1. Connecting Credentials with Extended Transcripts: The Power of Collective Impact 
Deb Everhart, VP Design and Innovation, Learning
Mark Leuba, Vice President, Product Management, IMS
Joellen Shendy, Associate Vice Provost & Registrar, University of Maryland University

2. The Problem: The Credentialing Marketplace is a Confusing Maze
certificates
degrees
badges
Today’s credentialing market is a confusing maze of degrees, certifications, certificates, licenses, badges and other microcredentials.
Students, job seekers, workers, and employers all struggle to understand.
What is a credential?
Will having a credential get me into the job I want?
Does my credential give me advanced standing for other credentials?
What the options for credentials that may accelerate career goals?
What do these credentials mean?
What knowledge and skills stand behind them?
How do they relate to each other to learning and performance to employability?
Licenses
certifications
microcredentials

3. What do we mean by “Credentials”?
A documented award by a responsible and authorized body that has determined that an individual has achieved specific learning outcomes or attained a defined level of knowledge or skill relative to a given standard.
Umbrella term that includes:
Educational degrees and certificates
Professional and industry certifications
Apprenticeship certificates
Licenses
Micro-credentials
Badges
Innovative emerging credentials
Lumina Foundation. Connecting Credentials: A Beta Credentials Framework (p. 11)
from ConnectingCredentials.org

4. Current credentialing problems
Fragmented, multi-faceted, complex credentialing system that doesn’t work well for credential seekers, employers, or educators
Highly diverse and decentralized
Many types of credentials
Many actors:
academic and training organizations
industry groups
occupational groups
licensing boards
accreditors, new types of quality assurance entities
different purposes
different quality assurance mechanisms
different regulations
different metrics for awarding credentials
different value in different contexts
Credentialing
Marketplace
Public and employer policies struggle to keep pace with new developments
from ConnectingCredentials.org

5. Characteristics of an improved credentialing ecosystem
Learning-based and learner-centered
All learning matters wherever it’s obtained
All credentials are based on learning outcomes/competencies
Credentials are portable, transferrable, transparent, useful, and easily understood by learners, employees, employers
Credentialing pathways, including on-ramps, increase access and equity for all learners
Helps learners, employees, and employers make informed choices about their investment in and value of the credentials they’re pursuing
Helps employers better qualify employees and reduce recruiting time, employee turn-over, and cost of retraining
Builds a competitive, highly skilled workforce
Dynamic system – agility to be relevant in rapidly changing labor markets
Points from Connecting Credentials
Many organizations and initiatives are already supporting this work, and the ACE papers rely on these-- for example:
Connecting Credentials is organizing national dialogue on transforming our credentialing system to be student-centered and learning-based. (
Lumina’s Degree Qualifications Profile ( the Association of American Colleges and Universities’ Liberal Education and America’s Promise initiative ( and SUNY’s Global Learning Qualifications Framework ( all provide structures for defining learning outcomes in credentials.
The Credential Transparency Initiative is developing descriptors to characterize credentials with regard to transparency and portability, trust, and quality. (
IMS Global Learning Consortium Digital Credentialing initiatives are developing technical standards for the implementation and interoperability of competency-based systems, extended transcripts, and digital credentials. (
Numerous U.S. government resources and initiatives from the Depts. of Education and Labor support more effective connections between credentials and career opportunities.
from ConnectingCredentials.org

6. Credentialing Ecosystems
Credentialing Organizations
Quality Assurance Entities
Employers / Industry
Credential Registry
Accredit, approve, endorse, recognize credentials and/or credentialing organizations
Issue credentials to learners, packaged as IMS Extended Transcripts and/or Open Badges
Register their credentials in the registry
Find recognized credentials to achieve
Credential Earners
Use recognized credentials in hiring and promotion processes

7. Are the competencies (knowledge and specialized skills, personal skills, and social skills) represented by credentials at your institution clearly defined?
Are the competencies in your credentials transparent to learners? Do you include competencies in your credential records that are issued to learners to document their achievements?
What options do learners have at your institution for achieving related or stackable credentials flexibly, including stopping and starting education over time? How do they understand the connections among these credentials?
Do learners have clear ways of communicating to employers what they learned as part of these credentials?
-adapted from Communicating the Value of Competencies

8. A Call for Interoperability
IMS member organizations are motivated to address the employment opportunity and skills gap, addressing two contributing issues -
Managing learner competencies within and among institutions and
Representing all of a learner’s verified skills in a digital, scalable form suitable for the online sharing

9. IMS Vision for Digital Credentials
Job Opportunities
Personal Growth and Development
GOALS
LEARNING
PATHWAYS
VERIFIED ACHIEVEMENTS
Formal Curricula
Informal Pathways
Academic
Co-curricular
Career Skills

10. Challenges Managing Competencies
Course-based technology platforms were not designed to capture and manage skills and competencies(1)
Organizations resort to managing competencies with spreadsheets – not a scalable solution
IMS has published CASE™ - a data standard for managing competency and skills-based learning models
(1) C-BEN TIP Project in Educause Review: Competency-Based Education: Technology Challenges and Opportunities.

