Exploring the Concept of Micro-Credentials
Micro-credentials, called ‘micro certificates’, encompass concise and targeted week-long courses. Employees primarily utilize them to acquire precise skill sets. These courses result in stacked credentials, forming a portfolio of digital badges or certificates.
Distinguished by their specificity, micro-credential courses bridge skill gaps often unincluded by traditional degrees due to the novelty of required expertise. Unlike conventional degrees or formal certificates, micro-credentials are compact, time-efficient, and hyper-focused, offering a more cost-effective and specialized learning experience.
These courses are in various educational institutes, including universities, industry organizations, and accredited online platforms.
Benefits of Micro-Credentials for Educators
Micro-credentials enhance teaching strategies and methods. It is efficient with its specificity, making its courses engaging and doable for learners. Here are the other benefits educators can receive by creating micro-credential courses.
Meeting the Demand for Skills-Based Hiring
According to a report from Coursera, 90% of graduates and students believe industry micro-credentials will make them more likely to be hired. Even 88% of employers believe that professional certificates strengthen a candidate’s application, as 77% already use skills-based hiring.
With the staggering statistics for micro-credentials, educators would be wise to meet its demand.
Enhancing Teaching Strategies Through Micro-Credentialing
Micro-credential courses typically comprise 4-8 lessons. They are designed to accommodate learners who are most likely employed. Because of the “chunking” of the lessons, learners can dedicate a few weekly hours to acquiring new expertise. Tailored for rapid up-skilling, these courses prioritize evidence-based resources to ensure the delivery of high-quality knowledge. Each lesson is followed by short quizzes, facilitating continual learning tracking and retention of acquired insights.
Micro-Credentials: A Tool for Continuing Education to Adopt
Micro-credentials can assist educators in creating better-continuing education (CE) courses. Due to innovations constantly changing the industries, Sheila LeBlanc, associate vice-president for CE at the University of Calgary, states in an interview:
“Micro-credentials and continuous learning are critical for almost every worker’s future. It doesn’t matter if you are a nurse, an engineer, a scientist, or an artist. When I finished my undergraduate degree in marketing, social media, and digital marketing didn’t exist. Today’s need to continuously learn new skills and competencies, too, or they won’t be employed for long!”
She agrees that learners and employers must become partners in creating accessible, research-based, and work-related learning opportunities, a mentality required for micro-credentialing.
“Continuing Education teams have the tools, technology, and processes in place to act as a launching point for micro-credential practices across the academy.”
Utilizing SimpleCert®: Streamlining Micro-Credential Management
Micro-credential courses allow educators to create efficient, evidence-based, and engaging lessons for many learners who wish to be employed immediately. These learners would often look for accredited courses online that they can access at home or on their smartphones to complete at their convenience.
You may benefit from automated micro-credential management if you’re an online educator. SimpleCert® is a systemic tool for digital certificate management. By linking your SimpleCert® account to your website or test-taker platform, your students can automatically receive their digital certificates as soon as they are done.
Because SimpleCert® is a comprehensive Certificate Management System, it can manage all aspects of your certification program. All certificates you award are automatically stored within your account, allowing for effortless management and retrieval. Your students can access their stacked credentials anytime via a direct download link, or for monthly SimpleCart® subscribers via individual recipient portals.
See our digital credentials features to learn more