Incremental Credentials: These credentials capture learning as it is acquired along the learning pathway and formally recognize and connect that learning to a larger context. Incremental credentials can be non-credit or credit-bearing; undergraduate or graduate level; of any size, from small units of learning up through degrees. The purpose of incremental credentials is to ensure that learners are recognized for what they know and can do as they acquire the learning—and to make sure they obtain formal documentation of that learning.
Incremental Credentialing: The overall design and process used to develop and connect credentials to further learning and employment.
Learner Success: Success can be defined in many ways.
Learner Supports: A comprehensive range of services and resources that are delivered by the credential provider to enhance learners’ academic, personal, and career development. Learner supports aim to remove barriers along education and career paths and to foster an inclusive environment for learning and work. While advising professionals and offices are often seen as primary connectors to student supports, this work is not theirs alone. Administrators, staff, and faculty throughout the college community share responsibility for informing students about these resources and facilitating their access to them.
Wraparound Services: A term used to describe a package of high-priority services that research has shown to support learner success. These services include full or partial payment of tuition, books, and materials; frequent class meetings with a career counselor; frequent individual contacts with a career counselor; childcare voucher for hours spent in classes; one-time emergency assistance with rent or other expenses (provided on a case-by-case basis).
Credential As You Go has acquired three phases of funding to date. Lumina Foundation funded Phase I, resulting in the Incremental Credential Framework for testing. The Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education funds Phase II (Grant R305T210063), which focuses on rapid prototyping of and research on incremental credentials with a national campaign. An anonymous private donor fund at the Program on Skills, Credentials & Workforce Policy at George Washington University funds the development of the prototype Learn and Work Ecosystem Library. Walmart funds Phase III, which focuses on systems change for expansion and sustainability of incremental credentials. The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not represent views of Lumina Foundation, Institute of Education Sciences, the U.S. Department of Education, Walmart, or George Washington University.