Page 21 - Campus Technology, January/February 2019

VIRTUAL ROUNDTABLE
“We’ve known for a long time that many of our students sample credits from several institutions while working on a degree. Traditional universities have rules that make goal achievement in this way difficult if not impossible.”
— Theresa Rowe, Oakland University
Leon: Our Arts and Humanities dean would remind us that it is the Arts (culture, creation, etc.) that drives much of what goes on in the world, so perhaps it is best to em- phasize STEAM — though I totally understand why we talk about STEM so much. I am sure that most of us are prioritiz- ing working with P-12 to raise awareness to help support STEM, especially women in STEM. This is so important, and in the California Central Valley, we definitely see the need to raise this type of awareness.
4) Certificates/Credentials
Rowe: We’ve known for a long time that many of our students sample credits from several institutions while working on a degree. Traditional universities have rules that make goal achievement in this way difficult if not impossible. Rules such as how many credits can be transferred in, how many transfer credits can count to a major, and the number of credits that must be taken at a home degree-granting institution all work against “orbiting” students. To reach these
students and help them achieve their goals, the transcript and degree need to be disconnected from a home university. Or we need to enable degree-granting organizations that accumulate credits from a variety of source institutions, verify the quality of the credits and award degrees, and perhaps do all of that without offering any courses as an organization. Blockchain may open that door; options like Blockcerts may provide that service. Another approach might be that the university outsources online learning components like marketing, instructional design and analytics, brokering several selected presenters/marketers (Learning House, iDesign, for example) for students and gathering the course completions. Maybe the future is two completely separate organizations: one that offers instruction (and there may be many), and a second that aggregates credits from a variety of instructional organizations and assembles them into some sort of credential (badge, certificate, transcript, degree).
Jett: With both parents and students (traditional and adult) focusing on outcomes related to the students’ imme-
diate career needs, the integration of certificates or other career-specific credentials will not only enhance the tradi- tional degree, but also — if done right — provide even greater understanding of the connection between degree course- work and actual work skills. I work at a liberal arts university, and for sure we focus on skills like communication, critical thinking, conflict resolution, etc. — and many students ad- mit to not always understanding why they must take some classes that don’t have “direct” implications to their planned career path. Imagine if we layered degree-specific certifica- tions and credentials on top of those courses, and students could graduate not only with a degree but also with specific competencies that can be documented through these addi- tional certifications, badges, etc.
Lueckeman: Here’s to 2019 tackling the problem of credit articulation and credentialing. It’s frustrating that schools have a federally mandated format to report grade data to the Clearinghouse but have not yet collaborated on a network to share this data with each other. Not only would it cut down on manual articulation and GPA calculation, but collaboration would benefit schools in a host of other ways — verified credentials and reverse credit reporting to retroac- tively award degrees being among the most obvious of them. MIT’s initiative and Arizona State University’s early work with Blockchain for credentials is something to watch in the coming year.4
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CAMPUS TECHNOLOGY | January/February 2019