Recently Mike Severy — @MikeSevery posted a comment about graduation cords, then a few professional contacts were discussing surrounding issues on a Facebook thread. Somehow that thread managed to get to a point where I wrote: “micro-certification: the wave of the future my friend.” To which Joseph Ginese — @JoeGinese replied: “J Vincent Nix – nailed it. ”
We started discussing that concept, and well, Mike wanted to credit me with the term. I know I read it somewhere. Today I was asking a colleague — Clayn Lambert if we ran across that term in an article we both read. Clayn didn’t remember where we came up with the term, but we both use it when talking to each other; our conversations and messages to each other make up a large part of this post; a section of the text here is lifted directly from a Prezi that Clayn is creating as he listens to (my) rants on the subject. Joe and Mike, this post is in your collective honor.
What is micro=certification? Micro=certification (MC) is the process of providing certification and validation of knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSA) that an individual has acquired, but which is not limited to formal educational institutions, degrees, or transcripts.
A common term for an MC is a badge, similar to the merit badges used in many Boy- or Girl Scouting programs. A badge is designed to reflect KSAs associated with specific concepts, topics or interests. As clients complete related activities demonstrating competence or mastery of specific concepts, badges would be awarded to signify those accomplishments. Badges might be scalable, meaning they could issued for accomplishments as broad or specific as the issuer desires. Badges also allow for meta-cognitive recognition, meaning that additional badges can be awarded as clients obtain badges in several different areas, showing depth or breadth of growth.
Micro-certification is still an emerging practice; there are myriad opportunities to develop unique systems. MC systems would provide institution-unique certifications of any KSAs offered by the program. These certifications would contain embedded data and information that would help to verify where the certifications came from, how they were obtained, who authorized their issuance, and specifics about what the certifications represent.
Micro-certification, is a concept that a Workforce Training, General Education (or, *gasp* Career Services) department would manage. The team of the Successful Transitions and Retention Track (START) began playing with the idea of micro-certification while developing the core course of our program, Personal and Professional Effectiveness.
-While we would love to keep everyone that enters our program, and see each one earn a college degree, that won’t happen. The reality is that college isn’t for everyone at any given time. We began to wonder what would happen if we could award “badges” as micro-certifications for the parts of that “effectiveness” course that a person actually completed. We think employers would value those, and at least the participants would leave with something that might increase employability — whether or not college was right for them at that particular time.
The central concept of an MC is that it allows clients to obtain recognition, and more importantly, verified credentialing for KSAs without the need for formal (academic) educational processes. In essence, it allows clients to engage in learning just what matters, to hone the individually relevant skills and abilities needed for job applications, entrepreneurial experiences, and networking situations in a just-in-time environment. Thus, MCs represent the opportunity to create training and credentialing that is intensely personalized.
MCs allow students/clients to identify and control what they need to learn, for businesses and employers to address their current needs and cultivate a deep pool of qualified future employees, and for a training program to create an environment that is highly responsive, efficient, and relevant to the needs of its clientele.
The zoned analysis of the Effectiveness course is designed with micro-certification in mind. Think of it as non-trivial pursuit.
Each section of the zoned analysis would fit together like the pieces of the pie in one of my all-time-favorite games. Those four sections just outside the “core” (Career, Management, Academic, Leadership) would be areas of formal certification, but a participant could earn four “badges” on the way. Each “badge” would represent micro-certification in an area (e.g., Networking, Ethics, Teams, and Skills). Those would make up a badge each, and after completing all four, the person would receive a formal certificate in “Career” effectiveness. Note: the “Skills” section of the “pie” represents the five skills of Krumboltz’ Planned Happenstance theory.
This post is in danger of being too dense and too brief at the same time; I’ll leave the idea hanging out here and maybe we’ll get feedback and develop this into something real…