The global skills gap and lack of a verified volunteering capacity for pandemics and catastrophes, amongst other factors, have compelled higher education to consider validated alternative credentials. However, alternative credentials are in the infancy stage, so universities are tailoring frameworks and curricula in the absence of a global standardization. Recently, calls to develop “soft”/non-technical skills like empathy among healthcare students are increasing. However, the current healthcare non-technical skills curricula do not account for the clinical aspects as they have originated from aviation programs adopted since the 1970s after high-profile plane crashes were mainly attributed to errors in non-technical skills. The aim of this paper is to address all these gaps by performing curriculum analysis, design, development, and implementation to lay the foundation for subsequent research to evaluate the outcomes. The developed curriculum was offered in an alternative credential format for a pilot group of seven undergraduate medical imaging students. This paper describes the development and implementation of five pedagogical interventions, and the subsequent paper shall review seven assessment and evaluation tools and requirements related to competency within entrustable medical imaging professional tasks. This paper is unique as we are unaware of any publications on deployed or awarded alternative credentials combining technical and non-technical skills within entrustable professional tasks. As such, the work presented can provide educators with practical curriculum development approaches to address the educational paradigm shifts.

Despite the wealth of research on full credentials assessments, standardized approaches are still scarce. This is even more threatening to the acceptance of higher education alternative digital credentials. To address this threat, validated and transparent assessments and evaluation processes are of paramount importance. This study is a continuum to our previous review on the pedagogical program analysis, design, development, and implementation. This paper reviews, assesses and evaluates the alternative digital credential offering case study. We review the development and administration of seven requirements and assessment tools used to evaluate students’ performance and use Kirkpatrick’s model to evaluate the effectiveness of the alternative credential offered. The predominantly clinical-based assessment tools and assessment decision criteria are reviewed in detail in this paper, allowing educators to leverage the outcome of this work. Results: The reviewed alternative digital credential case study in the human thorax and extremities from medical imaging has achieved Kirkpatrick level three, as evident in results, particularly from clinical assessments and clinical site viva-voce. When introducing a new competency-based assessment, professional standards can be used as a reference point to develop Behavioral Marker System rubrics. The Ebel method in calculating the cut score, which reflects expert judgment, should be considered when developing competency-based rubrics. Standardization of at least the top common technical and NTS is possible when researchers consider international collaboration by publishing comprehensive methodologies, frameworks, and results. This paper is unique as we are unaware of any publication on alternative digital credentials combining medical imaging and technical and non-technical skills within entrustable professional task assessment, verification, and program evaluation.