What Canvas Credentials Can Do For You - Webinar
We know that, you know, currently transcripts really only capture, a specific portion of your learning or your courses, but it doesn't capture everything else that you've learned. And so this is where badging has a fantastic opportunity to highlight those other competency skills that you're requiring throughout your education. And so this provides benefits not only for students, but it also provides advantages for programs here at the institution, right, where we can now leverage a new type of, artifact to highlight a specific, something that a student has completed or a learner has completed. Then ultimately rate for employers, it's also super helpful for them to be able to have a more specific understanding of the skill sets that, perspective candidate might bring. It also gives us flexibility. Right? So we are able to acknowledge accomplishments at the micro level, you know, the micro credential level something super specific, but it also gives us the advantage to, you know, hopefully eventually, stack towards something greater.
So when we think about pathways, we try and then we'll tackle them a little bit later. This is one of the, I think, one of the biggest benefits of badging is the the stackability of them. I love that, and I'm so glad that you brought up employers. We spend a lot of time, when when I talk to higher ed, institutions talking about kind of the what's going on inside of the organization, and, it's it it can sometimes get just a little lost, in the fog that your students are coming to you because they want jobs. They want better jobs.
They want jobs that are aligned with better aligned with their own interests. They want advancement in their careers. They recognize that they've got fifty years where they've they're going to be working. I no longer have fifty years, but I know that there are some people on this call who do So that's a that's a long time to really advance your own, skill set to pick up interests that you might not even know that you, had twenty years ago. So I love that employers are in that, that that mix of the conversations, we're really thinking about what they need.
What they bring to the party, right, what they how they can inform what's going on, at a university in in assorted programs, but also what benefits there are to learners when employers are deeply involved So as we think about digital credentials, that I mean, these are three big categories that I think in. And a lot of what you said, Javier, I think fits into one or another or sometimes multiple of those categories. I wish that we're as neat as kind of three clean buckets that would make all of our conversations easier, but it's really not. So as we're thinking about recognizing your your earners, your learners, it's important for them to be equipped with the, the data that they need to operate in a modern, in labor market and in a modern educational market too. So being able to recognize them, being able to obtain them once you've got them in place.
It is a pretty easy, honestly, for adult learner who have busy lives, who have families, who have jobs, maybe multiple jobs, to just lose track of the learning that they were involved in, just ask my, duolingo, how often I forget that I actually have it on my phone. I'm supposed to be learning French, which I'm not doing a very good job of. Okay. So retaining them, keeping those learners engaged is kind of a a critical use for digital badges and then recruiting new earners. We really wanna touch on all three of those, kind of levers that digital badges can bring to your program But if you're not already doing badging or you really haven't kind of gotten to the place where badges are an integral part of your programming, then let me encourage you with a little, social proof.
In twenty twenty two, There was a survey. There's a survey. This, little teen, credential engine, and one ed tech do a survey every other year on digital badging. And in twenty twenty two, they found that there were five hundred and twenty one thousand opportunities to earn a badge. Those are programs that have a digital credential associated with them that you acquire at the end and in that same year, seventy four point seven million badges were awarded just in that year, and you can kind of see the trend lines.
So lots and lots of digital badges being awarded in the ecosystem populating, that, that eco that, employment and education ecosystem with, really lovely data and we'll talk we'll kind of look at that data a little bit more deeply as we, as we kind of move along. So these are just some of the organizations that we work with. I I like to put up this slide because it is so pretty because you have the opportunity to make your badges look like anything you want and, and to really carry in a way that I think is really important, the brand identity of your organization. So, that's these are just some of the schools that we work with. There are hundreds and hundreds.
As you think about kind of your own, your own education career, and your own employment career. Take just a minute. If you got a pen in your hand, I I keep an actual pen in my hand. I'm writing on actual paper here. As I take notes throughout these these kinds of conversations, think about the credentials that you've already gotten, and maybe you've got badges.
Maybe you have one or more of these badges. That would be fun. Maybe you've got badges. Maybe you've got some other kinds of credentials that you've been awarded. Just think about those for just a second.
If you can jot down a couple of them that you might have, that would be, I think it's helpful for us to really start to think about how credentialing is changing as, as the world is changing as the requirements for machine readable data are changing, knowing that a digital badge is, a little digital data container. We'll talk more about that as we as we move through our discussion today, little digital data container that is secure and portable and shareable skills aligned and machine readable think about the data that you've got, and I thought a little bit about the data that I've got, which, a lot of it lives in a drawer. Because it's a piece of paper because I have I have my beautiful diploma from UT with the lovely raised CL and it's you know, it's frameable. It's beautiful. I have my transcript.
I don't really know why I have a copy of my transcript, but I must have needed it at some point. In the distant past. And so I have a paper copy of my transcript. It's in a file drawer. It's hard to share.
It's not skills aligned. So it doesn't call out the skills that I learned, and it doesn't really represent the upscilling and cross scaling that I've done over a a long career. So as we're thinking about kind of advancing into this but the next phase of data, the one of the lovely things about badges is that it brings that representation of skills and competencies and achievements into that robust digital construction that does carry a practically unlimited amount of data. And so, Javier, this is This is all your stuff. Every I think the rest of this presentation is all burnt orange.
So as you're thinking about kind of skills as a, call out for the kind of credentialing that you're doing. How is how is UT really approached kind of that that skills alignment idea. Yeah. Great question. And really quickly before I I do a deeper dive.
Is my audio better now? I know there were some comments in the chat. So I just wanted to get feedback from from people in the audience if It's okay. Cool. Much better. Alright.
Thank you. Awesome. Yeah. So, on schedules, I guess, I would probably approach it from two different two different scenarios. So, you know, having having skills in our badges was definitely important for us as we were developing the initiative.
We understand that, you know, one of the main goals of of badges, especially sophisticity rate. And so we wanted to to be conscientious of as we were developing, you know, programs or or, you know, badging opportunities, etcetera. That that was part of what we could embed into into our metadata and, also mostly primarily for the benefit of the learner. Right? We know that if we can if we can shine a light on the specific skills that they are acquiring, and you'll hear me say specific a lot made out during during the webinar today, but that's that's the goal. Right? The goal is to to have a, an achievement that has specificity so that it can properly they not only to the learner, but then, you know, to anyone who reads, you know, the description, the metadata, etcetera, what specifically this person now has because they've completed this activity.
You know, that's the goal. And so, really when when we were looking at you know, or really when we're looking at something now, it's we we have some content, some existing courses, programs, etcetera. That have made it a little bit easier for us to get going in the early stages. Right? We didn't necessarily want to spend a lot of time upfront creating something totally new, like a brand new program. You know, we saw opportunities to say, oh, we have this program that probably benefit from this kind of credential.
And because that's already created, it's already designed, you know, it's gone through a process before it's been released to the public, we know, okay, yeah, we we will have an opportunity to highlight specific skills because we've already done done that work. As we focus on new initiatives, you know, it's it's a little bit more, of the unknown. Right? And so what I wanna highlight here. I know I think Kelvin Bentley from UT systems in the audience. So, you know, UT system is embarked on this fantastic initiative, technical credentials for the future, which essentially has a goal of, making sure that our graduates from from all UT institutions are broadly educated and specifically skilled.
And so we want to use micro credentials or badges as a way to highlight that specificity of those skills, right? And so it's it becomes a little bit more challenging because then we have to start looking broader. Right? We don't have something defined yet. We're trying to create a new program and new initiative. Where do we find that alignment between what we want to or are teaching our students and then what industry is telling us that we need. Right? So that's that's another piece of the puzzle is we can we can say, okay, here's what we are teaching.
This is actually serving our students as well as it can. And, you know, we're we're in that process right now. We're about to start that. So it's an exciting journey. Mhmm.
But we're also conscientious of what are we gonna find out as we dive into it? But, yeah, so that's that's my that's my spiel on skills. Oh, I love that. And I love that that framework of broadly educated, specifically skilled, that none of us want to lose the broad education available at a world class university, and we know that learners of all kind of stripes really need to, to, to come away with those specific skills. I just wanna look real quick at this badge that we showed a couple of times now. We'll look at it for real.
