Microcredentials: Credentials at the Speed of Business

Microcredentials can make it much easier for workers to gain and validate the skills they need to evolve professionally, but clarity and transparency are necessary for those microcredentials to have value. 

What Are Microcredentials? 

Postsecondary education institutions, training providers, professional associations and certification bodies are among the many types of organizations that have begun issuing microcredentials. These microcredentials are offered in addition to the other credentials previously issued, creating more opportunities for upskilling the workforce.  

Despite the large number of organizations issuing microcredentials (and presumably the even larger number of microcredentials awarded), there is very little transparency around or understanding of what the term microcredential means. In fact, a recent survey of U.S. adults revealed that three in ten do not know what a microcredential is, further highlighting this lack of clarity about the term microcredentials.   

This confusion likely reflects the significant variability in the definition of microcredentials among issuers. Workcred recently completed a scan examining definitions of microcredentials at colleges and universities, professional associations and certification bodies. This scan showed that definitions of microcredentials vary considerably, even among similar types of institutions, and definitions were often quite broad. For example, looking only at U.S. public universities, microcredential definitions mentioned characteristics like noncredit, credit, cocurricular, extracurricular, in-demand skills, work-based learning and experiential learning. Surprisingly, many issuers have no formal definition of a microcredential, even as they issue them.  

Having done this scan and speaking with individuals from different types of credential issuers about microcredentials, Workcred believes that issuers are purposely seeking broad definitions for microcredentials because these credentials are meeting three critical goals for the issuers:  

1. Microcredentials can be developed more quickly than other credentials

2. Microcredentials offer significantly more flexibility than other credentials  

This blog will focus on the first and second of these goals.  

Microcredentials Can Be Developed Quickly, Provide Organizations with Significant Flexibility and Support Innovation  

Quick and flexible. Microcredentials are becoming the vehicle for organizations to develop and issue credentials that meet the speed of business. For most higher education institutions, the governance processes for developing new degree or certificate programs typically results in six to twelve months of lag time before the credential can be issued. In contrast, microcredentials can typically be developed and issued in a few weeks to a few months, sometimes with little approval needed beyond a faculty member’s support. Currently, there is no programmatic accreditation for microcredentials needed, even those that are credit-bearing. While some institutions do have approval processes before being able to issue microcredentials, they are significantly less burdensome in both required time and approvals than other credentials.  

Similarly, certification bodies’ processes are reduced when developing a microcredential. While subject matter experts and practitioners are likely to be involved in their development, a microcredential may not require a formal job task analysis or accreditation, reducing development time. 

The lack of formal processes or less burdensome development and approval processes for microcredentials is a significant benefit to organizations that want to rapidly develop credentials. Having no definition or a broad definition of a microcredential—and not having to seek accreditation—offers organizations significant flexibility to structure and develop microcredential. It means that any experience, course, series of courses, assessment or activity can be represented by a microcredential if desired.  

For both types of credential issuers, these faster processes mean microcredentials can move at the speed of business and be responsive to changes in the skills the labor market demands. For this reason, microcredentials may be particularly suited to signal technical skills in rapidly changing industries. 

Innovative. The flexibility in the structure of a microcredential also means this credential supports innovation, which is reflected in its many and varied uses by credential issuers. One small sampling of microcredentials’ innovative use case is seen in this faculty survey data about what they view as the primary goals of a microcredential, where at least 20% of respondents listed the following: supporting lifelong learning, enabling student to improve employment and wages, recognizing cocurricular learning and achievement, supporting recruitment, supporting retention, recognizing extracurricular learning and achievement, updating or improving our curriculum and providing employee benefits. This variety in goals is also reflected when working-aged adults are asked about their motivations in seeking a microcredential; six different motivations were listed by 20% of respondents as one of their top two reasons for seeking a microcredential.  

Credential issuers are using microcredentials to meet their goals and respond to learner motivations. For example, enrolled students, faculty, staff and alumni of the University of Texas (UT) system campuses can access microcredentials through Coursera’s Career Academy at no cost to themselves. While embedding a microcredential within a degree program is not itself a new approach, the scale of the UT system (240,000 learners) and breadth of microcredentials offered (35+ professional certificates) provide an unprecedented opportunity for innovation through this partnership. Indeed, UT San Antonio has already used the partnership to incorporate a project management certificate into their humanities, modern languages and women’s studies coursework to facilitate their entry into the workforce after graduation. This approach allows learners to pursue a major they are passionate about while ensuring they have in-demand project management skills alongside learning developed through their majors. In this case, UT San Antonio is using a microcredential to support their learners in entering a competitive job market.  

For some certification bodies, microcredentials provide many of the valued characteristics (such as rigorous assessment of industry-validated competencies) of a certification with a focus on skills, rather than an occupation. For example, the Risk and Insurance Management Society, Inc.® (RIMS®) has developed the RIMS-Certified Risk Management Professional Federal Government® microcredential, which covers competencies unique and specific to enterprise risk management within the federal government environment (RIMS-CRMP-FED® 2018). This microcredential is meant to supplement the RIMS-Certified Risk Management Professional® certification (RIMS-CRMP®) by focusing on assessing competencies specific to public-sector risk management. This microcredential is an example of how certification bodies are using microcredentials to support individuals’ professional development in novel ways.  

Multiple Meanings and Purposes of Microcredentials Can Reduce Their Labor Market Value 

In fact, it is easier to define what a microcredential is not, rather than what it is. Even microcredentials that higher education institutions for traditional learning issue are being awarded for attending a single lecture or for completing a 15-credit-hour series of courses. This variability has one significant consequence: It makes it impossible for the term microcredential to clearly signal its value.  

Employers’ attitudes toward nondegree credentials reflect this confusion: Even as employers become increasingly familiar with nondegree credentials, when they see one on a resume, nearly half are unsure of the quality of education it represents (46%) and/or unsure of the skills and competencies acquired (42%). And 31% of employers are unsure of what that credential represents.  

Many credential issuers rely on a technological solution to these signaling and transparency problems. They are issuing digital microcredentials in the form of badges, which can include detailed information about the skills, competencies and assessments a microcredential represents. Unfortunately, this solution cannot yet be implemented at scale, as a recent report confirms that hiring platforms used by many employers are unable to intake the metadata from digital credentials.  

This reality leaves individuals to signal their microcredentials on their resumes or online professional profiles and requires supervisors and hiring managers to have familiarity or value for specific microcredentials. For issuers from organizations that already have significant name brand recognition, this strategy may pay off—microcredentials their organizations issue will be associated with the quality their brand already represents. However, this effect may stifle competition instead of supporting it, as it will make it challenging for new organizations to compete with established organizational brands. In any case, since its flexibility is key to the use of microcredentials, this may be a problem that issuers are hesitant to address.