In July, AACRAO announced that it had joined as a founding member of the Credential Futures Coalition alongside 1EdTech, CBEN, and UPCEA. This coalition is a
formation of non-profit stakeholders that are working to develop a scalable, resilient, and sustainable ecosystem to support learner-worker mobility with a focus on career-relevant skills and credentials. With common goals to cultivate the development
and adoption of the associated Comprehensive Learner Record (CLR) / Learner and Employment Record (LER) tools, the organizations that have joined the Credential Futures Coalition all represent important constituencies in advancing the CLR/LER and
share the common desire to support the learner and to assist them with the expression of their verified learning experiences.
Upon the formation of this coalition and soon after the initial kick-off meeting held in June of this year, the Credential Futures Coalition immediately began exploring ways in which the participating organizations can collaborate to
achieve their goals. A result of this exploration, coupled with the aspiration to develop a 5-10 year vision for the future of credentials, is the identification of the pilot projects that are most important among all stakeholders and that should
be pursued in the immediate term. The coalition held a follow-up meeting in September in which there was consensus on proceeding with some of the most important aspects of this work, including:
Best practices for embedding equity: All leaders in CLR/LER agree that equity is of utmost importance and now is the moment to proactively create conditions that will help stakeholders lead with and because of equity efforts.
Measuring credential value: Stakeholders agree on the importance of developing a framework that leverages skills as the currency of value for credentials.
Demonstrate a sample exemplar career-ready credentialing program: Credential Futures Coalition members acknowledge that their shared expertise and products can produce and share an exemplar career-ready program to help the academic community adopt
CLR/LER as part of the competency-based curriculum evolution.
Though these are just a few ways in which the Credential Futures Coalition intends to be a leader in this space, they highlight the agreement on the foundational elements needed to help guide higher education institutions toward the future of
academic record practices.
Additionally, in support of these efforts being ushered forward by the Credential Futures Coalition, AACRAO remains committed to the partnership with the T3 Innovation Network - a network of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation that is exploring the emerging technologies and standards in the talent marketplace to create more equitable and effective learning and career pathways. Through this partnership, AACRAO
is participating in a project to develop a PDF transcript conversion utility to structure the academic information to CLR/LER compatible data standards (e.g., 1EdTech CLR data standard). This project aims to create scalable and broadly applicable
structures enabling PDF data to contribute to a student's comprehensive learner record and/or learner and employment record.
Though just getting started, there is already a palpable excitement among coalition members for the opportunities to collaborate and learn from each other’s shared journeys in advancing equitable learner-worker mobility. AACRAO is honored
to be a founding organization of this important coalition and is honored to serve as the voice of our members in this visionary evolution of academic records.
If you have not already, we invite you to join
AACRAO’s CLR/LER Community of Practice. By joining this community, you will receive all relevant updates and have priority access to learning and engagement opportunities available through this community.