This is this is in real life here. This badge, I'm looking at this badge from a a a public view of the world, So, Javier gets to log in to UT's, platform, but I don't. So this is that strategic decision making decision and risk management badge that we've been looking at. And do you do you wanna take just a second, Javier, to talk through kind of some of the content of this badge. I know you were heavily involved in its construction form.
Yeah. Sure. I'd be happy to. So this was an existing program, that we wanted to create a badge for, and it's actually one of the one of the few ones that currently has a pathway. So will segue nicely into the next part.
But, you know, it was really important for us, you know, for everyone working on the banking committee that was helping set up the initiative especially, you know, also for us is we we want to convey a lot of information in as concise of manner as we possibly can. And so if you if, you know, if you create a badge in the system, you can type as long a description as you want. Right? And so, but if you know, it might have noticed, right, Elizabeth had to click on that more link that now says less. Right? And so we wanna be cognizant of the fact, like, okay, like, that has to convey everything that a learner is possibly gonna acquire by by receiving this badge but maybe not necessarily specifically in the context of us. Right? So it's less about so it's less about the issue or it's less about the institution.
It's it's what is the learner acquiring when they complete this activity? And so having a a very users or learner centered approach when you're creating these descriptions is critical, but it's really difficult to do because you have all of the background when you're creating these programs and when you're trying to basically put that into one paragraph so that anyone who reads it can understand it is really difficult. And so that's that's part of it. And then on the earning criteria, again, here's another opportunity for us to be as specific as we possibly can. Right? These are all of the requirements a person has to complete. We can't possibly capture all of the information here, which is why we decide to link out to a couple of different places.
Right? So if you wanna learn more about this program, there's the second link. If you need to contact the issuer, there's another link there as well. And so this gives us the ability to say, hey, look, here's all the information that we think you're gonna need. Should you need more information? Here are these links for you to click on and learn more. I love that using the badge as a conduit recognizing that not only is this badge going to be viewed by the person who it's awarded to, right, who earns it.
Exactly. But it's gonna be shared. And when it's shared, people can see the content of the badge. I mean, badges are machine readable and that has some real applications, but they are human readable, and it's important, to your point, to give people information in a way that they can take it in pretty quickly and then find out more if they if they want to. I mean, I guess you could have put the entire description of the Texas education program in this badge.
It would have been very long and taking a long time to read through. But just linking out to that more information, I think, is a a great way to connect folks who wanna know more, obviously, the persons who earn this badge already knows. Although strangely, people go through programs and have a hard time talking about their learning in the language of the market that they need to speak to. So I'm assuming if somebody's in an executive education program that they're, already working somewhere, and they're looking to advance their career. So now they're talking to their manager or to someone, you know, more senior in the company, or they're looking for a new job in a new company.
You're really giving them the language, talk about their learning in a in a way that the market they're speaking to can can understand it. I love that. And then we've got good information about CEUs, etcetera, care, and then we've got the skills alignment, which I wanna make sure that we kind of talk about very specifically. So I'm gonna click on this problem solving skill and I oh, sorry to get out. Sorry about that.
I I this is my, my internet connection giving me a fit. Let's talk about strategic analysis a little bit, which is one of the skills aligned into that strategic decision making. So you already have at UT, a relationship of some sort with this light cast organization. Is that right? Yeah. There's some some departments here who use, some of their tools for a variety of different, you know, projects.
We we're focusing on it at least here, you know, in terms of, how we can leverage the the data, the insights that they provide, in the context of our badges. And so, again, we whenever we engage someone in a conversation about developing a new badging in we we highlight in order to do our best to highlight the importance of, including those skills in the data rate to your point from earlier, this isn't just what the learner sees when they've acquired their badge or earned their badge, is what it's what a third party is gonna see. You know, potential, their current employer when they, when they say that they've completed this activity, a recruiter when when they're applying for jobs. And so it's important for us to to basically equip and empower the learner as much as we can. With all of the information about the program that they've just completed, like you said, right? Sometimes it's difficult to to really convey everything correctly or appropriately, for for the learner, but then also say, okay, what what did you get out of completing Right? And so that's why it's important for us to put the skills there.
That's why it's important for us to tie them to, basically, this, this open skills database, which is, which is available to anyone. And, we we have some hopes for what we can do, you know, further on in the future. I won't spend too much time on that today because it's still really But but, yeah, so this is Yeah. It's a fantastic resource, and it's, you know, it's something that is included, you know, in our in our instance installation of of canvas credentials. And so why not take advantage of it? Why not leverage it for the benefit of learner if it's already there? So that's why it's important for us.
And and really this goes back to your skills specificity, which is really hard word for me, but I'm not saying anymore. Lifecast, if for those of you who are on this call that don't know them, they used to be MC, and then they bought burning glass, and then they change their name. And so it's a kind of a moving target, but they are a labor market intelligence group. So what they provide is the demand for a particular skill in the labor market as expressed in job postings. So they look at hundreds of millions of job postings every year.
And so, that particular skill, which what was it? I forget strategic analysis. These are companies that have posted for that skill in the last five months and job titles that included that skill in the last five months. And this is all, overall labor market demand for strategic analysis. Now, apparently, we've figured out all the strategies analyzed them all, and so this is falling off, which I I guess is good. So that's the skills, taxonomy that pick from that you picked from in your badge, and they're all connected to this labor market data, which I think really is a powerful, view of the learning that's taken place in that it puts it against the background of the labor market.
In a really clean sort of, visual way. So that's that's awesome. Love all of that. We're gonna come back to this piece in just a minute because I want to talk I just want to wrap up this conversation about skills before we, before we get too much further. Obviously, students are gonna come to you, Javier, and they're gonna enter the the kind of the graduate school of business programs and they're going to get those badges that are skills aligned, and they're gonna get lots of credentials from lots of other places over their career.
I know that you wish they would only come to you. But, that the the world is a is a big busy place, and so there's lots of learning opportunities out there. And as they gather, as a learner gathers, those skills aligned digital credentials, what it enables is this and I just wanna settle here for just a minute because I think this is such an important idea as we talk about the labor market specifically. And that is a learning and employment record. That's a term of art.
It is a a project that started with Oh, the US chamber of commerce and is now, being developed by organizations like the National Governors Association, the US Chamber is heavily involved in it, through their t three. Innovation network. And lots of states are putting together their own state level learning and employment records and then opening those up they'll be opened up as they, as they're, the, members of the state really kind of move as people tend to leave them. A learning and employment record is essentially a giant digital resume. That's what it is.
Populated with your diplomas and your certificates and certifications and all the pieces of that kind of lifelong learning journey that you've acquired. So think for just a minute. You've already kind of thought a little bit about the the actual certificates or, transcripts or diplomas or whatever you have, may may be in your drawer. Think a little bit about the things that you've learned that you've never gotten a credential for, where there's no formal recognition that you know how to do those things. And I'm thinking about things like upskilling and cross scaling that you may have acquired from your employer.
So lots of employers have really rich, training, learning and development programs that advance their, their employees, not only in their current job roles, so they're actually becoming more effective in the job role, but also advance them as, as professionals and careers. Skills that you may have learned because you did an apprenticeship or because because you had, someone that you knew that you just shadowed, that you really wanted to learn how they did the things that they did, in a ways that weren't really formally recognized, but can be captured, with formal or informal recognition into a learning and employment record. Obviously, I think it's pretty obvious digital badges are, populate learning and employment records really neatly. They are designed to be portable and shareable, and stackable. And so and they are skills a line of bull.
And they their they have that machine readable data that a learning and employment record really depends on. So more and more, if you haven't already been introduced to learning and employment records, you're going to find that that's a, an increasingly, impactful part of the conversation about awarding badges and equipping, recognizing, equipping learners to participate in the labor market. And I hope that you're asking your questions in the Q and A. We'll get to as many of those as we can as we kind of make our way through lit this, but right now I wanna go back to this badge that we were looking at. Your beautiful badge there, because I do want to scroll down to the bottom of that badge again and look at that stacking that you've been talking about a year.
