Reviewing the Research
Exploring existing frameworks will help me to consider key elements for my own microcredential evaluation framework. I believe that digital badges should carry meaning that is easily recognizable by employers. To be forthcoming, I don’t think the current status of microcredentials reflects any kind of consistency in quality. For this reason, I am excited to develop my own evaluation method.
First, let’s look at some of the existing frameworks accessible online by some of the most popular, reputable platforms as well as government education agencies.
I should add that I have chosen to use the word “platform” to be more open in my thinking as I believe “vendor” is probably more appropriate based on my experience so far. As you may have seen in my earlier blog posts, finding free microcredentials for K-12 educators was a challenge for me. Most of the digital badges I found online were offered at a cost, sometimes very expensive, so microcredentialing is definitely a market.
For that reason, I believe evaluations by educational agencies may be more reliable. However, all existing frameworks can contribute valid criteria toward a standardized evaluation system.
| Framework | Key Aspects of Microcredentials | Digital Badges or Certificates | Examples of Partnering Organizations | Other Information |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Digital Promise (Digital Promise, 2024b) | – Focused on single skill – Research-based – Personalized and self-paced – Learner must submit evidence – Rubric for scoring included | – Digital badges verifiable via the Digital Promise platform – Transferable within the Open Badge system – Sharable but privacy of credentials is controlled by the learner | -Appalachian State University – National Geographic – Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts & Culture | “Digital Promise’s mission is to spur innovation in education and improve the opportunity to learn for all through technology and research.” (Digital Promise, 2024a) |
Credly by Pearson (Training, 2024) | – Courses assess concrete, measurable learning goals – Results analysis – Provides best practices and industry benchmarks | – Online verification of digital badges – Verified by the Open Badge system | – Adobe – Amazon – CVSHealth | Claims to be the largest and most interconnected network for digital credentials |
| digiLEARN: The Micro-Credentials Partnership of States (digiLEARN, 2024) | – high quality standards – personalized learning (formats, times, etc.) – focus on skills and knowledge to maximize teacher potential – requires assessment or demonstration of acquired knowledge or skillset – provides local, state, and national opportunities for teacher career advancement, acknowledgement, and/or rewards | The final report for North Carolina’s plan, in specific, does not mention certificates nor digital badges. However, it suggests that teachers should receive continuing education credits as well as financial incentives for completion of state-approved microcredentials. (McDiarmid et al., 2023) | – National Education Association (NEA) – Carnegie Corporation – Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation | States involved: – Arkansas – North Carolina – South Carolina – Wyoming |
| Michigan Department of Education (Rehak & Hickey, 2017) | – ability to build to higher skills with various badge levels – standards-aligned – from reputable source – learners have options in demonstrating competencies – competencies align to employee duties | – Suggests that digital badges should be award (permanently so) using a badging system – Strongly advises that students receive direct academic credit as opposed to just digital credentials | n/a | This resource includes a very useful rubric with some requirements that I have not seen from other organizations, such as the requirement to offer varying levels of badging within a skillset or learning objective. (Rehak & Hickey, 2017, pp. 8-9) |
| EdTech Digest (Coyle, 2024) | – should be able to be scaled from small, local usage up to international usage – must be user-friendly – ease of storage and management by learner – clear about job-relevancy – keep up with the changing skillset market | – Digital badges – Preferably stored in “digital wallet” | – 1EdTech Consortium | While this article is just a blog post, I found its points, especially regarding scaling and ever-evolving new skillsets, to be valuable and fresh. |
In addition to the information provided in Table 1, I want to share a graphic (Figure 1) that I found interesting from the North Carolina plan. While this image doesn’t specifically lay out criteria for evaluation, I appreciate the description of a process for evaluation.
Having spent some time with the resources here, my next step will be developing my own framework rubric. The literature that I reviewed has brought some areas to my attention, such as scalability, which I would have overlooked otherwise (Coyle, 2024), so I am grateful for having looked at some other examples of frameworks.
References
DigiLEARN. (2024). digiLEARN. https://www.digilearn.org/nc-partnership
Digital Promise. (2024). Micro-credentials. Digital Promise. https://microcredentials.digitalpromise.org/
Digital Promise. (2024). Micro-credentials. Digital Promise. https://digitalpromise.org/initiative/educator-micro-credentials/
McDiarmid, G., Berry, B., Barringer, M., North Carolina Partnership for Micro-Credentials Task Force, Best, M., McBride, A., & Tomberlin, T. (2023). Transforming educator learning in North Carolina: Realizing the potential of micro-credentials. North Carolina Partnership for Micro-Credentials Task Force. https://loriebell.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/3f35c-micro-credentials_report_final_2_2_23.pdf
North Carolina Partnership for Micro-Credentials. (2024). digiLEARN. https://www.digilearn.org/nc-partnership
Rehak, & Hickey. (2017). Digital badges: Principles for recognizing learning and badge face credibility for employers and colleges. https://www.michigan.gov/-/media/Project/Websites/mde/Year/2017/03/29/Digital_Badges_principles_and_standards_rubric_9212015.pdf?rev=0da3e9686b2449ba82536827a97dc7d3
Coyle, R. (2024, May 9). Increasing the value of digital credentials. EdTech Digest. https://www.edtechdigest.com/2024/05/09/increasing-the-value-of-digital-credentials/
Training and development providers. (2024). https://info.credly.com/solutions/training-and-development-providers
Lorie Bell 
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