Credentials

The credentials environment grows more complicated by the day, but key questions help us understand why we need this book to help us grapple with those complexities: • Given the expansion in the variety of higher education credentials and in approaches to earning them, why are so many students disappointed with their post-secondary credentials?• Despite the proliferation of credentials tailored to specific careers, why do so many employers complain that the preparation of their new hires is inadequate? • Despite their investment in new programs meant to attract new enrollees, why are so many colleges and universities facing issues with student persistence, timely credential completion, and career success?The plan of the book reflects the authors’ practical aim. In the first of three parts, they offer a broad view of the credentials environment—how credentials work, how a proliferation in credentials has created an unprecedented array of educational choices, and why this abundance is a mixed blessing. In the second part, they focus on categories of credentials, from the associate degree to doctoral degrees to non-degree credentials. The book concludes with two chapters that consider the implications of the information the authors provide for leadership in volatile times: one discusses the importance of maintaining a priority on equity; the other offers 12 propositions for action. To help make the book useful, each chapter begins with a paragraph that summarizes the emphases to follow, and ends with a list of initiatives, i.e., “takeaways,” that leaders (and those attentive to what leaders are doing) should consider.

In the rapidly evolving landscape of higher education, where the acquisition of knowledge is a lifelong pursuit, educators and institutions are redefining the paradigms of learning through innovative approaches. Global Perspectives on Micro-Learning and Micro-Credentials in Higher Education delves into the intricate tapestry of contemporary education, where the convergence of advanced pedagogies and cutting-edge technologies is reshaping traditional boundaries. As the realms of chatbots, gamification, and hybrid learning intersect, a new era of holistic education emerges, seamlessly blending theoretical prowess with experiential wisdom. The book unfurls with meticulous exploration of pivotal themes, embracing the nuanced realms of instructional design, learning analytics, and library services tailored for the modern educational era. From the granular landscapes of microlearning to the macroscopic view of global teacher retention strategies, the book leaves no stone unturned. This book is a symphony of intellectual rigor, orchestrated to resonate with educators, administrators, researchers, and all stakeholders vested in the future of learning.

The need for information privacy and security continues to grow and gets increasingly recognized. In this regard, Privacy-preserving Attribute-based Credentials (Privacy-ABCs) are elegant techniques to provide secure yet privacy-respecting access control. This book addresses the federation and interchangeability of Privacy-ABC technologies. It defines a common, unified architecture for Privacy-ABC systems that allows their respective features to be compared and combined Further, this book presents open reference implementations of selected Privacy-ABC systems and explains how to deploy them in actual production pilots, allowing provably accredited members of restricted communities to provide anonymous feedback on their community or its members. To date, credentials such as digitally signed pieces of personal information or other information used to authenticate or identify a user have not been designed to respect the users’ privacy. They inevitably reveal the identity of the holder even though the application at hand often needs much less information, e.g. only the confirmation that the holder is a teenager or is eligible for social benefits. In contrast, Privacy-ABCs allow their holders to reveal only their minimal information required by the applications, without giving away their full identity information. Privacy-ABCs thus facilitate the implementation of a trustworthy and at the same time privacy-respecting digital society. The ABC4Trust project as a multidisciplinary and European project, gives a technological response to questions linked to data protection. Viviane Reding (Former Vice-president of the European Commission, Member of European Parliament)

The world of academic credentials is going through a rapid change that has seen the emergence of alternate digital credentials. Among these are micro-certificates, digital diplomas, and open digital badges, which provide a digital record of learning and have the possibility of not only altering the landscape of academic credentials but also transforming the relationship between institutions of higher education, their learners, and society. As institutions turn their attention to alternate digital credentials, it is important to learn from what others have experienced. Innovations in the Design and Application of Alternative Digital Credentials identifies innovative examples of the use of alternate digital credentials to validate specific skills within an existing academic program or on their own. Alternate digital credentials may be how specific skills (hard or soft) are validated with an emphasis on their relationship to enhance employability and recognition within an industry. Covering a wide range of topics such as micro-credentials, badge-driven learning, and traditional credentials, this handbook is ideal for researchers, students, academicians, and administrative decision makers, as well as those who support and finance learning systems and theories and those already involved in the design and application of alternate digital credentials at the post-secondary level.

This edited volume provides insight into how digital badges may enhance formal, non-formal and informal education by focusing on technical design issues including organizational requirements, learning and instructional design, as well as deployment. It features current research exploring the theoretical foundation and empirical evidence of the utilization of digital badges as well as case studies that describe current practices and experiences in the use of digital badges for motivation, learning, and instruction in K-12, higher education, workplace learning, and further education settings.

This book addresses an important topic in higher education: credential fraud. This includes, but is not limited to, fake degrees, diploma mills, admissions fraud, and cheating on standardized admissions tests. The book directly addresses fake and fraudulent credentials in higher education. It explores transcript tampering and fraud in varsity athletics and discusses lazy practices in the higher education hiring processes that open the door for professors without proper credentials to get jobs in post-secondary institutions. The book also discusses how technology is being used to stop the proliferation of fake and fraudulent credentials in a variety of ways, including blockchain technology.