Saturday, October 26, 2024
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Addressing the Real Challenges of Microcredentials
" the real challenges institutions face when trying to expand their microcredential offerings"
- the real challenges institutions face when trying to expand their microcredential offerings
- While these kinds of programs have long served adult learners looking to update their job skills or switch careers, research shows students fresh out of high school are flocking to them in greater and greater numbers. Learners ages 18 to 20 completed more certificates at higher ed institutions than any other age group during the 2022–23 academic year, according to an April 2024 report from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. Nearly 154,000 young learners earned certificates that year—an 11 percent increase over the previous year—among the 670,665 certificate earners across all ages.
- Many colleges and universities remain unsure of how to effectively launch and grow new microcredentials.
- US average of 64 microcredentials per institution reported in a recent UPCEA survey.
- The slow growth of microcredentials is largely due to the challenges colleges and universities face in implementing and expanding them, especially when attempting to do so in a centralized (or at least coordinated) manner.
- Finding reliable platforms to facilitate enrollment and payment for non-matriculated students (i.e., those not currently enrolled, for non-American readers). These systems should ideally track enrollments, direct payments to specific units, and handle functions such as wait-listing and refunds.
- Understanding the ecosystem and market for these tools, and how different segments intersect.
- Providing access to a learning management system (LMS) for non-matriculated students who don’t have regular university IDs
- Developing a more lightweight social ID for non-matriculated students, and determining what systems and supports
- Devising a business model and marketing strategy for microcredentials, which are typically priced far lower than degrees.
- Identifying and creating market-attractive microcredentials in an agile manner, often requiring new pedagogical approaches and course design methods that involve teams rather than individual instructors.
- Collaborating with the corporate sector to integrate real-world expertise into microcredentials and foster recognition of these credentials, particularly in the absence of widespread standards.
- these challenges, and potential solutions, are rarely addressed in the flood of publications on microcredentials
- Many sources on microcredentials focus heavily on defining what they are and fitting them into one of the larger frameworks that have been developed, such as the New Zealand Quality and Credentials Framework, the Australian National Micro-credential Framework, and the European Approach to Micro-credentials for Lifelong Learning and Employability, to name a few.
- I understand the need for definitions and frameworks, as they are important tools for addressing issues like shared language, quality assurance, and recognition by other educational institutions and employers.
- Frameworks are certainly useful and will be essential for developing standards for recognizing and transferring microcredentials. This work, for instance, is critical for standards bodies. But for those of us working on the ground, it’s time to move beyond comparing and perfecting frameworks. We need to focus on developing, supporting, and growing actual microcredential offerings.
- the primary model they use with higher education institutions is to offer microcredentials alongside a degree for currently enrolled students.
- You see this throughout the survey report but especially in the emphasis on offering microcredentials for credit.
- need to focus on explaining and exploring the challenges outlined at the beginning of this post, as well as other complex, hands-on issues colleges and universities face when rolling out microcredentials.
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Weekly Sporto bookmarks (weekly)
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National framework for microcredentials – Colleges and Institutes Canada
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How to win with generative engine optimization while keeping SEO top-tier
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Why agents are the next frontier of generative AI | McKinsey
- “agentic” systems refer to digital systems that can independently interact in a dynamic world.
- Gen AI agents eventually could act as skilled virtual coworkers, working with humans in a seamless and natural manner.
- a human user could direct a gen AI–enabled agent system to accomplish a complex workflow. A multiagent system could then interpret and organize this workflow into actionable tasks, assign work to specialized agents, execute these refined tasks using a digital ecosystem of tools, and collaborate with other agents and humans to iteratively improve the quality of its actions
- Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, and others have invested in software libraries and frameworks to support agentic functionality.
- shifting from being knowledge-based to becoming more action-based.
- The value that agents can unlock comes from their potential to automate a long tail of complex use cases characterized by highly variable inputs and outputs
- Agents can manage multiplicity
- Agent systems can be directed with natural language.
- Because agentic systems use natural language as a form of instruction, even complex workflows can be encoded more quickly and easily.
- done by nontechnical employees
- Foundation models can learn how to interface with tools, whether through natural language or other interfaces.
