Online credentials for learning

Last updated

Online credentials for learning are digital credentials that are offered in place of traditional paper credentials for a skill or educational achievement. They are directly linked to the accelerated development of internet communication technologies, the development of digital badges, electronic passports and massive open online courses (MOOCs). [1]

Contents

History

Online credentials have their origin in the concept of open educational resources (OER), which was invented during the Forum on Open Courseware for Higher Education in Developing Countries held in 2002 at UNESCO. [2] Over the next decade the OER concept gained significant traction, and this was confirmed by the World Open Educational Resources (OER) Congress organized by UNESCO in 2012. One of the outcomes of the congress was to encourage the open licensing of educational materials produced with public funds. Creative Commons licensing provides the necessary standardization for copyright permissions, with a strong emphasis on the shift towards sharing and open licensing. [1]

Digital credentials ecosystem

The digital credentials ecosystem The digital credentials ecosystem.svg
The digital credentials ecosystem

The digital credentials ecosystem is made up of a combination of traditional (better established) systems and flexible and dynamic (less regulated and new) systems. The challenge for the recognition of learning is that the pace of development, and also the point of departure, of these two aspects is different. The system is made up of seven interrelated sectors and groups of stakeholders, anchored to specific functions in the digital credentials environment. [3]

  1. Use. These are the users of credentials, notably learners, who are placed at the centre of the system. [4] [3] Providers and employers can also be users.
  2. Provide. Referring to education and training institutions and the emerging variety of for-profit and non-profit digital platforms, such as Coursera, FutureLearn, Credley, Verifdiploma and Mozilla.
  3. Award. Awarding bodies in the traditional sense are institutions and professional bodies. Employers, MOOCs, and in some instances also the owners/hosts of digital platforms such as IMS Global are also considered.
  4. Quality assure. The lack of quality assurance poses a significant threat to the credibility of digital credentials, and sets constraints on the flexibility of traditional degrees.
  5. Evaluate. The evaluation of credentials has been owned by credential evaluation agencies, such as the ENIC-NARIC network and some qualifications authorities.
  6. Verify. The range of both public and private verification agencies that have emerged in the last five years has increased and can be attributed to the affordances related to the digitization of credentials.
  7. Convene. International agencies and open communities and networks have a role to play within the context. [3]

Test-based credentials

Test-based credentials have gained popularity both in the online market, and in programming and highly technical tasks. These credentials are earned by taking multiple-choice or project-based tests in various skill areas. [1]

Digital badges

Digital badges allow individuals to demonstrate job skills, educational accomplishments, online course completion or just about anything else that a badge creator decides. In 2011, the Mozilla Foundation began the development of an open technical standard called Open Badges - a common framework for the issuance, collection, and display of image files with embedded Metadata that can be used to verify the information contained within a badge. [5] The Open Badges standard is currently maintained by IMS Global and over 40 million Open Badges had been issued as of 2020. [6]

In Europe, since 2000, the work of the CEDEFOP [7] [8] [9] and the adoption in 2009 of the European Guidelines for Validating Non-formal and Informal Learning [8] have supported the development of policies and programmes periodically monitored through the European inventory on validation of non-formal and informal learning. [1]

Badges support capturing and translating learning across contexts; encouraging and motivating participation and learning outcomes; and formalizing and enhancing existing social aspects of informal and interest-driven learning. [10] [1] Digital badges are not dissimilar to the concept of the Europass CV. Digital badges can be used as portable and independently verifiable expressions of existing accredited credentials, or used to represent new types of recognition unassociated with traditional quality assurance bodies. [5]

Online certificates

Among alternative credentials, online certificates currently command the highest value, and are nearly comparable to a traditional degree. Earning an online certificate from an online college, a company or an industry-specific organization is typically much more involved than for the other credentials. The certificates are often connected to specific job functions. Many of these certificates have been created by companies such as Cisco, IBM or Microsoft to meet their own needs or the needs of their customers. [1]

Online certificates are also used by many higher education institutions to dematerialize official diplomas or acquired skills, using blockchain technologies. [11] [12]

Future developments

Future challenges for the concept that have been identified include the way issuing and earning process for the badges is quality-assured; the centralization (or not) of the badge-issuing process and the legitimacy of any organization that takes charge of it; the way badge issuers are using the open standard to ensure that the learners stay in control and badges remain interoperable; and the way badges will be used and recognized by education institutions, enterprises and individuals. [1]

See also

Sources

Definition of Free Cultural Works logo notext.svg  This article incorporates text from a free content work. Licensed under CC-BY-SA IGO 3.0( license statement/permission ). Text taken from Level-setting and recognition of learning outcomes: The use of level descriptors in the twenty-first century​ , 129-131, Keevey, James, UNESCO. UNESCO.

