Getting Started with Microcredentials

Volume XLVI, No. 7 | April 18, 2024

Getting Started With Microcredentials

Microcredentials are one of the hottest topics in learning today. Businesses, private learning companies, and higher education institutions are either exploring or going all-in on verifying skills attainment through microcredentialing.

Metropolitan Community College (MCC) has been using microcredentialing in its workforce development division for the past seven years, and now that experience is being extended from noncredit pathways to credit programs. Using MCC’s experience as a model, this article explores what microcredentials are, the benefits of microcredentials, a step-by-step process that can be used to implement microcredentials at your institution, and resources you can use to further explore the exciting possibilities of microcredentialing.

Microcredentials—A Few Definitions

So, what are microcredentials? According to the National Education Association, microcredentials are short, competency-based learning experiences. According to Emeritus Professor Beverly Oliver, author of the research report Making Micro-credentials Work, a microcredential is a certification of assessed learning that is an additional, alternate, complementary, or formal component of a qualification. The Higher Learning Commission (HLC) defines a microcredential as proof of learning outcomes that a learner has achieved following a short learning experience.

Many businesses and institutions focus on digital badging as their primary method of microcredentialing. Therefore, additional definitions may provide some clarity.

“A digital badge is an indicator of accomplishment or skill that can be displayed, accessed, and verified online.” –elearningindustry.

“Digital badges are validated indicators of skills or competencies, often representing the completion of a microcredential.” –EDUCAUSE

“A digital badge is an online representation of a skill that you’ve earned.” –Mozilla.

That being said, there is no universal, overarching, or governing authority on microcredentials with an established definition or standard approach. In general, microcredentials are a form of recognition that individuals can earn by demonstrating their skills and knowledge in specific areas. They are typically awarded for completing short, focused learning experiences or assessments that validate competency in a particular skill or subject. In short, microcredentials provide verifiable proof for learners to validate their true value.

Origins of Microcredentials

Microcredentials and digital badges, in particular, have a direct link to Scouting. If you were a Girl Scout or a Boy Scout, you most likely earned merit badges, pins, and insignias after a demonstration of a particular skill. Those badges, pins, and insignias were prominently displayed on your uniform. Microcredentialing is deeply rooted in this tradition.

The evolution of microcredentialing can be attributed to the confluence of two events. First, when programming jobs were hot and the fastest growing across all industries, professionals recognized the need for a reliable way to validate and demonstrate their programming skills to potential employers and clients, as well as to current employers. This need led to the development of microcredentials and digital badging as effective tools for verifying and showcasing these skills. It also helped to standardize industry expectations for particular skills. This rising sentiment from programmers may have been a result of their background in gaming. Second, young gamers, who are accustomed to earning badges, power-ups, tools, extra lives, and other rewards, entered the workforce and had expectations of being able to identify and showcase their skills, particularly in a virtual way.

What Are the Benefits of Microcredentialing?

Benefits of microcredentialing include:

Non-degree credentials (NDC) offer a flexible, affordable, and accessible way for learners to acquire new skills at a fraction of the cost of earning a degree.
According to the 2022 Future Focus Report by the World Economic Forum, approximately 50 percent of all employees will need reskilling or upskilling by 2025.
Time saving. Learners do not want to take years to earn a livable wage and employers do not want to wait years for talent.
The HLC recognizes non-degree credentials as viable options for learning and skills acquisition.

Some Terminology

Alternative Educational Pathways or Non-Degree Credentials are umbrella terms for microcredentials not acquired via a degree.
Microcredentials are validated and verifiable recognition earned by the demonstrated mastery of a skill and/or assessed acquisition of knowledge.
Digital Badges are microcredentials with metadata that can be accessed by interested parties and displayed by the earner.
Open Badges are credentials earned that can be shared across digital platforms (e.g., social media), as well as a variety of digital badging platforms (Badgr, Accredible Credly, etc.).
Developmental Credentials focus on block skills or even one skill that ladders up to a culminating credential. For example, a culminating credential in car maintenance may have the developmental credentials of changing a tire, changing the air filter, jumping a battery, installing a battery, etc.
Nano Credentials and Micro Badges are smaller skills-/knowledge-based credentials awarded from the acquisition of a limited number of objectives and outcomes, similar to developmental credentials.
Stackable Credentials are a sequence of credentials acquired over time that create a career development pathway to high-earning occupations.

How Do Learners Earn Microcredentials?