- control mechanisms are essential to balance autonomy and risk
- create a learning flywheel for ongoing improvement
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Saturday, August 3, 2024
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Análise de Dados para Workforce Management | Coursera
- Análise de Dados para Workforce Management Specialization
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Saturday, July 27, 2024
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Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica Online Courses | Coursera
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Fundação Instituto de Administração Online Courses | Coursera
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Unlocking a world of opportunities for LATAM learners and institutions - Coursera Blog
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Coursera app active users by country Latin America 2020 | Statista
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OCDE promove webinário sobre microcredenciais para | Observatório EPT
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Revista Ensino Superior | Admirável futuro da educação superior aborda o microcredenciamento
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20+ New Courses in Portuguese for Your Career - Coursera Blog
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Instituições brasileiras lançam curso... | Guia do Estudante
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Open, Interoperable Data for Actionable Credential Ecosystems | Credential Engine
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What is a microcredential? Here’s what you should know - OSU
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Employer Perceptions of Higher Ed Partnerships | Collegis Education
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Understanding America’s Labor Shortage: The Most Impacted Industries | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
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Counting U.S. Secondary and Postsecondary Credentials Report (2022) | Credential Engine
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- Ninety-five percent of those surveyed said they saw benefits from microcredentials, particularly because they show an employee’s willingness to develop their skills (76 percent); demonstrate initiative (63 percent) and are an easy way to communicate employee competencies and skills (60 percent).
- Organizational leaders were particularly interested in stackable credentials leading to a degree with 80 percent saying that increased their appeal.
- Microcredentials can play a critical role in the new economy. However, similar to how online degrees were perceived two decades ago, some are critical about the quality of non-degree programs, despite a lack of evidence to support a systematic problem,
- organizational leaders value microcredentials and non-degree programming but are often unaware of them
- a pervasive issue lies in their standardization and how to properly assess the validity and applicability of courses and certifications
- 20 percent of survey respondents had little or no concern that non-degree or alternative credentials will have an adverse effect on the workforce, 17 percent were concerned about wrong/not relevant credentials/lack critical skills/training, 12 percent cited quality of education/validating credentials, and 11 percent specified a lack of educational/professional experience
- When choosing a college or university to collaborate with to develop a microcredential program, organizational leaders said they are incentivized by proof of program effectiveness (65 percent) and more than 50 percent want to play a role in the program’s development.
- While the report reveals a significant microcredential market opportunity for higher ed, only 44 percent of organizations reported having been approached by a college or university about a potential program
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Saturday, July 20, 2024
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SMS Messaging, Voice, Email, Video & Verification APIs | Sinch
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Concepto Móvil - Conecta con tus clientes interactuando por el canal y momento correcto.
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Where are microcredentials today-and where are they going? - eCampus News
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The Rise and Future of Microcredentials in Higher Education | BestColleges
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Microcredentials are short, stackable, and skills-based non-degree credentials. -
Researchers estimated a 95% increase in the availability of microcredential programs between 2021 and 2022.Note Reference [1] -
Popular microcredential providers include EdX, Coursera, LinkedIn, Udacity, and many four-year colleges and universities. -
Companies looking to upskill their workforces in a period of rapid digital transformation may turn to microcredentials as a solution.
- Enter the concept of microcredentials: short, stackable, non-degree credits that help learners build competencies and show off their skills to employers.
- Microcredentials are gaining popularity among employers — who need to rapidly train employees in emerging fields — and among career climbers who want to advance in the workforce in a timely and cost-effective way.
- Microcredentials are short learning modules
- Often, students can stack, combine, or bundle microcredentials to demonstrate subject mastery.
- Short: You can earn a microcredential in less time than a degree. For example, Oregon State University's microcredentials consist of 9-12 credits. A full bachelor's degree is 180 credit
- Stackable: You can collect microcredentials or digital badges to demonstrate more advanced skills. For example, the University of Central Oklahoma offers microcredential bundles in computer science, diversity and inclusion, and more subjects. And at SUNY Broom Community College, you can apply credits earned in a web development microcredential toward an associate degree in web development.
- Skills-Based: By the end of the program, you should be able to demonstrate a specific competency or ability, like viral content creation, machine learning for business, or classroom management for educators
- The European Commission has offered a clear definition for microcredentials, stating that they represent
records of learning outcomes that a learner has acquired following a small volume of learning, which is assessed against transparent and clearly defined criteria
- In other words, for a course of study to qualify as a microcredential, it must meet a certain quality standard and provide proof that students learned something.
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Microcredentials: a guide for educators and students| THE Campus Learn, Share, Connect
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