Microcredentials - slideshare from Professor Michael Brown (Eire/Ireland)

Here is a slideshare from Professor Mike Brown's presentation on microcredentials picked up this morning via LinkedIn.

Although the information has a country slant (in this case Ireland) the information is relevant and easily contextualised to other national systems.

Slides 14 and 15 show a quadrant of the types of ways microcredentials may be useful. The axis are whether the credentials are credit bearing or not and whether they are 'bundled' or 'unbundled' which I take to be whether the credentials are part of a larger qualification or stand alone. Associated with microcredentials, is the notion of badging. The EU seems to be exploring this concept in a bid to provide badging with recognition and also to bring them into regulatory control.

To be relevant, both bundled and unbundled are options depending on individual learners/organisational/national needs. Whether bundled or not, stacking is still the prevalent approach of qualification systems to addressing the recognition of microcredentials.

The NZ Qualifications Authority recognises microcredentials. The details are found on this site. The register of microcredentials in NZ  show a collection registered by Otago Polytechnic, a private provider and a few Industry Training Organisations (ITOs). 

So some activity in this area as addition of microcredentials into the qualifications ecosystem is one way to be more agile in meeting future of work and fast changing industry needs. The challenge is to avoid a plethora of microcredentials whilst balancing the need to be flexible!