So this badge that we've been looking at, is the end of this pathway. Do you wanna talk about this just a little bit? The structure of these this kind of stack of credentials? Yeah. Absolutely. So, this, this certificate program is, you know, it's a culmination of of a couple of different, courses that students or learners complete. I'll say that this was our first that we ever created our first ever pathway and so there was so much that we learned from going through that process.
I think we sort of walked into a thinking Okay. We have an understanding of how our taxonomy will work with the system, but then actually doing it and, you know, stumbling on, oh, wait, that's not gonna work. Oh, yes. That's that's gonna And so, so it's really interesting. The other thing I'll note here is that if you contrast, if you were to visit this page and contrast, what you see here in the pathway page versus what you see in the badge page.
There's gonna be some similarities naturally because we're talking about the same thing. But we made a concerted effort to distinguish as much as we possibly could between what was here and what was on the batch page. Yeah. If you think about the batch page, right, that's really a vehicle not only for the learner, but also for third parties. And if you're thinking about the learner, right, what do you want the learner to get out of looking at this page? That was really important for us to make that as, you know, make that distinction because we wanted this to be focused on the learner.
Like, yes, we might have a recruiter or an employer who goes to visit this page, but really the focus here is the learner. So we've made a concerted effort to structure it in a way that we would be able to give additional information that we might not be able to put on the badge, again, because of that balancing act of information, you know, overload. Yeah. And so so we we tried really hard to create this structure, not only easy to read, So if you're a learner, you wanna understand what it takes to complete this pathway, right, and, thankfully, the design sort of lends itself to that. But then also, okay, what does it mean for me to complete this step? What does it mean for me to acquire this badge? And again, we wanted to distinguish between what you might see on the badge page already versus what we wanna put in here that is gonna be supplemental to that.
And so that's another consideration as you think of out, pathways and, you know, how you might design those. That was a a very important focus to us as we were developing this. So two things that I just wanna underline that you just said. One is that you learned things as you did this. This is what I've seen in my my years of talking with, schools and, and businesses that are standing at badging programs, that the process of designing and developing that program tends to be pretty iterative.
So you've learned things, and then you think, oh, that's gonna change what I do. In this next program. And, boy, you just have to lean into that. You you can't. I wish you could know everything at the beginning, but that would take you years and then you wouldn't get anything done because you'd just be continuously learning.
So I love that. And I love the like, really considering what the learner view is of this. Now, again, I'm not logged in. So I can't show this. From a learner perspective, but I can show you what it would look like from a learner perspective when a learner tracks their progress along the pathway.
They literally see the elements check. I mean, it checks the boxes. That's a little bit on the nose from a design perspective, but I like it. So they can see their progress. They can see what they've completed, what they've yet to complete, where that learning journey is taking them.
This is really as we're thinking about badges being a retention tool because people are kind of moving toward knowing that they're going to get that recognition. They're going to get that equip they're gonna be equipped with those labor market skills. I also think about pathways as a retention tool these programs can be long and fairly complex depending on kind of, where it sits, in your organization and who you expect your learners to be. So keeping learners engaged, reminding them literally reminding them what they've done, reminding them what they've yet to do and where that learning journey is going for them what kind of the ultimate piece of that puzzle is is I just think it's critical. It's easy.
It is just easy. To lose learners, not just kind of, a a graduate level learners, but to lose your undergrads. As they, they their lives just get busy, and they do. And life is complex, and it has there's a bunch of things that you that you weren't really anticipating. And so this is a great way, to to keep oops.
Sorry. Gosh. I I'm a little twitchy there. To keep your learners engaged in programs until they really get to that ultimate piece. I I think that that's a it's a it's a powerful tool And so, always encourage folks to to take advantage of pathways if they if they can.
And then we wanna move into the recruitment piece, which we've really already touched on a little bit because when you look at the content of a badge, one of its the structural elements is how when this badge is shared, do other people kind of understand, what the accomplishments of that learner are? Badges are shared with people's peers, and their peers are your target market for this program. And they're shared in all sorts of different places. LinkedIn, I think you get a lot of LinkedIn sharing going on. In both the the profile, and, and this is kind of what it looks like in a profile. It it's under that licenses and certifications section.
You that's where that shows up also in news feeds. So this is what it looks like in a news feed where you see that badge and if you click on the badge here or here, you're going to open up that badge content, and you're gonna be able to, all those links are then gonna become hot for you so you can see the skills. You can see that. Tell me more about this program. All of that content is available to you.
And you can take advantage of it in any ways that you, as a badge viewer, want to. Now, in some cases, that's I want to go to there. I want to. I want to be a part of that program. I wanna go register.
I wanna sign up. I wanna, you know, I wanna buy now depending on how you're structuring your pages, but some of it is I see what this person knows and can do So as, we talk about recruiting at the university level, but I thought, I think there's a there's definitely an employer recruiting element to this too on kind of the other side of that equation where people are really saying, oh, that's that looks like, a person who possesses the skills and competencies and knowledge and experience that is really, important. For for my business, somebody that I want to hire. So I know that we've got some questions hiling up in Q and A. I'm going to, I'm gonna, turn the the balance of this, presentation over to Javier and I'll take the opportunity, while we're doing that to, to I'll come take a look at the Q and A and see what we can answer in the immediate, in the immediate case, and then anything that we can't answer in our time here, we'll get you an answer.
So don't think that we're gonna leave you hanging with your questions. We, we're, this is an iterative process. There's a lot of questions that can be answered. And so, we'll we'll try to get all of those answered for you one way or another. That's my promise.
As you think about standing up a a badging program, and it really being impactful for you to, recognize, retain, recruit your students. There's several kind of steps that we think makes sense. I told Javier when we were, we were kind of planning this webinar that I didn't mean for this graphic to be burnt orange. It just came that way. And so, There you go.
What are you gonna do? You're gonna take it where it comes. The mission visions and goals planning that you have to do is well in your hands and a lot of you have already started that. I think that part of your goal should be recruit, retain, recognize I can come up with the other r but you're going to have to develop an internal governance policy if you're gonna be successful. So, Javier has deep experience with this, and I'm gonna go ahead and, turn this over, to him. Alright.
So I know we've definitely got a lot of questions. I'll do my best to be concise and still deliver value to everyone. I'll start off by saying, you know, big shout out, big thank you to, Doctor. ARC Markman here at UT Austin. He's currently, vice provost for academic affairs was in a slightly different role at the time when this started, but he really did a fantastic job shepherding all of these different colleges and schools and units with all of our different, you know, perspectives and interests and was able to get us working together, which in institution this size is really challenging, as you might imagine, and, was really the, the leader in health us get to this point where we could develop, you know, something that would work for our institution.
And so so what we have at UT Austin is, you know, think of it as hybrid model. There's a level of institutional governance and then a level of local governance. And so, that's apologize Elizabeth. I kinda added some transitions or animations. So, yeah, there we go.
I'll I'll keep clicking. Program. There you go. Alright. And so starting institutionally, we we came up with this concept of a badger view board, or I'm gonna refer to it as the BRB.
So the BRB is modeled after an IRB. Right? So it's a collection of such a matter experts, It's not intended to be strong oversight. It's really intended to be coordination amongst everyone who's participating in the initiative that we don't have a hundred different approaches. Right? That's really the the key is, when the badge is out there, a UT Austin badge, we wanted to be a parent, you know, like, okay, these badges were created perhaps by different issuers, but ultimately they all fall under the same umbrella and the same structure. So that was the importance of that review process.
And I'll get into a little bit more detail in a second. The next level, right, so the local level that is, effectively determined by each college school or unit in question. So I'm gonna refer to those as CSUs just because college school or unit is a mouthful. And so, so in our setup, CSUs are the issuers. So the Macomb School of Business is an issue where the Copper School of Engineering is an issuer.
