Equity and Inclusion Workgroup 

Crucial dimensions to increase equity and inclusion include:

• High-quality navigational support and intrusive advising 
• Authentic assessment
• Supporting staff and learners in understanding and managing trauma 
• Providing financial aid to learners earning non-degree credentials 
• Developing credentials that learners and employers understand and trust

The importance of helping build broad awareness of smaller credentials and what they mean, particularly with messaging and messengers that will be relevant to people who now make choices not to engage in formal postsecondary learning so that they see this approach as relevant to them, and establishing the premise of lifelong work and learning. We need simple and clear language (as contrasted to what we typically do in postsecondary ed and public policy work), and the need for career navigators and advisors who have the skill and contextual credibility to help people make good choices.

Trust Workgroup

Relationship between Quality and Trust

• We make an assumption that if something is of quality, then people are going to trust it. These are related, but not equal.
• Quality is in the eyes of the beholder. Quality and trust must resonate with the stakeholder.
• What are those elements that need to be in place that signals somebody that there is quality?

That it is trustworthy?

Issues of Quality and Trust in Incremental Credentialing – Pain Points

• Lack of standards and metrics that evaluate and signal quality and trustworthiness
• Lack of good assessment tools
• Discrepancy between what the credential says it does and what the employer or next level

educator actually sees

• Credentials are not well defined
• Fit/misfit to the appropriate labor markets & consistency across labor markets (local vs national, variations within field, etc.)
• So many credentials – hard to distinguish – information overload

Elements that Support Trust

• The promise aligns to the experiences of the stakeholders – people really have the

competencies promised

• The results of a credential broadens skills, provides pathways to move to next level, to work, 
• Congruence between the needs assessment, what produced, how it is assessed, the outcomes from the credential, and the actual in the field experiences
• The results of the credential are verifiable
• Information on the credential is easily discoverable and understandable: well-organized,

transparent outcomes and reliable documentation of resulting competencies

• Connection across the stakeholders is consistent over time
• Common language, common understanding
• Learner ownership of acquired competencies

Dynamism of Trust

• Trust depends on the interrelationships of who is using the credential:
  • A provider of the credential that states a promise or warranty
  • An earner of the credential 
  • A user/stakeholder who needs to trust the credential
  • An entity that authenticates the credential

National Campaign Workgroup