Credential Engine, a nonprofit organization founded in 2016, aims to “create credential transparency, reveal the credential marketplace, increase credential literacy, and empower everyone to make more informed decisions about credentials and their value,” according to its mission statement.
Publish your credentials
With more than 300,000 confirmed credentials currently in the marketplace in the U.S. alone, finding information about credentials, their pathways, and their value is currently a complex and cumbersome process. Credential Engine has developed tools and services that can--for the first time--collect and connect information from all types of credentials in a common language and on a common platform called the Credential Registry. By populating the Credential Registry with information like a credential’s competencies, time to completion, quality assurance, employer preferences, and outcomes data, Credential Engine is allowing students, workers, educators, policymakers, and the public gain a deeper understanding of the value of a credential and the connections it has to various education and career pathways. This knowledge is powerful--to students looking for the best educational fit, to employers looking for the programs that will meet their hiring needs, and for educators looking to differentiate their programs from the others.
“This is a chance for institutions to set themselves apart from others in what they offer,” said Credential Engine Executive Director Scott Cheney.
Institutions can create a free account to publish their credentials to the Registry, and they can also use the data in the Registry to compare data across institutions at the credential level.
To make publishing easy, Credential Engine is rolling out a new publishing method that allows users to add data via a bulk upload tool. Plugging into the Credential Registry and adding institutional credential data can be done in just a few clicks with this new option.
Join Credential Engine on Wednesday, May 30, 2018, for the webinar "Deftly Adding Data to the Registry - New Ways to Publish,” available as either a morning or afternoon session (11 a.m. or 2 p.m. Eastern). The webinar will provide an overview and walk-through of the simple bulk upload method, allowing you to easily organize and import credentialing information in minutes.
AACRAO & Credential Engine
Credential Engine grew out of the Credential Transparency Initiative (CTI), an effort led by the George Washington University’s Institute of Public Policy (GWIPP), Workcred – an affiliate of the American National Standards Institute, and Southern Illinois University (SIU) Carbondale’s Center for Workforce Development with support from the Lumina Foundation. Working with higher education organizations such as AACRAO and ACE, as well as countless others, CTI researchers initiated the development of a centralized registry of credential information, a common credentialing language, and a credential search engine.
The work of Credential Engine aligns well with the goals of the AACRAO/NASPA: Association of Student Affairs Professionals Comprehensive Learner Record (CLR) project. The CLR Project, generously supported by the Lumina Foundation, will focus on the development and implementation of a single learner record across a broad number of American colleges and universities.
The CLRs seek to capture, record, and communicate learning when and where it happens in a student’s higher education experience. This includes learning outcomes from courses, program and degrees, as well as experience they have outside the classroom that help develop their career ready skills and abilities.
“The work of AACRAO, NASPA and Credential Engine represent critically needed bridges between those who seek post-secondary training and education to improve their lives and pursue their passions, those who provide that training and education, and those who seek trained, educated people for the workforce,” said Tom Green, Associate Executive Director of AACRAO and project lead for the CLR/CSR project.
Several of the institutions that were part of the first phase of the CLR project (formally the CSR project) are also engaged with Credential Engine. The overlap between these two projects is intentional and highlights work in these areas by some of America’s most innovative and forward-thinking colleges and universities.
“Today’s learners face a daunting task of trying to align their educational and learning history with programs that will provide them with the opportunity to build on their educational experiences and earn a credential that will advance them in their careers,” said Mike Reilly, Executive Director of AACRAO. “The challenge of trying to do this on your own is illustrated by the tremendous number of adults with some college and no degree or credential. The Credential Registry will assemble the array of available credentials in a learner friendly manner.”