And each CSE was given the opportunity to create their own, sort of internal governance if they wanted to do that. There was not a requirement, but there was also I guess, a recognition, I would say that, yes, we all fall under this umbrella. We're all gotta follow this process. We're all gonna work through the BRB. But at the same time, if you decide that you want an additional layer for your specific requirements for your school because your programs are unique in a specific way, then that that allows us to do that.
Right? That level of local governance really allows us to do that. It was it continues to be an iterative process, like all of this is. Right? I would say that, you know, nothing really that we have, you know, here at the school of business is set in stone. We're cognizant of the fact that we're developing it. We've run some water through the pipes, as as Doctor.
Martin likes to say. So we we run some water through the pipes. And if we need to adjust, if we need to payment, if we need to loosen things up, if we need to tighten things up a little bit more, then we have the ability and the flexibility to do that. And so, you know, if you're considering different models of governance, I would say having some kind of hybrid model where there's institutional review, but there's also the ability for each college or school to do a separate thing. I would recommend that.
It it definitely provides, flexibility in what each CSU can do. And if you can go to the next one, next slide. There you go. Just just to give everyone a graphical representation of BRB. Right? So, like I said, there's a collection of subject matter experts from different disciplines.
And the idea is that one, when a badge needs to be reviewed by the BRB, that if it's within the domain of business education, but that particular subject matter expert doesn't have that direct expertise. They have a network of people in the school of business that they can say, oh, I think, you know, so and so is an expert in this topic. I can go to them. So that's another advantage of a BRB model is that, each of these subject matter experts knows other subject matter experts in this school and can consult with them on, you know, a specific bad request that they're working on. So that's another that's another benefit of that.
I love that. Can we, let me just I think it's helpful sometimes to see what this looks like inside of the, the the Prudential's organization because it's it's pretty well, like, that hybrid model is actually represented by the hierarchical structure of this Canvas credential's platform which is a top level organization, which you can see kind of right there. And so this is the top level organization in the local governance piece sits at the issuer level. And in your system right now, there are thirteen issuers and that is expanding. Every time I go in and look, there's a new issuer, creating and avoiding badges.
And you can see that the issuers, that kind college schools units structure, that that CSUPs can, can confuse our friends in California sometimes. But anyway, I I have to, like, think college schools units, academic affairs, the center for health communication, There's the College of Education and natural sciences, all building their programs. So you can see some of them only have a single badge at this point because it does take some time, and it is iterative. And so, the but the Dean of students is in there and the extension program, a petroleum extension. They've got a ton of badges for their, their, executive education, they're continuing professional education.
School of nursing. I don't even know what's in here anymore. It's been a minute since I looked. So you've got lots and lots of those local locally controlled programs, colleges, schools that are running their own thing and make their own decisions, within the broader context. So can we talk, Javier, just for a second, about process? Because I think that that, that There are some really great process decisions that you made as a university that can help people to, I think, sidestep some decisions.
I mean, I think you should pick whatever is the best from programs that you like, and then you should just, do a search and replace. Their name for yours, so maybe. Can we talk about that? And I think I have that page open here. So this is a public view of this this kind of this governance that you've put in place. I know it's not every single thing, but it is the the broad Can you talk a little bit about the process that, you used as a university to establish this kind of top level governance with local control, which is a very Texas thing that can have top level governance with local control, How did you go about structuring your programs? Let's do that process question first.
Yeah. For sure. I'll say in the in the slide, if you wanna go back to the slide, whether there's a a bit ly, go to the next one. Oh, okay. Gotcha.
Yeah. So there's a Bentley there and a QR code if y'all want to scan or visit that page that Elizabeth was on. Yeah. But, yeah, So in terms of process, so I I threw this in here because I wanted to sort of highlight how, you know, the combination of of governance and process taxonomy, you know, depends on what you're doing. So very broadly without going into too much detail at UT Austin, we have completion badges and competence badges.
So this was a long process. So a committee made up of, multiple colleges schools and units across the university all coming with, like I said, their own perspectives and their own ideas about, how we would set up badges at UT Austin. And so competence badges might be what most people are familiar with. Right? So those are badges that have an assessment requirement in order to sort of solidify or verify This person has acquired the skill of this competency, right, because there's a sort of a minimum minimum score required for that assessment. Completion badges were a type of bags that we decided to incorporate because we realized there's some activities for which you know, that that level of assessment, may not be the most appropriate, I'll say.
So it has a variety of things. Right? We wanted to be cognizant about something that's gonna come up later. We might not be thinking about it right now, but we can see extracurricular things that learners might be doing that we might not necessarily fit, you know, super well with having an assessment requirement with a specific score. And then also, you know, another another driver of this conversation was continuing professional and executive education. Right? Those are those are long standing, programs and units that have been I have been offering programs and courses in a variety of ways from many years.
And for that type of audience, right, the calculus is a little bit different. And so we wanted to be inclusive of that, of those needs. You know, it's multiple units across the university. So it wasn't really one specific person or unit driving it. And so we we figured out that this was a good way to balance the different use cases we might encounter.
But like I said, this process took several months. Right? And once we figure out, okay, here's what our taxonomy is gonna be, then we started the process of, okay, here's what Here's what we've come up with. How does it fit within, you know, real use cases, real examples? How does it work with the platform? That was another piece. Right? And so, these types of badges have different processes. And so for the completion badges, because those are you know, different than the comment dispatches, there's no specific requirement for assessment or for a score.
Those have those can be approved by the administrator of the BRB. Comminance badges, that's where we really require that subject matter expert, to come in and say, okay, what are what are the learning objectives of this right, of this activity. What is a learner supposed to walk away with? And from there, say, okay. How was this assessment constructed? Is an effective assessment know, does it need modifications? And this goes back to the idea that the, the the VRB is not meant to be strong oversight. Right? And so it's not as if someone will submit a request for a competence badge, and it's gonna get rejected, and that's the end of that.
Right? It's more like, okay, you know, here's a good starting point. Here's some feedback, some things you might wanna consider, go back and then, you know, make some updates and, and then submit it again. So it's it's really an iterative process. Right? We keep using that word, but it's really what it is. And so, we've it's been a big learning process, right, going through this for the past, year or so.
And it, I think it has really allowed us both the flexibility for certain types of programs but then also ensuring that the badges that we are putting out there that have, you know, the university Texas at Austin, you know, sort of very heavily displayed, that they have the value that we say that they have. Right? And so we wanna be able to and behind the badges that we're putting out there. And so the process and the governance that we've created, you know, ultimately the committee felt comfortable that this was gonna work for us moving forward. And now I say work for us, you know, I've made that distinction between because one thing I've learned in the past couple years is if it works for one institution, that doesn't necessarily mean it's gonna work for yours, right, the specific details. And when we talk about hybrid models of governance, like, yeah, localized in stitutionalized, those are, I think, concepts that transfer, but the specific taxonomy, the specific levels, the specific types that can change based on every institution's needs and institution's goals.
And so a question that we get a lot when we're creating new programs is what are other schools doing? Like, oh, we're really used to thinking about that with traditional programs, but this doesn't really transfer. Right? There's no Department of Education policy or state policy around this. Right? And so it's it's it's really an open field, which is why we have to focus on what do we need what do our students need and then design design to that. Right? So that would be my other my other two, piece of advice. So I love that that this is a this is a good structure and it works for you.
And I, generally, like, loosely like it for a lot of the schools that we work with because you are talking about kind of a broad view that establishes what what does good look like? It is our brand that's being represented, and you wanna have control over that. You don't want it to be the Wild Wild West. And the local, college schools and units have their own perspectives on the world. They have their own things that they really value and want to convey, and there has to be room for everybody to have it's I I it's not cookie cutter. It's just not.
And I love that construction that you put in place where competence is assessed, right? Completion is noted. So, yes, you completed. We note that, but it's not assessed. So competence is is assessed. That's gonna be hard for me to say.
