State systems of higher education and coordinating boards play a major role in policy. They typically do some or all the following:
Governors often play a key role in these entities by appointing their CEOs.
In 28 states, there is a single statewide coordinating board, agency, or governing board; 20 states have a single statewide coordinating board or agency; eight have a single statewide governing board; the remaining have one or more major systemwide coordinating or governing board(s) and/or a statewide administrative/service agency.
Coordinating/governing boards appoint most postsecondary CEOs.
Boards often include higher education leaders and state K-12 superintendents.
Many boards have student members, typically appointed by the governor or selected by student government organizations.
Faculty members serve on some boards, usually selected by professional associations.
The State University of New York (SUNY) adopted a broad microcredential policy in 2018, following recommendations of Micro-Credentialing Task Force created in 2015. Via collaborative process and endorsed by SUNY Trustees, SUNY defined microcredentials to ensure that their rigor and quality match those of every type of credential that SUNY offers. SUNY Microcredentials (1) verify, validate, and attest that specific skills and/or competencies have been achieved; (2) are endorsed by the issuing institution; (3) are developed via established faculty governance processes; and (4) are designed to be meaningful and high quality. SUNY also has established a taxonomy of terms related to microcredentials.
Initiated by the Indiana Commission for Higher Education, multiple state agencies and all public colleges and universities are working in partnership to increase credential transparency. They’re doing this with help from Credential Engine, using its Credential Transparency Description Language (CTDL) as the means to achieve this goal. The partnership aims to publish a critical mass of information to the IN Credential Registry, a state-specific subset of national Credential Engine Registry. While much data has already been published (more than 3,000 programs), and more is continuously added, increasing attention is now directed to integrating Registry data with tools for prospective students and other learners. These tools help learners think through their career goals and find education and training programs that can help them achieve those goals. IN’s newly licensed statewide Career Explorer software will point to the Registry for information about education and training. Through a partnership with Parchment, IN has a mature Indiana e-Transcript Program. That program, which is almost universally used at the high school-to-college level (200,000 transcripts sent annually), is now being implemented at the college-to-college level. Ivy Tech Community College has licensed Parchment’s Award Diploma Services product, which permits all of its graduates to be issued a digital credential. Each credential has a navigation link to the Registry, allowing employers to obtain all of the information about the credential and its issuing institution that has been published to the Registry – including the competencies associated with that credential.
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.
