UPCEA Updates

By Amy Heitzman

UPCEA members are often the advocates and aggregators for credential innovation on their campuses, as those flexible learning opportunities are often noncredit or certificate-centric, and usually online, avenues pioneered by our online and professional community. To help institutions better advocate for the resources needed for a successful, holistic micro-credentialing strategy, UPCEA engaged in a grant-funded project entitled Building Capacity, Expanding Pathways: Accelerating the Growth of Credential Innovation, which focused on research and peer mentoring for a consortium of ten UPCEA members to build credential-building capacity, specifically the co-creation of a new credential with an employer. 

The results of the project’s benchmarking and custom research were released in early 2024. Released in August is the culminating report, a Playbook for Higher Education: Building Capacity, Expanding Pathways: Accelerating the Growth of Credential Innovation, that includes actionable insights and case studies from ten institutions which captures their varied approaches to engaging with employers to co-create an industry-validated micro- or alternative credential. As each consortium member’s context—mission, audiences, regional needs, funding models, governance practices, etc.—differ, the playbook offers an opportunity for institutions to mix and match elements of these case studies, to equip them with distinct examples of credential innovation that can meet their own unique place in the landscape. 

From the playbook, UPCEA offers the following actionable items:

1. Microcredentials should be part of the strategic program portfolio for all institutions of higher education. Additionally, institutions should resource their microcredential activities appropriately for sustainability and growth. 
2. Program ideation and development should routinely include employers and corporate partners. Employer and corporate partnerships create buy-in and can cultivate demand for the credentials as well as help market the offerings. 
3. Institutions should determine the right business model for their microcredential portfolios, and include the revenue from microcredentials as part of their portfolio to ensure sustainability. 
4. Further, they should have one tracking system for the entire portfolio of microcredential offerings, along with one system that keeps track of gross and net revenue.

In follow up conversations held with UPCEA members and via CORe, UPCEA’s member networking platform, I and several others offer an emerging set of practices to move the field forward and support institutions as they engage businesses to develop workforce-related microcredentials: 

• Institutions are at varying stages of progress with regard to their work in microcredentials, and moving from design or planning to implementation can be challenging for many. The UPCEA Credential Maturity Index (CMI) is a self-assessment tool that can help institutions identify areas of strengths to lean into, and areas of need for which they can advocate for resources to address.
• The lack of common nomenclature for the various forms of credentials can often be a stumbling block for institutions and employers alike.  As a first step in credential exploration and program development, it is critical for institutions to define their own taxonomy and nomenclature.  This structure will ground your work and assist in communication across your institution and with your employer partners.  This can also help serve as a foundation for pathways from non-credit credentials to credit bearing programs. (Stacy Chiaramonte, UPCEA).
• Institutions struggle with university-to-business outreach to effectively engage employers and corporate partners in microcredential work. One way to begin to create engagement and employer support is via mechanisms like advisory councils or consultations with subject matter experts (Javier Motta-Mena, Arizona State University, CORe, 2024).
• Further, a skin-in-the-game approach, wherein an employer’s current and future employees are included as consumers of a microcredential is a valued tactic, moreso if they can be involved with evaluation of pilot credentials, before expanding to larger markets (Tonya Amankwatia, North Carolina A&T, CORe, 2024).
• To foster a more cohesive institutional approach, consider creating credential development training modules to support stakeholders in developing successful, high quality microcredentials, which can serve to increase scale, efficiency, and consistent user experience, as well as help market these efforts within the campus. Bonus points if you badge the creators, to help them become invested in these approaches as a learner and a leader (Noah Geisel, University of Colorado Boulder, CORe, 2024).
• Relatedly, partnering with your institution’s marketing unit to support visual design and architecture for a badging schema can help with internal and external promotion and adoption, and even technological considerations for digital credential programs and initiatives (Matt DiPirro, Southern New Hampshire University, CORe, 2024).
• In terms of design, iterative, flexible processes (student feedback, focus groups, etc.) can help ensure varied learner backgrounds are accommodated and microcredential content offers contextual relevance across diverse audiences (April Wolf, Purdue University, CORe, 2024).
• Research is essential to launching any new credential initiative, including market data and competition/saturation analyses. This allows for institutional understanding of program viability and potential. Investing resources upfront in research can pay significant dividends. (Bruce Etter, UPCEA).
• Lastly, and perhaps paramount to any credential innovation work, UPCEA believes that the office that oversees online and professional continuing education should be centrally organized and academically decentralized for its noncredit and microcredential work as well as for its for-credit programs.

Looking ahead, UPCEA is engaged in a grant-funded project that will allow UPCEA to drive adoption of new models for engaging employers in credential innovation, leveraging lessons learned in the playbook noted above, and a “Peer Learning Leader” model to help members expand their capacities for U2B. Applications are invited before October 7 for nominations of members who excel in employer engagement to act as Peer Learning Leaders. Relatedly, the grant Co-Principal Investigators will be hosting an informal question and answer session at Convergence 2024: Credential Innovation in Higher Education, in the Vermillion Room, on Tuesday, October 1 at 2pm CT. Later in the calendar year, additional funded opportunities for UPCEA members to participate in a pilot training module as well as a peer mentoring cohort will also be shared. 

Amy Claire Heitzman, Ph.D., serves as Deputy CEO and Chief Learning Officer for UPCEA. In these capacities, Amy supports the day-to-day operations of staff and the delivery of organizational and departmental strategic planning, as well as oversees budget development, content delivery, and member engagement for the association’s broad events and programming portfolio and professional development. Prior to joining UPCEA, Amy served as the inaugural Executive Director of Continuing and Professional Education at Southern Methodist University (SMU). Amy holds a Ph.D. in Higher Education Administration (The University of Texas at Austin), an M.Ed. (SMU) and an M.A. (University of Chicago), and a B.A. (University of Michigan). She also holds graduate certificates in Nonprofit Leadership, Marketing, Master Technology Teacher, and Women and Gender Studies.