Related Research Articles

Lifelong learning is the "ongoing, voluntary, and self-motivated" pursuit of knowledge for either personal or professional reasons. It is important for an individual's competitiveness and employability, but also enhances social inclusion, active citizenship, and personal development.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Open educational resources</span> Open learning resource

Open educational resources (OER) are teaching, learning, and research materials intentionally created and licensed to be free for the end user to own, share, and in most cases, modify. The term "OER" describes publicly accessible materials and resources for any user to use, re-mix, improve, and redistribute under some licenses. These are designed to reduce accessibility barriers by implementing best practices in teaching and to be adapted for local unique contexts.

A credential is a piece of any document that details a qualification, competence, or authority issued to an individual by a third party with a relevant or de facto authority or assumed competence to do so.

A national qualifications framework (NQF) is a formal system describing qualifications. 47 countries participating in the Bologna Process are committed to producing a national qualifications framework. Other countries not part of this process also have national qualifications frameworks.

Digital credentials are the digital equivalent of paper-based credentials. Just as a paper-based credential could be a passport, a driver's license, a membership certificate or some kind of ticket to obtain some service, such as a cinema ticket or a public transport ticket, a digital credential is a proof of qualification, competence, or clearance that is attached to a person. Also, digital credentials prove something about their owner. Both types of credentials may contain personal information such as the person's name, birthplace, birthdate, and/or biometric information such as a picture or a finger print.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Open education</span> Educational movement

Open education is an educational movement founded on openness, with connections to other educational movements such as critical pedagogy, and with an educational stance which favours widening participation and inclusiveness in society. Open education broadens access to the learning and training traditionally offered through formal education systems and is typically offered through online and distance education. The qualifier "open" refers to the elimination of barriers that can preclude both opportunities and recognition for participation in institution-based learning. One aspect of openness or "opening up" education is the development and adoption of open educational resources in support of open educational practices.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nonformal learning</span> Category of learning situation

Non-formal learning includes various structured learning situations which do not either have the level of curriculum, syllabus, accreditation and certification associated with 'formal learning', but have more structure than that associated with 'informal learning', which typically take place naturally and spontaneously as part of other activities. These form the three styles of learning recognised and supported by the OECD.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Massive open online course</span> Education service on the web

A massive open online course or an open online course is an online course aimed at unlimited participation and open access via the Web. In addition to traditional course materials, such as filmed lectures, readings, and problem sets, many MOOCs provide interactive courses with user forums or social media discussions to support community interactions among students, professors, and teaching assistants (TAs), as well as immediate feedback to quick quizzes and assignments. MOOCs are a widely researched development in distance education, first introduced in 2008, that emerged as a popular mode of learning in 2012, a year called the "Year of the MOOC".

The Saylor Academy, formerly known as the Saylor Foundation, is a non-profit organization headquartered in Washington, DC. It was established in 1999 by its sole trustee, Michael J. Saylor. Since 2008, the focus of the foundation has been its Free Education Initiative which has led to the creation of 241 courses representing 10 of the highest enrollment majors in the US.

Digital learning is any type of learning that is accompanied by technology or by instructional practice that makes effective use of technology. It encompasses the application of a wide spectrum of practices, including blended and virtual learning. Digital learning is sometimes confused with online learning or e-learning; digital learning encompasses the aforementioned concepts.

Digital badges are a validated indicator of accomplishment, skill, quality or interest that can be earned in various learning environments.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Open educational practices</span>

Open educational practices (OEP) are part of the broader open education landscape, including the openness movement in general. It is a term with multiple layers and dimensions and is often used interchangeably with open pedagogy or open practices. OEP represent teaching and learning techniques that draw upon open and participatory technologies and high-quality open educational resources (OER) in order to facilitate collaborative and flexible learning. Because OEP emerged from the study of OER, there is a strong connection between the two concepts. OEP, for example, often, but not always, involve the application of OER to the teaching and learning process. Open educational practices aim to take the focus beyond building further access to OER and consider how in practice, such resources support education and promote quality and innovation in teaching and learning. The focus in OEP is on reproduction/understanding, connecting information, application, competence, and responsibility rather than the availability of good resources. OEP is a broad concept which can be characterised by a range of collaborative pedagogical practices that include the use, reuse, and creation of OER and that often employ social and participatory technologies for interaction, peer-learning, knowledge creation and sharing, empowerment of learners, and open sharing of teaching practices.

