Making Sense of Professional Credentials

As workers seek to boost their skills to reach their career goals, credential opportunities can be found nearly anywhere. In fact, it’s reported there are more than one million unique credentials offered in the United States, including outside higher education institutions. In this credential chaos, education administrators have an obligation to ensure their institutions’ credentials have real relevance in the labor market.

While a universal system that provides clarity to both employers and employees does not yet exist, experts at Western Governors University have created a structured theory for understanding skills and micro-credentials to create more transparency into what post-secondary credentials represent, and the value they hold for individuals, employers and education providers. 

WGU’s Unified Credential Framework helps address the ambiguity of the current credential landscape and is set up to authenticate credentials are relevant, verified, transparent and portable. The UCF is predicated on the use of skills as an underlying foundation.

Read more about this work in the International Journal of Information and Learning Technology.