There’s a simple, three-step process for earning microcredentials:

Chose a learning experience (i.e., class, workshop, bootcamp, academy, certification, or license).
Complete all requirements, including assignments, knowledge checks, and activities.
Demonstrate mastery (e.g., complete an authentic performance assessment task).

How Are Microcredentials Awarded?

There’s a simple, six-step process that colleges and universities can take to award microcredentials:

Select or develop a learning experience (i.e., class, workshop, bootcamp, academy, certification, or license).
Identify skill-based competencies.
Create a performance assessment strategy.
Design objectives that build skills.
Use authentic assessments to evaluate skills.
Award microcredentials according to competency mastery.

How Are Microcredentials Displayed?

Learners can display their microcredentials in a variety of ways. They can post them on LinkedIn. They can share them on social media outlets such as Facebook or Instagram. They can put them on a digital resume or include them on a digital cover letter. Learners can keep them stored online in what’s referred to as digital portfolios. They can also include their microcredentials in email signatures. Lastly, they can curate their microcredentials in digital backpacks, and showcase their microcredentials on personal websites.

What Are the Benefits of Microcredentials to Employers?

There are numerous benefits of microcredentials to employers. They allow employers to validate the skills and abilities of potential candidates. They allow employers to create career advancement opportunities for staff and promote them within the organization based on earned skills. Employers can align the skills that are validated to industry standards and the skills that are endorsed by industry organizations. Employers can also evaluate and identify external candidates pursuing continuous learning and use this information to select candidates who are actively upskilling and reskilling. Employers also benefit from microcredentials that supplement degrees. For example, a microcredential in business analysis adds specialized knowledge to someone who possesses a degree in business management. This allows employers to see industry-relevant skills in addition to degree attainment.

A Five-Step Process / Sample Implementation Plan

Assemble your project team. Start small and build a coalition of the willing and identify a project manager. Everyone on the team should have at least one microcredential.
1. Determine your purpose and come to agreement regarding your institution’s definition of microcredentials/NDC.
2. Identify areas of the institution that would benefit most from microcredentialing.
3. Research and find good examples. Talk to institutions about how they implemented microcredentialing.
4. Identify resources: technology, people, budget, learners, and industry.
5. Determine the market value for credentials in your area. Explore whether microcredentialing is right for your institution at this time. Is there alignment with your institution’s mission? This is the Go/No Go point. Here you will decide if microcredentialing is a valuable pursuit for your institution.
Select a Pilot Program. Identify one area in the college.
1. Create a project plan that includes challenges and contingencies.
2. Select a microcredentialing platform (i.e., Canvas Badges, Canvas Credentials, Credly, Accredible, or create a badge awarding system).
3. Create a project brief that includes the rationale, roles, support roles, budget, timeline, and what success looks like, measures of success.
4. Identify who will oversee the administrative duties of microcredentialing when it’s launched.

Apply a Competency-Based Approach to create competencies, objectives, authentic assessments, and evaluative criteria/rubrics using measurable outcomes.
1. Create criteria documents for courses using backward design.
2. Vet rubrics with advisory boards, corporate partners, and members of business and industry.
3. Establish a process for competency assessment rubrics and evaluation. It’s recommended that faculty not evaluate their own learners because of bias. Establish quality assurance for assessments/rubrics.
4. Move away from objective assessments like quizzes and tests to more practice, authentic, fidelity-based assessments that simulate the work environment when possible.
Create External Documentation to be used outside of the project team.
1. Partner with your marketing department to create an image or images for your microcredentialing.
2. Educate faculty, learners, business partners, and the community once your planning and preparation is successful.
Award Badges
1. Evaluate success, value, and lessons learned using feedback from the team, instructors, participants, and learners.
2. Document and communicate your successes. This may involve marketing and promotion.
3. Extend microcredentialing to other areas/programs and refine the effort for the next learning experience.

Resources

The following organizations and websites may be useful for continued exploration of this topic.

Education Design Lab – Leading authority on microcredentials and partnering with higher education institutions to create them.

Microcredentials Exchange: Opportunity Scoping Tool – Process for integrating microcredentials into existing programming.

Metropolitan Community College – Curated Resources from a variety of sources.

In summary, microcredentials help address many needs by providing learners with targeted and industry-relevant skills, allowing them to remain competitive in a rapidly-evolving job market. By following a simple implementation plan, you can begin to explore microcredentialing at your institution and support students in their pursuit of 21^st century skills that will improve their livelihoods—and ultimately, their lives.

Kim L. Whiteside, Instructional Designer, Metropolitan Community College, klwhiteside@mccneb.edu