Micro-credentials have become alternative paths to learning for many people. They are now recognised as legitimate forms of knowledge. In some cases, they can be applied towards certificate or degree-level credentials. I want to discuss how university leaders, employers, professors and students intersect in the creation of micro-credentials and examine the implications for higher education institutions.
European Education Area
The Council of the European Union Recommendation on European micro-credentials provides a framework for recognition across sectors, institutions and borders. This framework facilitates transparency and portability so that a micro-credential acquired in one country can be easily recognised elsewhere.
The recommendation sets required attributes: an identifier for the learner, workload, level, type of assessment and issuing organisation. It asks European Union member states to create environments that align micro-credentials with credit frameworks such as ECTS, the European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System.
In the European Education Area, micro-credentials become a bridge between formal education and lifelong learning.
Some nations have moved to integrate micro-credentials into national frameworks. This emphasises a key point: policy frameworks are needed but insufficient. As with any framework, university leaders, employers and professors are left to do the heavy lifting and implement the programme.
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New Zealand
New Zealand provides another example. Micro-credentials are included by the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA). It sets requirements (for example, micro-credentials for a maximum of 40 credits, defined learning outcomes, accreditation by approved issuers) and has a public register.
In its Insights reports, NZQA describes how the move was motivated by flexibility in the face of change in the economy, technology and labour flows, and how micro-credentials can accompany whole qualifications while opening the way for more responsive lifelong learning.
For non-tertiary education providers, NZQA provides equivalency tests that map a proprietary micro-credential to its framework credits and levels. The New Zealand experience demonstrates the possibility of transforming micro-credentials from experimentation to legitimacy through a strategic and iterative process.
Evolution of micro-credentials
In the early days of micro-credentials, there was doubt about the academic value of micro-credentials. Those objections have not totally disappeared, but institutions, by and large, take them seriously now and have folded them into academic programmes.
Massive Open Online Courses or MOOCs gained traction around 2011 with digital badges to verify learning. Digital badges became the initial foundation for micro-credentials. In 2015, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) launched its MicroMasters programmes. This was another significant step towards legitimising micro-credentials.
The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the growth of micro-credentials as people turned to online learning (for example, Coursera) for skill-based training and education. Given its proven track record, many colleges and universities have now integrated micro-credentials into their curricula.
The early adopters do not see micro-credentials as a threat to their degree programme, but rather as a complement because it gives students another benefit they can offer to prospective employers.
Entry points
Most universities have come to see micro-credentials as valuable parts of their academic infrastructure. The key to their legitimacy is transparency. It’s this transparency that gives micro-credentials legitimacy among students, professors and employers.
With models such as MicroMasters, students take modular, assessed courses. A learner may take a micro stack as a stepping stone to a masters degree. Institutions like MIT send a powerful signal: micro-credentials are not second class; they are entry points.
Creating micro-credentials that are rigorous requires proper design, oversight and evaluation. Departments have to negotiate criteria for equivalency: when is a micro-credential developed enough for advanced standing? How best to integrate it into a degree programme? How do universities set policies and procedures (advising, admissions, credit transfer, audit)?
Employers as partners
The story of micro-credentials is incomplete without employers. Employers must take micro-credentials seriously for them to have legitimacy outside the academic institution.
In Australia, universities collaborate with industry in the provision of micro-credentials in priority fields. The logic is straightforward: the government desires nationally aligned skills, the university desires another pipeline of students, and employers want graduates with relevant knowledge and skills. This way, everyone benefits, especially students.
In Ontario, Canada, the provincial authority has supported micro-credentials through public funding and asked institutions to co-create the micro-credentials with employers so that the risk of irrelevance and non-legitimacy is mitigated.
The human impact
If micro-credentials proliferate with shallow learning, employers will discount their value. Design must go deeper than branding. Only then does the micro-credential convey credible, trustworthy signals for hiring or advancement decisions.
Employers prefer a handful of credible credentials to a sea of lightweight ones. This aligns with academic rigour. Fewer, well-designed and high-quality modules, rather than hundreds of low-quality ones, carry more academic and professional value.
For educators familiar with planning multi-year curricula, the micro-credential universe may seem a little unsettling at first. Still, micro-credentials can be productive if time and effort are invested to properly design them, including developing well-thought-out policies and procedures.
Micro-credentials can open whole new pedagogical possibilities, from competency-based learning to modular scaffolding to blended delivery.
As with any academic programme, micro-credentials require clearly articulated learning standards, learning objectives, teaching strategies, engaged learning activities and assessment. This requires significant time and effort to design properly. Also, some faculty may resist working across disciplinary borders.
Leading with integrity
They may worry that micro-credentials may siphon off degree enrolments or impact research agendas. The antidote to fear and doubt is trust and capacity building: institutions must support professors in the full end-to-end design of micro-credentials. Institutions must view micro-credential activities as serious pedagogical work and not side activities.
Micro-credentials also propel us to ask essential questions: Which units deserve credit? How should they be integrated with certificate and degree programmes?
Once micro-credentials are a gateway to degree pathways, their equivalency must be defensible to employers and accreditors, among others. Transparent criteria and governance are needed to validate the human judgment that goes into these choices.
Institutional leaders need to implement micro-credentials without disrupting existing programmes. Micro-credentials must include end-to-end support in admissions, registration, assessment and credit transfer, among others. Lack of transparency can create friction, confusion and mistrust.
Institutions need to embrace common standards and frameworks (for example, EU descriptors, national credit regimes). Institutional leaders must establish alliances with industry to scale the content and raise awareness. Institutions gain legitimacy and reach in networks.
Enhancing the learning ecosystem
In examining micro-credentials, three facts stand out. First, it’s about trust and integrity. Micro-credentials work when institutions, governments, employers and students have faith in their relevance, rigour, benefits and portability. Without agreed definitions, standards and end-to-end quality assurance, fragmentation may threaten micro-credentials.
Second, inclusivity needs to be central. The cornerstone of micro-credentials is access for working students, time- and resource-limited students, and for career-switching students. The promise of micro-credentials will be limited unless they are affordable.
Third, evidence of the benefits of micro-credentials must be based on evidence, not hyperbole. The boldest claims about micro-credentials (employability, progression, return on investment) must be supported by evidence.
Institutions must invest in longitudinal tracking and programme evaluation (degree progression, employment and income benefits). Ultimately, micro-credentials should break learning into stackable pieces and reassemble them into complete certificates or degrees.
Institutions must be learner-focused, flexible and transparent. Institutions must see that a lifetime of learning never fits easily into rigid, monolithic forms. The success of micro-credentials depends on rigour, alignment with degree programmes and wrap-around support. Micro-credentials have the potential to keep institutions relevant and attuned to the realities of how students live.
Patrick Blessinger is president and chief scientist for the International Higher Education Teaching and Learning (HETL) Association in the United States. He is a lecturer of education at the State University of New York at Old Westbury, a licensed New York City public school teacher, a Governor’s Teaching Fellow, and a Fulbright Scholar.
Curled from University World News