Completion is noted. And even in the and I'm just gonna go back to that page where that bitly, QR code actually, leads to, which is this page, because you've even expressed that in your badge designs where you've said, okay, competence, which is assessed, these are the designs that you can use to, to put together a competence badge, and these are the designs that you can use to put together a completion badge. And so even there, that taxonomy that you've structured for own internal badging purposes, is expressed in the visuals that carry the brand of the university. So I love all of that. Let me ask you one more question before we wrap up here.
When somebody you you said, when somebody submits a request, what does that look like for somebody to submit a request? Yeah. Does that look like? Yeah. So when, you know, when a a faculty member or staff member, know, a unit is interested in submitting a request. They effectively have to submit, you know, sort of basic information like the metadata that's gonna be on the badge. Right? So that there's a full understanding of what that badge is supposed to mean.
Yes. And then there's other details, like, who's who's submitting it, you know, who's the who's the requester. How is this getting how is this getting, awarded, you know, is it from one system versus another, is it part of a pathway? You know, you'll sort of see there, in our two lower levels of badges. You can only request those if they are part of a pathway. You know, the the what we call terminal badges, which is the ones on the far array.
Those are the only ones that can be standalone. Okay. And and so I'll I'll touch a little bit. Also, I saw a question in the Q and A about, you know, sort of locally local governance. So what I mean by that is For example, in the business school, we have our own process that happens before a before a request is actually submitted to the institutional review process.
And so we developed this process to to collaborate, I know, side by side with an interested party or group to create a new badge, new badge program. And so we help them with designing it. We help them with, okay, what are your learning objectives? Why would you wanna do it this way? Here's some recommendations based on those practices. And so by basically what that does is this local process effectively streamlines the institutional process because by the time that we land on, here is a, you know, a a request that's ready to be submitted to the institutional process. Right.
It's pre it's gone through a similar, if not in some cases, you know, more intense process locally because we want to make sure that by the time it gets to the institutional process, Yeah. It's it's pretty much effectively gonna be approved with some, with maybe some comments. Yeah. But I will say that requires a lot of effort and a lot of time. And we are one of the few schools that has an office like ours, you know, the office of instructional innovation that can support that.
Right. Some units don't have that. And so it's a little bit of a different, you know, experience for a different school that doesn't have the ability to create a local process, which is why it's not required. Right? That's why we we've made a robust and, you know, sort of inclusive institutional process so that if you don't have the ability to create a local one, you don't have to. Yeah.
I I love that, that idea of, like, the the badges kind of bubble up through the system, right? They start at the local level. They're refined there. They go to the organizational level with something that's where the process is formalized. I mean, there's literally, like, the forms forms that you fill out in order to kind of move those things up as they but, there's there's also fluidity in that process, as you're kind of moving things along. So it's not super rigid where, you know, you could get a hard no, and there would be nothing that you could do about that.
I I love the program you've put together. I'm absolutely delighted that we had the opportunity to, to have this chat today. I think if if you wanna con connect with either of us those QR codes will take you to our, our business cards on, link. And so feel free to scan those and grab those, which have direct contact information for us both. We, my my my team, thank you Joanna.
Thank you, Jason, so much for participating in today's conversation. I think always helpful to have knowledgeable folks looking at the chat and, and reviewing the q and a. So thank you both so much for joining us today. And to all of you who, who hung with us for an hour. Thank you.
And we look forward to connecting with you further to continue this conversation. Thanks, Javier. So much. Bye everybody. Bye. Thank you.
So when we think about pathways, we try and then we'll tackle them a little bit later. This is one of the, I think, one of the biggest benefits of badging is the the stackability of them. I love that, and I'm so glad that you brought up employers. We spend a lot of time, when when I talk to higher ed, institutions talking about kind of the what's going on inside of the organization, and, it's it it can sometimes get just a little lost, in the fog that your students are coming to you because they want jobs. They want better jobs.
They want jobs that are aligned with better aligned with their own interests. They want advancement in their careers. They recognize that they've got fifty years where they've they're going to be working. I no longer have fifty years, but I know that there are some people on this call who do So that's a that's a long time to really advance your own, skill set to pick up interests that you might not even know that you, had twenty years ago. So I love that employers are in that, that that mix of the conversations, we're really thinking about what they need.
What they bring to the party, right, what they how they can inform what's going on, at a university in in assorted programs, but also what benefits there are to learners when employers are deeply involved So as we think about digital credentials, that I mean, these are three big categories that I think in. And a lot of what you said, Javier, I think fits into one or another or sometimes multiple of those categories. I wish that we're as neat as kind of three clean buckets that would make all of our conversations easier, but it's really not. So as we're thinking about recognizing your your earners, your learners, it's important for them to be equipped with the, the data that they need to operate in a modern, in labor market and in a modern educational market too. So being able to recognize them, being able to obtain them once you've got them in place.
It is a pretty easy, honestly, for adult learner who have busy lives, who have families, who have jobs, maybe multiple jobs, to just lose track of the learning that they were involved in, just ask my, duolingo, how often I forget that I actually have it on my phone. I'm supposed to be learning French, which I'm not doing a very good job of. Okay. So retaining them, keeping those learners engaged is kind of a a critical use for digital badges and then recruiting new earners. We really wanna touch on all three of those, kind of levers that digital badges can bring to your program But if you're not already doing badging or you really haven't kind of gotten to the place where badges are an integral part of your programming, then let me encourage you with a little, social proof.
In twenty twenty two, There was a survey. There's a survey. This, little teen, credential engine, and one ed tech do a survey every other year on digital badging. And in twenty twenty two, they found that there were five hundred and twenty one thousand opportunities to earn a badge. Those are programs that have a digital credential associated with them that you acquire at the end and in that same year, seventy four point seven million badges were awarded just in that year, and you can kind of see the trend lines.
So lots and lots of digital badges being awarded in the ecosystem populating, that, that eco that, employment and education ecosystem with, really lovely data and we'll talk we'll kind of look at that data a little bit more deeply as we, as we kind of move along. So these are just some of the organizations that we work with. I I like to put up this slide because it is so pretty because you have the opportunity to make your badges look like anything you want and, and to really carry in a way that I think is really important, the brand identity of your organization. So, that's these are just some of the schools that we work with. There are hundreds and hundreds.
As you think about kind of your own, your own education career, and your own employment career. Take just a minute. If you got a pen in your hand, I I keep an actual pen in my hand. I'm writing on actual paper here. As I take notes throughout these these kinds of conversations, think about the credentials that you've already gotten, and maybe you've got badges.
Maybe you have one or more of these badges. That would be fun. Maybe you've got badges. Maybe you've got some other kinds of credentials that you've been awarded. Just think about those for just a second.
If you can jot down a couple of them that you might have, that would be, I think it's helpful for us to really start to think about how credentialing is changing as, as the world is changing as the requirements for machine readable data are changing, knowing that a digital badge is, a little digital data container. We'll talk more about that as we as we move through our discussion today, little digital data container that is secure and portable and shareable skills aligned and machine readable think about the data that you've got, and I thought a little bit about the data that I've got, which, a lot of it lives in a drawer. Because it's a piece of paper because I have I have my beautiful diploma from UT with the lovely raised CL and it's you know, it's frameable. It's beautiful. I have my transcript.
I don't really know why I have a copy of my transcript, but I must have needed it at some point. In the distant past. And so I have a paper copy of my transcript. It's in a file drawer. It's hard to share.
It's not skills aligned. So it doesn't call out the skills that I learned, and it doesn't really represent the upscilling and cross scaling that I've done over a a long career. So as we're thinking about kind of advancing into this but the next phase of data, the one of the lovely things about badges is that it brings that representation of skills and competencies and achievements into that robust digital construction that does carry a practically unlimited amount of data. And so, Javier, this is This is all your stuff. Every I think the rest of this presentation is all burnt orange.
So as you're thinking about kind of skills as a, call out for the kind of credentialing that you're doing. How is how is UT really approached kind of that that skills alignment idea. Yeah. Great question. And really quickly before I I do a deeper dive.
