Capturing Student Achievement and Learning Pathways at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Abstract

In 2015, the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) recognized the need to capture knowledge, skills, and abilities acquired by students in both co-curricular and curricular endeavors not being captured in any identifiable way. The Vice President of Information Technology and Chief Information Officer desired to document competencies gained by students in the variety of contexts on campus and to track student, faculty, and staff achievements in a way that would both benefit each individual while also supporting the mission of the institution. This vision led to the adoption of a digital badging initiative resulting in a scalable process for implementing new badges throughout the university community. UMBC's digital badging program became the springboard for the institution's entrance into the Comprehensive Learner Record (CLR) realm whose objective is to capture all credentials earned by students, whether they be awarded before, during, or following their tenure at the institution.

Competency frameworks, alternative credentials and the evolving relationship of higher education and employers in recognizing skills and achievements

“…Furthermore, the very nature of CBE programs is the transparency of the competencies and related, measurable learning objectives to the assessments (Blackburn et al ., 2016). As Braxton et al . (2022), stated,With major corporations taking on the role as educational providers as well, higher education must reconsider its role and be open to partnerships with industry to both define new types of credentials while evolving their existing ones to support the requirements of lifelong learning.…”

“…Furthermore, the very nature of CBE programs is the transparency of the competencies and related, measurable learning objectives to the assessments (Blackburn et al, 2016). As Braxton et al (2022), stated, With major corporations taking on the role as educational providers as well, higher education must reconsider its role and be open to partnerships with industry to both define new types of credentials while evolving their existing ones to support the requirements of lifelong learning. This may include the consideration of adding new credentials beyond the degree and digital badges like micromasters or other microcredentials and online degrees to their portfolio that could be offered through massive open online course (MOOC) platforms like Coursera or edX (Gallagher, 2019).…”

“…Levels of achievements of competencies acquired during the academic program of study could only be gleaned through course grades in the traditional transcript and course descriptions. Alternative credentials have provided a mechanism to recognize skill acquisition with greater granularity and transparency than the traditional transcript can offer and a meaningful opportunity to document competencies gained in co-curricular spaces (Braxton et al ., 2022). As part of their work to integrate alternative credentials into the existing credentialing landscape, the Credential Engine has defined the credential types in Figure 1 below.…”

Providing engaging and relevant professional learning opportunities: an evaluation of the perceived efficacy of micro-credentials & digital badges upon K-12 educators in a large urban school district

“…Similar to an academic transcript, a Comprehensive Learner Record with micro-credentials and digital badges can contain stackable credentials, in which the core competencies of a specific credential are built upon one another to provide further value to a credential (Braxton et al, 2022). The learning of the foundational competencies of a content or skill is then enhanced by building upon those competencies to develop a stackable credential.…”

“…Learning can also occur through co-curricular activities, volunteer work, or other learning pathways to provide credentialing even outside of the classroom itself. The specific metadata behind a micro-credential and digital badge can be used to provide a more comprehensive perspective of the learner and how their experiences have enhanced their skillset (Braxton et al, 2022). The bundling of these micro-credentials and digital badges makes it possible to merge learning from an educational institution with that of a vendor or other educational pathway (Pelletier et al, 2021) which encourages learning through various entry points to access knowledge, outside of the traditional educational pathway (Bozkurt & Brown, 2022).…”