{"id":685,"date":"2016-10-19T20:33:02","date_gmt":"2016-10-19T20:33:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.proftesting.com\/blog\/?p=685"},"modified":"2016-11-16T15:20:55","modified_gmt":"2016-11-16T15:20:55","slug":"microcredentials-insights-several-organizations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.proftesting.com\/blog\/2016\/10\/19\/microcredentials-insights-several-organizations\/","title":{"rendered":"Microcredentials: Insights from Several Organizations"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>During the recent E-ATP conference, Dr. Reed Castle and I had the opportunity to talk with participants about their approaches to microcredentials.\u00a0 While the approaches to developing microcredentials varied among participants, there was general agreement that there is a future and a role for microcredentials in the suite of products offered by the certification organizations.\u00a0 Here are some of the things we heard from participants:<\/p>\n<p><strong><u>Defining microcredentials:<\/u> <\/strong>With a high degree of consistency, most of the participants defined micro-credentials as a smaller unit of skills or knowledge; stackable smaller units; a specialized area; and refined content that is stand-alone, or complementary to an established full-scope certification.<\/p>\n<p><strong><u>Why microcredentials<\/u><\/strong>: For their organizations, several factors contributed to the exploration of micro-credentials, including:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>creating a career ladder or specialty credentials<\/li>\n<li>unbundling a large content examination into progressive sections that once passed, result in the achievement of full credential<\/li>\n<li>unbundling a large content area into smaller progressive units (certificates)<\/li>\n<li>creating new options for recertification that reflect specific advances in job skills, requirements and\/or knowledge<\/li>\n<li>use microcredentials as an end-of-course assessment.<\/li>\n<li>to qualify a workforce more quickly in specific job requirements, utilizing fewer resources.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong><u>Producing Quality Microcredentials:<\/u><\/strong> As our participants shared their experiences in developing high quality microcredentials, they indicated that there were several areas they had explored including:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>using subject-matter-experts in the development process<\/li>\n<li>administering valid and reliable assessments<\/li>\n<li>working from established job-task analyses (JTAs) and\/or developing smaller JTAs;<\/li>\n<li>market factors for prospective candidates<\/li>\n<li>affect the micro-credential may have on established credentials (internal competition)<\/li>\n<li>position of the micro-credential within the suite of program offerings<\/li>\n<li>maintaining the integrity of the micro-credential, whether a certificate\/training program, or a job-based credential<\/li>\n<li>using existing content from a larger credential<\/li>\n<li>using technology to produce elements of an exam quickly (e.g., webinars, online item authoring and passing score studies).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>One challenge participants consistently shared is communicating the microcredential concept to their constituents \u2013 helping them understand what constitutes a microcredential, and how it can be used as an alternative credential for certified persons and certification organizations.<\/p>\n<p>As microcredentials continue to emerge and become better defined, some new models and parameters are likely to emerge.\u00a0 What we learned from the E-ATP group is that microcredentials can be as creative and flexible as organizations need and markets demand.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em><span style=\"font-size: 8pt;\">Image Attribution:\u00a0This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"&nbsp; During the recent E-ATP conference, Dr. Reed Castle and I had the opportunity to talk with participants about their approaches to microcredentials.\u00a0 While the approaches to developing microcredentials varied among participants, there was general agreement that there is a future and a role for microcredentials in the suite of products offered by the certification&#8230; <a class=\"view-article\" href=\"https:\/\/www.proftesting.com\/blog\/2016\/10\/19\/microcredentials-insights-several-organizations\/\">View Article<\/a>","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":687,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[23],"class_list":["post-685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-test-development","tag-microcredentials"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.proftesting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.proftesting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.proftesting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.proftesting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.proftesting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=685"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.proftesting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":697,"href":"https:\/\/www.proftesting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685\/revisions\/697"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.proftesting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.proftesting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.proftesting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.proftesting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}