11. Competencies and Academic Standards Exchange™ (CASE™)
Rubrics
Relationships Among Standards
CASE is at the center of all of the ways that learning standards impact the teaching and learning process.
The CASE standard has three component types

12. CASE Enables Alignment
A standards-based competency model using globally unique identifiers (CASE ID) provides a means to share and to link competencies in new and powerful ways

13. The Problem with Credentials
Traditional transcripts don’t capture the learners’ full range of knowledge, skills and abilities
Accrued learning, short of a degree, is buried in proprietary institutional systems
Adoption of open standards is needed to leverage technology and benefit the learner

14. Digital Credentials are for Sharing
Learner’s knowledge, skills and abilities are valuable assets to leverage and to
Share with the learner, other institutions and critically, employers
Modern linked-data structures can be mined and discovered in support of employment

15. Extended Transcripts (eT)
Origins in CBE Research
A complement and extension to Open Badges designed to support a variety of academic programs
Supports stackable micro-credentials and complex competency and program models
Open standard based on linked data for maximum sharing and discovery

16. DEGREES, CERTIFICATES, CERTIFICATION and LICENSURES
Extended Transcripts
EMPLOYABILITY SKILLS
COMPETENCIES
CO-CURRICULAR
EXPERIENTIAL and
PRIOR
LEARNING
COURSES
Quick Reference
DEGREES, CERTIFICATES, CERTIFICATION and LICENSURES

17. Scope of the eT Standard
Formal, informal and employer-centered learning
University
Employers
EXTENDED TRANSCRIPT eT
K12 Districts
Community College

18. A Simple, Flexible Data Model

19. That can support many variations

20. eT Achievements are Verifiable
Blockchain is a promising method to verify issuance when issuer-based verification* is not available
Open Badge extension for BlockCerts is in progress within IMS’ OB working group
Will be made available open source for use by product suppliers and institutions to verify the authenticity of issued credentials
*Open Badge display standards currently provide for real-time verification with the issuer

21. Transferrable using Institutional Transport Networks
Community College
University
e.g. NSC SPEEDE NETWORK

22. Relationship with Credential Registry
Each type of credential is registered as one entry in the Credential Registry, e.g.
Associate of Science in Forensic Science
University
”We offer AS in Forensic Science”
Employers
“I have earned this!”
“Olivia Hafez has earned an
Assoc. of Science in Forensic Science”
Each learner is issued one extended transcript which can contain multiple achievements and credentials per institution

23. IMS Summit on Digital Credentials
For More Information
IMSGLOBAL.ORG/ET
IMSGLOBAL.ORG/CASE
Join Arizona State University
Feb for
IMS Summit on Digital Credentials

24. Do your credentials provide digital records that show not only the learner’s courses and grades, but also specific evidence of learning? 
What would be the benefits of including in your credential documents specific competencies mastered, co-curricular activities, assessments, or other achievements?
Are your credential documents machine-readable, facilitating searching and filtering via employment/career systems?
How would learners use more transparent digital evidence of their achievements to help them attain their goals, including employment and career advancement?
-adapted from Communicating the Value of Competencies

25. Extended Transcript Framework
Supports UMUC’s Enhanced Learning Model that focuses on what the learner can do, and how they can take this learning and apply it in the workplace.
Set the context

26. 2,000 enrolled Graduate Students eT accessed 1487 times over 5 months
PILOT PURPOSE and INFORMATION
Gather student feedback on the extended Transcript (eT), content and usage
PARAMETERS
2,000 enrolled Graduate Students
eT accessed 1487 times over 5 months
57% of Unique ID’s accessed
Set the context

27. Implementation: View in D2L
Set the context

28. More information and survey
Printer-friendly format of document
Name of program and class in D2L
Graded assignments
Name of competency
Multiple pieces of evidence required for mastery
Pilot limited to Fall/Winter courses so all are “in-progress”
What the learner can do after mastering the competency
Set the context

29. Would the eT give you more confidence when searching for future opportunities?

31. Survey: Why did you like it?
“Instead of a graduate saying I walked away from college with an X GPA, I can take this and say this is what I am capable of doing.”
84%
Of survey respondents recommend that UMUC provide the eT to all students
Student Response: “Why wouldn’t you?”

32. Lessons Learned Career Services pivotal and formative
eT UEX and data discovery
Students desire industry connection to their competency achievement
Students want to own and manage record, including uploading content and artifacts
Curating views and identifying connection opportunity is critical

33. How would Extended Transcripts change the value of your credentials?
Which stakeholders (including learners) would need to be involved in implementing Extended Transcripts at your institution?
What value would these stakeholders need to understand in order to be engaged in Extended Transcript processes? How could you articulate this value to them?
How would Extended Transcripts change the value of your credentials?
-adapted from Communicating the Value of Competencies

34. Credentialing Ecosystems
Credentialing Organizations
Quality Assurance Entities
Employers / Industry
Credential Registry
Accredit, approve, endorse, recognize credentials and/or credentialing organizations
Issue credentials to learners, packaged as IMS Extended Transcripts and/or Open Badges
Register their credentials in the registry
Find recognized credentials to achieve
Credential Earners
Use recognized credentials in hiring and promotion processes