Is my audio better now? I know there were some comments in the chat. So I just wanted to get feedback from from people in the audience if It's okay. Cool. Much better. Alright.
Thank you. Awesome. Yeah. So, on schedules, I guess, I would probably approach it from two different two different scenarios. So, you know, having having skills in our badges was definitely important for us as we were developing the initiative.
We understand that, you know, one of the main goals of of badges, especially sophisticity rate. And so we wanted to to be conscientious of as we were developing, you know, programs or or, you know, badging opportunities, etcetera. That that was part of what we could embed into into our metadata and, also mostly primarily for the benefit of the learner. Right? We know that if we can if we can shine a light on the specific skills that they are acquiring, and you'll hear me say specific a lot made out during during the webinar today, but that's that's the goal. Right? The goal is to to have a, an achievement that has specificity so that it can properly they not only to the learner, but then, you know, to anyone who reads, you know, the description, the metadata, etcetera, what specifically this person now has because they've completed this activity.
You know, that's the goal. And so, really when when we were looking at you know, or really when we're looking at something now, it's we we have some content, some existing courses, programs, etcetera. That have made it a little bit easier for us to get going in the early stages. Right? We didn't necessarily want to spend a lot of time upfront creating something totally new, like a brand new program. You know, we saw opportunities to say, oh, we have this program that probably benefit from this kind of credential.
And because that's already created, it's already designed, you know, it's gone through a process before it's been released to the public, we know, okay, yeah, we we will have an opportunity to highlight specific skills because we've already done done that work. As we focus on new initiatives, you know, it's it's a little bit more, of the unknown. Right? And so what I wanna highlight here. I know I think Kelvin Bentley from UT systems in the audience. So, you know, UT system is embarked on this fantastic initiative, technical credentials for the future, which essentially has a goal of, making sure that our graduates from from all UT institutions are broadly educated and specifically skilled.
And so we want to use micro credentials or badges as a way to highlight that specificity of those skills, right? And so it's it becomes a little bit more challenging because then we have to start looking broader. Right? We don't have something defined yet. We're trying to create a new program and new initiative. Where do we find that alignment between what we want to or are teaching our students and then what industry is telling us that we need. Right? So that's that's another piece of the puzzle is we can we can say, okay, here's what we are teaching.
This is actually serving our students as well as it can. And, you know, we're we're in that process right now. We're about to start that. So it's an exciting journey. Mhmm.
But we're also conscientious of what are we gonna find out as we dive into it? But, yeah, so that's that's my that's my spiel on skills. Oh, I love that. And I love that that framework of broadly educated, specifically skilled, that none of us want to lose the broad education available at a world class university, and we know that learners of all kind of stripes really need to, to, to come away with those specific skills. I just wanna look real quick at this badge that we showed a couple of times now. We'll look at it for real.
This is this is in real life here. This badge, I'm looking at this badge from a a a public view of the world, So, Javier gets to log in to UT's, platform, but I don't. So this is that strategic decision making decision and risk management badge that we've been looking at. And do you do you wanna take just a second, Javier, to talk through kind of some of the content of this badge. I know you were heavily involved in its construction form.
Yeah. Sure. I'd be happy to. So this was an existing program, that we wanted to create a badge for, and it's actually one of the one of the few ones that currently has a pathway. So will segue nicely into the next part.
But, you know, it was really important for us, you know, for everyone working on the banking committee that was helping set up the initiative especially, you know, also for us is we we want to convey a lot of information in as concise of manner as we possibly can. And so if you if, you know, if you create a badge in the system, you can type as long a description as you want. Right? And so, but if you know, it might have noticed, right, Elizabeth had to click on that more link that now says less. Right? And so we wanna be cognizant of the fact, like, okay, like, that has to convey everything that a learner is possibly gonna acquire by by receiving this badge but maybe not necessarily specifically in the context of us. Right? So it's less about so it's less about the issue or it's less about the institution.
It's it's what is the learner acquiring when they complete this activity? And so having a a very users or learner centered approach when you're creating these descriptions is critical, but it's really difficult to do because you have all of the background when you're creating these programs and when you're trying to basically put that into one paragraph so that anyone who reads it can understand it is really difficult. And so that's that's part of it. And then on the earning criteria, again, here's another opportunity for us to be as specific as we possibly can. Right? These are all of the requirements a person has to complete. We can't possibly capture all of the information here, which is why we decide to link out to a couple of different places.
Right? So if you wanna learn more about this program, there's the second link. If you need to contact the issuer, there's another link there as well. And so this gives us the ability to say, hey, look, here's all the information that we think you're gonna need. Should you need more information? Here are these links for you to click on and learn more. I love that using the badge as a conduit recognizing that not only is this badge going to be viewed by the person who it's awarded to, right, who earns it.
Exactly. But it's gonna be shared. And when it's shared, people can see the content of the badge. I mean, badges are machine readable and that has some real applications, but they are human readable, and it's important, to your point, to give people information in a way that they can take it in pretty quickly and then find out more if they if they want to. I mean, I guess you could have put the entire description of the Texas education program in this badge.
It would have been very long and taking a long time to read through. But just linking out to that more information, I think, is a a great way to connect folks who wanna know more, obviously, the persons who earn this badge already knows. Although strangely, people go through programs and have a hard time talking about their learning in the language of the market that they need to speak to. So I'm assuming if somebody's in an executive education program that they're, already working somewhere, and they're looking to advance their career. So now they're talking to their manager or to someone, you know, more senior in the company, or they're looking for a new job in a new company.
You're really giving them the language, talk about their learning in a in a way that the market they're speaking to can can understand it. I love that. And then we've got good information about CEUs, etcetera, care, and then we've got the skills alignment, which I wanna make sure that we kind of talk about very specifically. So I'm gonna click on this problem solving skill and I oh, sorry to get out. Sorry about that.
I I this is my, my internet connection giving me a fit. Let's talk about strategic analysis a little bit, which is one of the skills aligned into that strategic decision making. So you already have at UT, a relationship of some sort with this light cast organization. Is that right? Yeah. There's some some departments here who use, some of their tools for a variety of different, you know, projects.
We we're focusing on it at least here, you know, in terms of, how we can leverage the the data, the insights that they provide, in the context of our badges. And so, again, we whenever we engage someone in a conversation about developing a new badging in we we highlight in order to do our best to highlight the importance of, including those skills in the data rate to your point from earlier, this isn't just what the learner sees when they've acquired their badge or earned their badge, is what it's what a third party is gonna see. You know, potential, their current employer when they, when they say that they've completed this activity, a recruiter when when they're applying for jobs. And so it's important for us to to basically equip and empower the learner as much as we can. With all of the information about the program that they've just completed, like you said, right? Sometimes it's difficult to to really convey everything correctly or appropriately, for for the learner, but then also say, okay, what what did you get out of completing Right? And so that's why it's important for us to put the skills there.
That's why it's important for us to tie them to, basically, this, this open skills database, which is, which is available to anyone. And, we we have some hopes for what we can do, you know, further on in the future. I won't spend too much time on that today because it's still really But but, yeah, so this is Yeah. It's a fantastic resource, and it's, you know, it's something that is included, you know, in our in our instance installation of of canvas credentials. And so why not take advantage of it? Why not leverage it for the benefit of learner if it's already there? So that's why it's important for us.
And and really this goes back to your skills specificity, which is really hard word for me, but I'm not saying anymore. Lifecast, if for those of you who are on this call that don't know them, they used to be MC, and then they bought burning glass, and then they change their name. And so it's a kind of a moving target, but they are a labor market intelligence group. So what they provide is the demand for a particular skill in the labor market as expressed in job postings. So they look at hundreds of millions of job postings every year.
And so, that particular skill, which what was it? I forget strategic analysis. These are companies that have posted for that skill in the last five months and job titles that included that skill in the last five months. And this is all, overall labor market demand for strategic analysis. Now, apparently, we've figured out all the strategies analyzed them all, and so this is falling off, which I I guess is good. So that's the skills, taxonomy that pick from that you picked from in your badge, and they're all connected to this labor market data, which I think really is a powerful, view of the learning that's taken place in that it puts it against the background of the labor market.
