1.
Making a Market for Competency-Based
Credentials: An Overview
1
First in a series of three webinars:
Webinar 2: Effective Employer Engagement
Oct. 8th
Webinar 3: What Can Colleges Do?
Nov. 5th

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3.
Today’s Presenters
Larry Good, CSW Roy Swift, ANSI Nancy Laprade, CSW
Moderator
Melodee Mabbitt, CSW

4.
Upcoming Report
Making a Market for Competency-Based
Credentials
Thanks to the Surdna Foundation for their support
of this important work

5.
Poll question
What kind of organization do you represent?
1. Educational institution
2. Public policy
3. Business/ professional organization
4. CBO
5. Business and Industry
6. Government
7. Other

6.
What is a competency-based
credential?
 Accurately assures competencies, based on skills
and knowledge of the holder
 Awarded based on demonstration of those
competencies
“what students should know and be able to do”
 Aligns with specific industry standards and
founded on the skills/competencies needed by
employers

7.
Context … the Big Picture
 Post-secondary credentials are crucial to
employment success
 Complex, fast-changing labor markets – workers
need to be able to adapt quickly
 Credentialing in the U.S. today is chaotic
 Hard to navigate
 Lacks common language
 Lacks quality assurance

8.
Our Premise…
 The U.S. desperately needs a more coherent
competency based credentialing system to ensure
that both businesses and job seekers get the most
out of post-secondary training
 The System needs to recognize learning acquired
through educational institutions and other non
education and training providers (especially “non-
credit”)
 Both formal and informal
 Other prior learning

9.
Why is this work important?
 Replaces seat-time (as a proxy for learning) with
competency-based curriculum and credentials that
are based on learning outcomes
 Provides more precise information about job
requirements and worker skills (including
academic and employability/soft skills)

10.
Why is this work important?
For employers…
 Better informs hiring, deployment and promotion decisions
 Ensures relevant educational programming to meet their
needs
 Provides ROI in hiring, retention and performance
For students/workers…
 Helps them better navigate career pathways and provides
proof of their skills and knowledge
For educators…
 Helps them align their curricula with industry requirements

11.
What is the current state of play in
competency-based credentialing?
1. Varying levels of usage by various industries – along
a continuum
2. Widely used credentials have strong employer
backing
3. Inconsistent quality

12.
What is the current state of play in
competency-based credentialing?
4. Portability and transparency -- key challenges
5. Promising models of stackable systems
6. Employers looking for “cross-functional” skills and
“systems-thinking”

13.
What is the current state of play in
competency-based credentialing?
7. Barriers to bringing to scale
8. No comprehensive policy framework

14.
Current State of Play…
What does this mean in a nutshell?
 Competency-based credentialing as a concept
resonates widely
 Large-scale adoption and use needs:
 Transparency (common language, registries)
 Interoperability (quality assurance, data infrastructure)
 Making the Return on Investment clear to employers,
job seekers, and educators

15.
Building the Market: Five Key Elements
Ensuring Quality
Expanding use by
workers/students
Expanding use by
employers
Expanding use by
educators
Creating an
infrastructure to
help the credentials’
market flourish

16.
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17.
Ensuring Quality
Ensuring an on-going systematic interface with
stakeholders and the evolving body of
knowledge
 Maintaining Validity
Creation and use of validated assessment
instruments to measure competencies
 Competency Based Education
 Certificates
 Informal Learning
 Certifications

18.
Ensuring Quality
Current lack of oversight mechanisms in the
higher education system
 Accreditation focused primarily on the “degree”
 Need for more emphasis on “outcomes” rather
than process
 Education/Learning is often occurs outside
traditional educational institutions
 Professional societies
 Work site – contextual learning – worker learner

19.
Building the Market: Five Key Elements
Ensuring Quality
Expanding use by
workers/students
Expanding use by
employers
Expanding use by
educators
Creating an
infrastructure to
help the credentials’
market flourish

20.
Expanding Use by Workers/Students
 Show the link between credentials and
employment
 Accelerate stackability and bundling to support
career pathways
 Integrate “employability skills” (foundational) into
credentials
 Workplace competencies
 Academic competencies
 Personal effectiveness competencies

21.
21

22.
Building the Market: Five Key Elements
Ensuring Quality
Expanding use by
workers/students
Expanding use by
employers
Expanding use by
educators
Creating an
infrastructure to
help the credentials’
market flourish

23.
Expanding Use by Employers
Goal: Employers must view credentials as
meaningful to their competiveness and
bottom line and use them for hiring
 Document ROI
 Involve all levels of employees within
participating firms
 Involve industry associations and consortia
 Use sector partnerships to expand efforts

24.
Building the Market: Five Key Elements
Ensuring Quality
Expanding use by
workers/students
Expanding use by
employers
Expanding use by
educators
Creating an
infrastructure to
help the credentials’
market flourish

25.
Expanding Use by Educators
 Engage employers as full partners
 Utilize methodologies to ensure that all key
competencies related to job tasks and
employability/ soft skills are identified
 Work with sector partnerships
 Meet students where they are
 Provide opportunities for applied learning
experiences
 Focus on credential related outcomes

26.
Building the Market: Five Key Elements
Ensuring Quality
Expanding use by
workers/students
Expanding use by
employers
Expanding use by
educators
Creating an
infrastructure to
help the credentials’
market flourish

27.
Creating an infrastructure to help the
credentials market flourish
 Shared language
 Quality assurance
 Consumer information

28.
Creating an infrastructure to help the
credentials market flourish
 Policy changes (institutional, state, accreditors,
Federal)
 Alignment of efforts
 Bottom-up and top-down strategies
 Maximize the use of technology

29.
Poll: What area of this work is most
important/relevant to you and your work?
 Ensuring the quality of credentials
 The role of employer engagement
 How do educators need to change the way they
develop curriculum and credentials?
 How do we determine ROI?
 Enhancing stackability and portability
 The role of credentials in career navigation/ career
pathways
 Policy framework including use of data/metrics

30.
Closing Thoughts
Competency-based credentials can be a game
changer
 Reduce duration of job transitions for workers
 Increase productivity of employers
 Strengthen U.S. competitiveness
What’s needed? A collaborative effort of many
to build the needed infrastructure and to grow
the market to scale
Build on what already is working

31.
Questions?

32.
Next Webinar
Making a Market for Competency-Based
Credentials: Effective Employer Engagement
October 8- 1:00 – 2:15 ET
Presenters:
 Brent Weil, Senior Vice President, Manufacturing
Institute, NAM
 Troy Nutter, Manager, Operational Training, Puget
Sound Energy
 Keith Bird, CSW