ACE, AACRAO, EDUCAUSE and Credential Engine lead the way
on postsecondary data innovation
On Monday, 15 national postsecondary education
organizations signed a joint
statement of support for credential data transparency. The statement marks
a critical push by the higher education community to dismantle long-held data
silos and unlock the power of open data to better serve students.
In the statement, ACE, the American Association of
Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers (AACRAO), and EDUCAUSE encourage
their members to describe their credential offerings with common language and
house data in an open, cloud-based registry in order to empower students,
workers, employers, and policymakers to make more informed decisions about
credentials and their value.
“As we look to bolster public confidence in our higher
education system and improve student outcomes, colleges and universities should
embrace credential transparency principles,” said ACE President Ted Mitchell.
“These principles will be integral in ensuring that quality learning is
connected and counted.”
Recent years have seen explosive growth in the number and
types of credentials in the marketplace; new research from Credential Engine
reveals that over 730,000 unique credentials are now being offered in the U.S.
alone.
The statement highlights the importance of a
comprehensive digital registry where credentials of all types and the
knowledge, skills, abilities, and outcomes they represent can be easily
translated across systems. Credentials that can be compared across
institutions, states, and even international borders provide a unique opportunity
to tackle some of the industry’s most pressing issues around documentation,
recognition, transferability, and portability of learning across the learn and
work system.
The statement’s signees, find a full
list here, will kick off transparency efforts this year, with the
expectation to scale efforts as specific initiatives take shape, technologies
get connected to the Credential Registry, and opportunities to increase credential
transparency are identified.
Click
here to read the statement and click
here to find resources and learn more about how to commit to credential
transparency.