In a really clean sort of, visual way. So that's that's awesome. Love all of that. We're gonna come back to this piece in just a minute because I want to talk I just want to wrap up this conversation about skills before we, before we get too much further. Obviously, students are gonna come to you, Javier, and they're gonna enter the the kind of the graduate school of business programs and they're going to get those badges that are skills aligned, and they're gonna get lots of credentials from lots of other places over their career.
I know that you wish they would only come to you. But, that the the world is a is a big busy place, and so there's lots of learning opportunities out there. And as they gather, as a learner gathers, those skills aligned digital credentials, what it enables is this and I just wanna settle here for just a minute because I think this is such an important idea as we talk about the labor market specifically. And that is a learning and employment record. That's a term of art.
It is a a project that started with Oh, the US chamber of commerce and is now, being developed by organizations like the National Governors Association, the US Chamber is heavily involved in it, through their t three. Innovation network. And lots of states are putting together their own state level learning and employment records and then opening those up they'll be opened up as they, as they're, the, members of the state really kind of move as people tend to leave them. A learning and employment record is essentially a giant digital resume. That's what it is.
Populated with your diplomas and your certificates and certifications and all the pieces of that kind of lifelong learning journey that you've acquired. So think for just a minute. You've already kind of thought a little bit about the the actual certificates or, transcripts or diplomas or whatever you have, may may be in your drawer. Think a little bit about the things that you've learned that you've never gotten a credential for, where there's no formal recognition that you know how to do those things. And I'm thinking about things like upskilling and cross scaling that you may have acquired from your employer.
So lots of employers have really rich, training, learning and development programs that advance their, their employees, not only in their current job roles, so they're actually becoming more effective in the job role, but also advance them as, as professionals and careers. Skills that you may have learned because you did an apprenticeship or because because you had, someone that you knew that you just shadowed, that you really wanted to learn how they did the things that they did, in a ways that weren't really formally recognized, but can be captured, with formal or informal recognition into a learning and employment record. Obviously, I think it's pretty obvious digital badges are, populate learning and employment records really neatly. They are designed to be portable and shareable, and stackable. And so and they are skills a line of bull.
And they their they have that machine readable data that a learning and employment record really depends on. So more and more, if you haven't already been introduced to learning and employment records, you're going to find that that's a, an increasingly, impactful part of the conversation about awarding badges and equipping, recognizing, equipping learners to participate in the labor market. And I hope that you're asking your questions in the Q and A. We'll get to as many of those as we can as we kind of make our way through lit this, but right now I wanna go back to this badge that we were looking at. Your beautiful badge there, because I do want to scroll down to the bottom of that badge again and look at that stacking that you've been talking about a year.
So this badge that we've been looking at, is the end of this pathway. Do you wanna talk about this just a little bit? The structure of these this kind of stack of credentials? Yeah. Absolutely. So, this, this certificate program is, you know, it's a culmination of of a couple of different, courses that students or learners complete. I'll say that this was our first that we ever created our first ever pathway and so there was so much that we learned from going through that process.
I think we sort of walked into a thinking Okay. We have an understanding of how our taxonomy will work with the system, but then actually doing it and, you know, stumbling on, oh, wait, that's not gonna work. Oh, yes. That's that's gonna And so, so it's really interesting. The other thing I'll note here is that if you contrast, if you were to visit this page and contrast, what you see here in the pathway page versus what you see in the badge page.
There's gonna be some similarities naturally because we're talking about the same thing. But we made a concerted effort to distinguish as much as we possibly could between what was here and what was on the batch page. Yeah. If you think about the batch page, right, that's really a vehicle not only for the learner, but also for third parties. And if you're thinking about the learner, right, what do you want the learner to get out of looking at this page? That was really important for us to make that as, you know, make that distinction because we wanted this to be focused on the learner.
Like, yes, we might have a recruiter or an employer who goes to visit this page, but really the focus here is the learner. So we've made a concerted effort to structure it in a way that we would be able to give additional information that we might not be able to put on the badge, again, because of that balancing act of information, you know, overload. Yeah. And so so we we tried really hard to create this structure, not only easy to read, So if you're a learner, you wanna understand what it takes to complete this pathway, right, and, thankfully, the design sort of lends itself to that. But then also, okay, what does it mean for me to complete this step? What does it mean for me to acquire this badge? And again, we wanted to distinguish between what you might see on the badge page already versus what we wanna put in here that is gonna be supplemental to that.
And so that's another consideration as you think of out, pathways and, you know, how you might design those. That was a a very important focus to us as we were developing this. So two things that I just wanna underline that you just said. One is that you learned things as you did this. This is what I've seen in my my years of talking with, schools and, and businesses that are standing at badging programs, that the process of designing and developing that program tends to be pretty iterative.
So you've learned things, and then you think, oh, that's gonna change what I do. In this next program. And, boy, you just have to lean into that. You you can't. I wish you could know everything at the beginning, but that would take you years and then you wouldn't get anything done because you'd just be continuously learning.
So I love that. And I love the like, really considering what the learner view is of this. Now, again, I'm not logged in. So I can't show this. From a learner perspective, but I can show you what it would look like from a learner perspective when a learner tracks their progress along the pathway.
They literally see the elements check. I mean, it checks the boxes. That's a little bit on the nose from a design perspective, but I like it. So they can see their progress. They can see what they've completed, what they've yet to complete, where that learning journey is taking them.
This is really as we're thinking about badges being a retention tool because people are kind of moving toward knowing that they're going to get that recognition. They're going to get that equip they're gonna be equipped with those labor market skills. I also think about pathways as a retention tool these programs can be long and fairly complex depending on kind of, where it sits, in your organization and who you expect your learners to be. So keeping learners engaged, reminding them literally reminding them what they've done, reminding them what they've yet to do and where that learning journey is going for them what kind of the ultimate piece of that puzzle is is I just think it's critical. It's easy.
It is just easy. To lose learners, not just kind of, a a graduate level learners, but to lose your undergrads. As they, they their lives just get busy, and they do. And life is complex, and it has there's a bunch of things that you that you weren't really anticipating. And so this is a great way, to to keep oops.
Sorry. Gosh. I I'm a little twitchy there. To keep your learners engaged in programs until they really get to that ultimate piece. I I think that that's a it's a it's a powerful tool And so, always encourage folks to to take advantage of pathways if they if they can.
And then we wanna move into the recruitment piece, which we've really already touched on a little bit because when you look at the content of a badge, one of its the structural elements is how when this badge is shared, do other people kind of understand, what the accomplishments of that learner are? Badges are shared with people's peers, and their peers are your target market for this program. And they're shared in all sorts of different places. LinkedIn, I think you get a lot of LinkedIn sharing going on. In both the the profile, and, and this is kind of what it looks like in a profile. It it's under that licenses and certifications section.
You that's where that shows up also in news feeds. So this is what it looks like in a news feed where you see that badge and if you click on the badge here or here, you're going to open up that badge content, and you're gonna be able to, all those links are then gonna become hot for you so you can see the skills. You can see that. Tell me more about this program. All of that content is available to you.
And you can take advantage of it in any ways that you, as a badge viewer, want to. Now, in some cases, that's I want to go to there. I want to. I want to be a part of that program. I wanna go register.
I wanna sign up. I wanna, you know, I wanna buy now depending on how you're structuring your pages, but some of it is I see what this person knows and can do So as, we talk about recruiting at the university level, but I thought, I think there's a there's definitely an employer recruiting element to this too on kind of the other side of that equation where people are really saying, oh, that's that looks like, a person who possesses the skills and competencies and knowledge and experience that is really, important. For for my business, somebody that I want to hire. So I know that we've got some questions hiling up in Q and A. I'm going to, I'm gonna, turn the the balance of this, presentation over to Javier and I'll take the opportunity, while we're doing that to, to I'll come take a look at the Q and A and see what we can answer in the immediate, in the immediate case, and then anything that we can't answer in our time here, we'll get you an answer.
