1. Developing an Institutional micro-credential ecosystem
Professor Gregor Kennedy
Pro Vice-Chancellor, Teaching & Learning

2. Classic Credentials
Tension … Yes ... But ...

3. Why Change?
With these classics why do we need anything new?

4. Context has Changed Changes in the higher education landscape:
Increasing participation; moving to “mass” participation
State allocating proportionally less to Higher Education
Universities looking for funds beyond the public purse
Partial or full deregulation of course fees
Students paying a greater proportion of the costs of studying
More students – reasonably – wanting tangible outcomes
More vocationally oriented education system
More competitive national and global higher education market

5. Rise of Alternative Credentials

6. Same Page Micro-Credentialing:
A generic term for a range of credentials for units of learning smaller than those covered in subjects/units/courses and degrees.
See also ‘nano-degrees’, ‘micro-master credentials’, ‘certificates’, ‘MOOC certificates’ and ‘badges’.
As part of a “digital ecosystem” micro-credentials represent discrete, portable, sharable, stackable, warrants of specific “things” that students have learned.

7. To What Degree?

8. Three Uses Micro-credentials are used as:
Evidence of specific graduate attributes, skills and capabilities.
Stackable credit or recognition of prior learning in order to widen access and filter into traditional university programs.
A more formal warrant of continuing professional development or continuing professional education.

9. Micro-Credentials: Use 1
Evidence of specific graduate attributes, skills and capabilities

10. Classic (Old) Credentials
Tension … Yes ... But ...

11. Current Practice Tension … Yes ... But ... Knowledge and Understanding
Professional Expertise
Generic Skills
Specific Skills

12. Value of Degree?
Tension … Yes ... But ...

13. “Trust Bust” “Trust Bust”
“We’re facing a trust bust – both from the employer community and our learners. They no longer accept “trust us” with regard to our faculty’s ability to teach well or the skills contained with a degree …
The academic record of the future needs to show what students can do – transcripts are too opaque and are no longer being used by businesses ...
This all adds up to a loud call, a wake up call if you will, to the higher education community to drastically rethink how we demostrate students’ learning and credential achievment”
(Morrison, 2016, WCET)

14. Graduate Skills & Capabilities
What is Future Ready?
Degrees and transcripts do not “reveal” or correspond to the …
Content expertise and an familiarity (or understanding) of material that employers think should be covered in the curriculum.
“They don’t have enough anatomy”
“They haven’t read Marx”
Specific skills, competencies and qualities in graduates that employers think are required in the workplace that should allow both the individual and the industry to develop and thrive.

15. Micro-Credentials for Employability
Graduate Skills & Capabilities
What is Future Ready?
Micro-Credentials
for
Employability
(World Economic Forum, 2015)

16. Micro-Credentials: Use 2
Stackable credit or recognition of prior learning in order to widen access and filter into traditional university programs.
University
Verified
Assessment
University
Award
MOOC
Specialisation

17. Micro-Credentials Funnel & Filter as
Micro-Credentials: Use 2
Micro-Credentials
Funnel & Filter as

18. Cut Out The Middle-Man Micro-Credentials: Use 3
As a more formal warrant of continuing professional development or continuing professional education
Cut Out The Middle-Man

19. Micro-Credentials “New” Recognition for
Micro-Credentials: Use 3
Micro-Credentials
“New” Recognition
for

20. An Ecosystem

21. An Ecosystem
Melbourne
Teaching
Learning &
Assessment

22. UoM Trial
University
Verified
Assessment
T&L

23. An Ecosystem
Melbourne
Teaching
Learning &
Assessment

24. Build an Ecosystem
Universities will increasingly need to develop sophisticated credentialing ecosystems that:
Respond to the needs and wants of students and employers.
Can issue credentials for a range of forms of teaching, learning and assessment (traditional curriculum, co-curriculum, online learning, MOOCs, short courses, CPD, etc).
Provide credential options that are portable, sharable, secure for a range of learning outcomes.
Capitalise on the inevitable advance of technology in both teaching and learning, and assessment methods.

25. Thank you ...