Open educational resources (OER) are learning materials that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use and re-purposing by others. OER policies are adopted by governments, institutions or organisations in support of the creation and use of open content, specifically open educational resources (OER), and related open educational practices.

This outline of open educational resources provides a way of navigating concepts and topics in relation to the open educational resources (OER) movement.

"Work-based learning (WBL) is an educational strategy that provides students with real-life work experiences where they can apply academic and technical skills and develop their employability." It is a series of educational courses which integrate the school or university curriculum with the workplace to create a different learning paradigm. "Work-based learning deliberately merges theory with practice and acknowledges the intersection of explicit and tacit forms of knowing."

Concentric Sky is a software development company located in Eugene, Oregon. The company was founded in 2005 by Wayne Skipper, and grew to nearly 90 employees prior its sale to Instructure in April 2022. In 2015, Cale Bruckner was promoted to President of the company. Skipper continued to serve as CEO until the company's sale. Concentric Sky is the maker of Badgr and is a well-known contributor to the development of open technology standards focused on advancing equity outcomes for learners and workers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Online learning in higher education</span> Development in distance education that began in the mid-1980s

Online learning involves courses offered by primary institutions that are 100% virtual. Online learning, or virtual classes offered over the internet, is contrasted with traditional courses taken in a brick-and-mortar school building. It is a development in distance education that expanded in the 1990s with the spread of the commercial Internet and the World Wide Web. The learner experience is typically asynchronous but may also incorporate synchronous elements. The vast majority of institutions utilize a learning management system for the administration of online courses. As theories of distance education evolve, digital technologies to support learning and pedagogy continue to transform as well.

A qualifications framework is a formalized structure in which learning level descriptors and qualifications are used in order to understand learning outcomes. This allows for the ability to develop, assess and improve quality education in a number of contexts. Qualifications frameworks are typically found at the national, regional, and international level.

Open Educational Practices in Australia refers to the development, implementation and use of Open educational resources (OER), open access, open learning design, open policies, and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) to open up education in Australia.

Open educational resources in Canada are the various initiatives related to open education, open educational resources (OER), open pedagogies (OEP), open educational practices (OEP), and open scholarship that are established nationally and provincially across Canadian K-12 and higher education sectors, and where Canadian based inititatives extend to international collaborations.

References 

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Keevy, James; Chakroun, Borhene (2015). Level-setting and recognition of learning outcomes: The use of level descriptors in the twenty-first century (PDF). Paris, UNESCO. pp. 129–131. ISBN   978-92-3-100138-3.
  2. ↑ Butcher, N. 2011. A Basic Guide to Open Educational Resources. Vancouver, BC, Commonwealth of Learning, and Paris, UNESCO. 
  3. 1 2 3 UNESCO; Chakroun, Borhene; Keevy, James (2018). "Digital credentialing: implications for the recognition of learning across borders" (PDF). UNESCO.
  4. ↑ AACRAO. 2014. Groningen Declaration. The Future of Digital Student Data Portability. Defining the Digital Student Data Ecosystem. Third annual meeting of the GDN. Washington DC, AACRO
  5. 1 2 Surman, Mark (15 September 2011). "Mozilla Launches Open Badges Project". The Mozilla Blog.
  6. ↑ "Open Badges". Openbadges.org.
  7. ↑ Bjornavold, J. 2001. Making learning visible: identi cation, assessment and recognition of non-formal learning. European Journal of Vocational Training, Vol. 22, pp. 24–32.
  8. 1 2 CEDEFOP. 2009. European Guidelines for Validating Non-Formal and Informal Learning. Luxembourg, CEDEFOP. 
  9. ↑ CEDEFOP. 2014. Use of Validation by Enterprises for Human Resources and Career Development Purposes. Luxembourg, CEDEFOP. 
  10. ↑ Mozilla Foundation and Peer 2 Peer University. 2012. Open badges for lifelong learning. Exploring an open badge ecosystem to support skill development and lifelong learning for real results such as jobs and advancement. Developed in collaboration with the MacArthur Foundation. Working document. 
  11. ↑ "The blockchain certification at emlyon business school". BCdiploma . Retrieved July 19, 2022.
  12. ↑ "White Paper « Blockchain Digital Credentials of the University of Lille »" (PDF). Université de Lille - BCdiploma . Retrieved July 19, 2022.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.