexts • Many actors: • academic and training organizations • industry groups • occupational groups • licensing boards • accreditors, new types of quality assurance entities Credentialing Marketplace Public and employer policies struggle to keep pace with new developments from ConnectingCredentials.org

5. Characteristics of an improved credentialing ecosystem • Learning-based and learner-centered • All learning matters wherever it’s obtained • All credentials are based on learning outcomes/competencies • Credentials are portable, transferrable, transparent, useful, and easily understood by learners, employees, employers • Credentialing pathways, including on-ramps, increase access and equity for all learners • Helps learners, employees, and employers make informed choices about their investment in and value of the credentials they’re pursuing • Helps employers better qualify employees and reduce recruiting time, employee turn-over, and cost of retraining • Builds a competitive, highly skilled workforce • Dynamic system – agility to be relevant in rapidly changing labor markets from ConnectingCredentials.org

6. Credentialing Organizations Credentialing Ecosystems Quality Assurance Entities Register their credentials in the registry Accredit, approve, endorse, recognize credentials and/or credentialing organizations Issue credentials to learners, packaged as IMS Extended Transcripts and/or Open Badges Credential Registry Find recognized credentials to achieve Employers / Industry Credential Earners Use recognized credentials in hiring and promotion processes

7. Are the competencies (knowledge and specialized skills, personal skills, and social skills) represented by credentials at your institution clearly defined? • Are the competencies in your credentials transparent to learners? Do you include competencies in your credential records that are issued to learners to document their achievements? • What options do learners have at your institution for achieving related or stackable credentials flexibly, including stopping and starting education over time? How do they understand the connections among these credentials? • Do learners have clear ways of communicating to employers what they learned as part of these credentials? -adapted from Communicating the Value of Competencies

8. A Call for Interoperability IMS member organizations are motivated to address the employment opportunity and skills gap, addressing two contributing issues - • Managing learner competencies within and among institutions and • Representing all of a learner’s verified skills in a digital, scalable form suitable for the online sharing

9. IMS Vision for Digital Credentials Job Opportunities Personal Growth and Development GOALS LEARNING PATHWAYS VERIFIED ACHIEVEMENTS Academic Co-curricular Career Skills Formal Curricula Informal Pathways

10. Challenges Managing Competencies • Course-based technology platforms were not designed to capture and manage skills and competencies(1) • Organizations resort to managing competencies with spreadsheets – not a scalable solution • IMS has published CASE™ - a data standard for managing competency and skills-based learning models (1) C-BEN TIP Project in Educause Review: Competency-Based Education: Technology Challenges and Opportunities.

11. Competencies and Academic Standards Exchange™ (CASE™) Relationships Among Standards Competencies Rubrics The CASE standard has three component types

12. CASE Enables Alignment A standards-based competency model using globally unique identifiers (CASE ID) provides a means to share and to link competencies in new and powerful ways

13. The Problem with Credentials • Traditional transcripts don’t capture the learners’ full range of knowledge, skills and abilities • Accrued learning, short of a degree, is buried in proprietary institutional systems • Adoption of open standards is needed to leverage technology and benefit the learner

14. Digital Credentials are for Sharing • Learner’s knowledge, skills and abilities are valuable assets to leverage and to • Share with the learner, other institutions and critically, employers • Modern linked-data structures can be mined and discovered in support of employment

15. Extended Transcripts (eT) • Origins in CBE Research • A complement and extension to Open Badges designed to support a variety of academic programs • Supports stackable micro-credentials and complex competency and program models • Open standard based on linked data for maximum sharing and discovery

16. Extended Transcripts EMPLOYABILITY SKILLS COMPETENCIES CO-CURRICULAR EXPERIENTIAL and PRIOR LEARNING COURSES Quick Reference DEGREES, CERTIFICATES, CERTIFICATION and LICENSURES

17. Scope of the eT Standard Formal, informal and employer-centered learning Employers eT University EXTENDED TRANSCRIPT Community College K12 Districts

18. A Simple, Flexible Data Model

19. That can support many variations

20. eT Achievements are Verifiable • Blockchain is a promising method to verify issuance when issuer-based verification* is not available • Open Badge extension for BlockCerts is in progress within IMS’ OB working group • Will be made available open source for use by product suppliers and institutions to verify the authenticity of issued credentials *Open Badge display standards currently provide for real-time verification with the issuer

21. Transferrable using Institutional Transport Networks University e.g. NSC SPEEDE NETWORK Community College

22. Relationship with Credential Registry Each type of credential is registered as one entry in the Credential Registry, e.g. Associate of Science in Forensic Science Employers University ”We offer AS in Forensic Science” “I have earned this!” “Olivia Hafez has earned an Assoc. of Science in Forensic Science” Each learner is issued one extended transcript which can contain multiple achievements and credentials per institution

23. For More Information IMSGLOBAL.ORG/ET IMSGLOBAL.ORG/CASE Join us @ Arizona State University Feb 27-28 for IMS Summit on Digital Credentials

24. Do your credentials provide digital records that show not only the learner’s courses and grades, but also specific evidence of learning?  • What would be the benefits of including in your credential documents specific competencies mastered, co-curricular activities, assessments, or other achievements? • Are your credential documents machine-readable, facilitating searching and filtering via employment/career systems? • How would learners use more transparent digital evidence of their achievements to help them attain their goals, including employment and career advancement? -adapted from Communicating the Value of Competencies

25. Extended Transcript Framework Supports UMUC’s Enhanced Learning Model that focuses on what the learner can do, and how they can take this learning and apply it in the workplace.

26. PILOT PURPOSE and INFORMATION • Gather student feedback on the extended Transcript (eT), content and usage • PARAMETERS • 2,000 enrolled Graduate Students • eT accessed 1487 times over 5 months • 57% of Unique ID’s accessed

27. Implementation: View in D2L

28. More information and survey Printer-friendly format of document Name of program and class in D2L Graded assignments Name of competency Multiple pieces of evidence required for mastery Pilot limited to Fall/Winter courses so all are “in-progress” What the learner can do after mastering the competency

29. Would the eT give you more confidence when searching for future opportunities?

31. Survey: Why did you like it? “Instead of a graduate saying I walked away from college with an X GPA, I can take this and say this is what I am capable of doing.” 84% Of survey respondents recommend that UMUC provide the eT to all students Student Response: “Why wouldn’t you?”

32. Lessons Learned • Career Services pivotal and formative • eTUEX and data discovery • Students desire industry connection to their competency achievement • Students want to own and manage record, including uploading content and artifacts • Curating views and identifying connection opportunity is critical

33. Which stakeholders (including learners) would need to be involved in implementing Extended Transcripts at your institution? • What value would these stakeholders need to understand in order to be engaged in Extended Transcript processes? How could you articulate this value to them? • How would Extended Transcripts change the value of your credentials? -adapted from Communicating the Value of Competencies

34. Credentialing Organizations Credentialing Ecosystems Quality Assurance Entities Register their credentials in the registry Accredit, approve, endorse, recognize credentials and/or credentialing organizations Issue credentials to learners, packaged as IMS Extended Transcripts and/or Open Badges Credential Registry Find recognized credentials to achieve Employers / Industry Credential Earners Use recognized credentials in hiring and promotion processes