Key Concepts in Partnership Planning

Goals

Goals help to crystallize and articulate needs, ambitions, and desired results. What are the overall goals as they relate to incremental credentials? What are each partners’ goals and how do they intersect? Goals for the partnership should be a mix of goals relevant to individual partners as well as shared goals for the overall partnership. The goals may change depending upon the entity. An individual learner or worker may be looking to learn new skills, upskill, or reskill to keep a job, advance in their current career, or pursue a new opportunity. They may also be seeking to receive a credential for learning they have completed or to continue their learning pathway. An educational institution’s or provider’s goal may be to increase enrollments and retention rates, re-enroll learners who have left without completing a credential, expand credential offerings, or create smoother pathways. An employer may want to diversify their workforce, increase retention rates, or expand the pool of qualified workers. Partnerships create joint goals to define and agree upon why they are working together and use those goals to define each partner’s role and responsibilities. 

Return on Investment

Return on investment (ROI) is traditionally defined as the difference between what you invest and what you gain at the end of that investment. Gains may be different for different “investors” (e.g., learners/earners, jobseekers, employers, institutions). There are different perspectives for each – learners are concerned that the credential will meet their educational and employment goals; employers are concerned that the credential signals good potential employees; institutions are focused on enrollment and retention while meeting the demands of their learners and employer partners (advancing the field...). Kenyatta Lovett (2023) proposed three types of credentials to meet these demands. He states,  

“Maybe we should think of a typology of three different varieties of credentials. One is obviously the credentials of economic value. These credentials have wages attached to them. Then, there are credentials of mobility – these are credentials that can easily be stacked to get you to wherever you need to go. Remember, not all credentials of value are portable. Then, finally, you have credentials of engagement, which is what we think about when we think of credentials targeted to those not going to a two or four-year college. These credentials are intended to be a new access point to the labor market. Overall, I think we need to think more about whether credentials give individuals confidence. Do credentials give individuals an access point to pursue the American Dream through higher education?” (p. 24). 

(Lovett, K., Barrow, C., Malloy, C., & Nail, M. (2023). Non-degree credentials, socioeconomic mobility, and labor market equality. 2023 Spring Conference Proceedings, Non-degree Credentials Research Network (NCRN), George Washington Institute of Public Policy, The George Washington University. https://gwipp.gwu.edu/sites/g/files/zaxdzs6111/files/2023-06/ncrn-spring-2023-compendium-reduced.pdf ) 

Metrics

Metrics refer to indicators of success - how goals and outcomes are measured. They provide a concrete format for answering the question: How do you know when your goals have been met? For learners, metrics might include achievement of a credential, getting a promotion or raise, and/or meeting the qualifications to start a new or advance within a career. For institutions or providers, metrics often include numbers of enrollments, retention rates, completions, credentials awarded and returning learners. Metrics for employers might include an increased number of qualified candidates for a job posting, a more diverse set of job candidates, and higher retention rates. Partnerships may see an increase in enrollments in incremental credentials, greater numbers of credits awarded via credit for prior learning, faster completion and placement rates, or numbers of inquiries because of marketing programs. 

Evaluation

Evaluation facilitates continuous improvement of the partnership, assess the degree to which the partnership goals have been met, and inform next steps. Evaluations examine both processes and outcomes and typically involve two main components: a) data collection and analysis, and b) process documentation. The data collection and analyses provide the ability to assess the metrics, which align to the goals and identify resulting outcomes. The process documentation helps to tell the story of what has happened, identify what is working, challenges faced, and how those challenges were addressed to improve partnership outcomes. Together, these evaluation outcomes inform scaling opportunities such as the application to new partnerships, new credentials, new learners, and/or new geographies.  

Elements of an evaluation would explore:  

• Purpose: The purpose is the reason for engaging in an effort or establishing a partnership. Has the purpose changed or remained the same? Is the purpose being realized?   
• Benefits: Benefits are the advantages or profits gained. Are the benefits being met? What additional benefits have evolved?   
• Roles and Contributions: The development and delivery of incremental credentials require inputs from a variety of partners both within an educational provider and external partners. In an effective partnership, each partner contributes what they do best to the partnership. Roles and contributions are often laid out in a Memorandum of Understanding delineating the commitments of each partner. Are these roles and contributions the right ones? How have they changed over time? What needs to be tweaked?  
• Inputs: Inputs include resources such as staff, faculty or instructor time, tuition dollars, intellectual property among program designers. They might include equipment, research, curricula, technology, learning management systems, communications plans, for grant or other funding. Are there sufficient resources? Which ones are the most critical to moving forward?  
• Outputs: Outputs are defined as what is produced. In incremental credentialing partnerships outputs include such items as credentials developed, credentialed learners, tracking systems created, communications plans implemented, and supportive policy and/or legislation. Do the outputs align with the goals? 

Record Keeping

The partnership needs to identify clearly how learner records are housed and shared. One major effort in this area is Learning and Employment Records (LER). LERs are comprehensive digital records of an individual's skills, competencies, credentials, and employment history that seek to show a complete picture of an individual’s education and work experiences. They have the potential to highlight verified skills, reduce hiring biases, and match people to employment opportunities. A LER can document learning wherever and whenever it occurs. They have the potential of increasing transparency of skills across employers, educators and learners, and opening access to learning and career advancement to learners and workers regardless of what stage they are in as they seek to advance their careers.