Open Futures for Micro-credentialing :sync:

Lena Patterson (eCampusOntario), Tannis Morgan (Vancouver Community College), Deborah Arnold (AUNEGe (French Digital University for Economics, Management))

Micro-credentialing has recently become a hot topic in policy and education. To many, this emphasis on granular recognition of skill and competency-based learning seemed to emerge overnight, caused principally by the economic, technological, social, and political shifts of an international public health crisis. However, alternative forms of recognition have deep roots in open education, open source technology and systems, and open practice. From this perspective, micro-credentials can be considered the current expression of what has been an ongoing effort to improve education across the lifespan. Many decades of research and thought leadership in alternative pathways, self-directed learning, gamification, and lifelong learning have, and will continue to, contribute to the evolution of this field. Developments such as open recognition, qualifications registries, and the laddering of MOOC offerings into formal programs further extend this landscape.

This session seeks to engage the global open education community in a visioning session to sharpen the focus on openness in micro-credentialing activity and guide open approaches to policy and practice at both the regional and global level. Examples of open micro-credentialing approaches will be shared and participants will be asked to contribute to a co-creation activity to generate a set of principles that are grounded in the deep experience of the open education community.

References:

http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/4529/5269

Open Education Handbook / Open Badges (2018). https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Open_Education_Handbook

Extended abstract: OE_Global_2021_paper_119.pdf 📄


Webinar Information

This presentation is part of Webinar 24 Building capacity, Developing supportive policy, Facilitating international cooperation taking place in your local time .

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UNESCO OER Action Area: Building capacity, Developing supportive policy, Facilitating international cooperation

Language: English

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Presentation Recording

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Hi everyone! We are looking forward to our visioning session later today! Our session activity today is inspired by the work of Lou Mycroft. In September, Lou delivered a wonderful keynote at the ALT conference that I’m pleased to share if anyone is interested in doing any pre-work:

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And here is a link to our slides for the community as well. Can’t wait to see you all to talk open values! Open Futures for Microcredentials - Google Slides

And a link to Beverley Oliver’s work towards common microcredential language: https://www.edubrief.com.au/uploads/4/5/0/5/45053363/draft_unesco_report_microcredentials_13_sept_21.pdf

Thank you so much to everyone that joined @tannismorgan @DebJArnold and I for a visioning session on open futures for microcredentialing. We asked our participants to engage in two activities. Recording the results of those activities here.

Activity One: What are your open values?

Sharing
Accessible
equity
Generosity
Transparency
openness
Caring
transparency
sharing
innovating
collaborating
Reciprocity
cooperative vs competitive
empathy
inclusivity
togetherness
Climate
Climate education
Reputation - networks - trust

Activity Two: Situate your values in an activity statement. For example: What might (ACTIVITY) look like as a practice of (VALUE)

What might PLAR/RPL look like as a practice of equity?
What might assessment look like as a practice of equity?
What might the approach to micro-credential policy look like as a practice of togetherness?
What might accessibility look like as a practice of transparency?
What might recognition look like as a practice of respect?
What might assessment look like as a practice of generosity?
What might accessibility look like as a practice of transparency?
What might co-creation look like as a practice of care?

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Thanks for leading such a thoughtful activity that produced these statements, it’s causing a lot of mind ripples.

1 Like

I love ripple effects! Reminds me of @verenanz and co.'s presentation today too.