So don't think that we're gonna leave you hanging with your questions. We, we're, this is an iterative process. There's a lot of questions that can be answered. And so, we'll we'll try to get all of those answered for you one way or another. That's my promise.
As you think about standing up a a badging program, and it really being impactful for you to, recognize, retain, recruit your students. There's several kind of steps that we think makes sense. I told Javier when we were, we were kind of planning this webinar that I didn't mean for this graphic to be burnt orange. It just came that way. And so, There you go.
What are you gonna do? You're gonna take it where it comes. The mission visions and goals planning that you have to do is well in your hands and a lot of you have already started that. I think that part of your goal should be recruit, retain, recognize I can come up with the other r but you're going to have to develop an internal governance policy if you're gonna be successful. So, Javier has deep experience with this, and I'm gonna go ahead and, turn this over, to him. Alright.
So I know we've definitely got a lot of questions. I'll do my best to be concise and still deliver value to everyone. I'll start off by saying, you know, big shout out, big thank you to, Doctor. ARC Markman here at UT Austin. He's currently, vice provost for academic affairs was in a slightly different role at the time when this started, but he really did a fantastic job shepherding all of these different colleges and schools and units with all of our different, you know, perspectives and interests and was able to get us working together, which in institution this size is really challenging, as you might imagine, and, was really the, the leader in health us get to this point where we could develop, you know, something that would work for our institution.
And so so what we have at UT Austin is, you know, think of it as hybrid model. There's a level of institutional governance and then a level of local governance. And so, that's apologize Elizabeth. I kinda added some transitions or animations. So, yeah, there we go.
I'll I'll keep clicking. Program. There you go. Alright. And so starting institutionally, we we came up with this concept of a badger view board, or I'm gonna refer to it as the BRB.
So the BRB is modeled after an IRB. Right? So it's a collection of such a matter experts, It's not intended to be strong oversight. It's really intended to be coordination amongst everyone who's participating in the initiative that we don't have a hundred different approaches. Right? That's really the the key is, when the badge is out there, a UT Austin badge, we wanted to be a parent, you know, like, okay, these badges were created perhaps by different issuers, but ultimately they all fall under the same umbrella and the same structure. So that was the importance of that review process.
And I'll get into a little bit more detail in a second. The next level, right, so the local level that is, effectively determined by each college school or unit in question. So I'm gonna refer to those as CSUs just because college school or unit is a mouthful. And so, so in our setup, CSUs are the issuers. So the Macomb School of Business is an issue where the Copper School of Engineering is an issuer.
And each CSE was given the opportunity to create their own, sort of internal governance if they wanted to do that. There was not a requirement, but there was also I guess, a recognition, I would say that, yes, we all fall under this umbrella. We're all gotta follow this process. We're all gonna work through the BRB. But at the same time, if you decide that you want an additional layer for your specific requirements for your school because your programs are unique in a specific way, then that that allows us to do that.
Right? That level of local governance really allows us to do that. It was it continues to be an iterative process, like all of this is. Right? I would say that, you know, nothing really that we have, you know, here at the school of business is set in stone. We're cognizant of the fact that we're developing it. We've run some water through the pipes, as as Doctor.
Martin likes to say. So we we run some water through the pipes. And if we need to adjust, if we need to payment, if we need to loosen things up, if we need to tighten things up a little bit more, then we have the ability and the flexibility to do that. And so, you know, if you're considering different models of governance, I would say having some kind of hybrid model where there's institutional review, but there's also the ability for each college or school to do a separate thing. I would recommend that.
It it definitely provides, flexibility in what each CSU can do. And if you can go to the next one, next slide. There you go. Just just to give everyone a graphical representation of BRB. Right? So, like I said, there's a collection of subject matter experts from different disciplines.
And the idea is that one, when a badge needs to be reviewed by the BRB, that if it's within the domain of business education, but that particular subject matter expert doesn't have that direct expertise. They have a network of people in the school of business that they can say, oh, I think, you know, so and so is an expert in this topic. I can go to them. So that's another advantage of a BRB model is that, each of these subject matter experts knows other subject matter experts in this school and can consult with them on, you know, a specific bad request that they're working on. So that's another that's another benefit of that.
I love that. Can we, let me just I think it's helpful sometimes to see what this looks like inside of the, the the Prudential's organization because it's it's pretty well, like, that hybrid model is actually represented by the hierarchical structure of this Canvas credential's platform which is a top level organization, which you can see kind of right there. And so this is the top level organization in the local governance piece sits at the issuer level. And in your system right now, there are thirteen issuers and that is expanding. Every time I go in and look, there's a new issuer, creating and avoiding badges.
And you can see that the issuers, that kind college schools units structure, that that CSUPs can, can confuse our friends in California sometimes. But anyway, I I have to, like, think college schools units, academic affairs, the center for health communication, There's the College of Education and natural sciences, all building their programs. So you can see some of them only have a single badge at this point because it does take some time, and it is iterative. And so, the but the Dean of students is in there and the extension program, a petroleum extension. They've got a ton of badges for their, their, executive education, they're continuing professional education.
School of nursing. I don't even know what's in here anymore. It's been a minute since I looked. So you've got lots and lots of those local locally controlled programs, colleges, schools that are running their own thing and make their own decisions, within the broader context. So can we talk, Javier, just for a second, about process? Because I think that that, that There are some really great process decisions that you made as a university that can help people to, I think, sidestep some decisions.
I mean, I think you should pick whatever is the best from programs that you like, and then you should just, do a search and replace. Their name for yours, so maybe. Can we talk about that? And I think I have that page open here. So this is a public view of this this kind of this governance that you've put in place. I know it's not every single thing, but it is the the broad Can you talk a little bit about the process that, you used as a university to establish this kind of top level governance with local control, which is a very Texas thing that can have top level governance with local control, How did you go about structuring your programs? Let's do that process question first.
Yeah. For sure. I'll say in the in the slide, if you wanna go back to the slide, whether there's a a bit ly, go to the next one. Oh, okay. Gotcha.
Yeah. So there's a Bentley there and a QR code if y'all want to scan or visit that page that Elizabeth was on. Yeah. But, yeah, So in terms of process, so I I threw this in here because I wanted to sort of highlight how, you know, the combination of of governance and process taxonomy, you know, depends on what you're doing. So very broadly without going into too much detail at UT Austin, we have completion badges and competence badges.
So this was a long process. So a committee made up of, multiple colleges schools and units across the university all coming with, like I said, their own perspectives and their own ideas about, how we would set up badges at UT Austin. And so competence badges might be what most people are familiar with. Right? So those are badges that have an assessment requirement in order to sort of solidify or verify This person has acquired the skill of this competency, right, because there's a sort of a minimum minimum score required for that assessment. Completion badges were a type of bags that we decided to incorporate because we realized there's some activities for which you know, that that level of assessment, may not be the most appropriate, I'll say.
So it has a variety of things. Right? We wanted to be cognizant about something that's gonna come up later. We might not be thinking about it right now, but we can see extracurricular things that learners might be doing that we might not necessarily fit, you know, super well with having an assessment requirement with a specific score. And then also, you know, another another driver of this conversation was continuing professional and executive education. Right? Those are those are long standing, programs and units that have been I have been offering programs and courses in a variety of ways from many years.
And for that type of audience, right, the calculus is a little bit different. And so we wanted to be inclusive of that, of those needs. You know, it's multiple units across the university. So it wasn't really one specific person or unit driving it. And so we we figured out that this was a good way to balance the different use cases we might encounter.
But like I said, this process took several months. Right? And once we figure out, okay, here's what our taxonomy is gonna be, then we started the process of, okay, here's what Here's what we've come up with. How does it fit within, you know, real use cases, real examples? How does it work with the platform? That was another piece. Right? And so, these types of badges have different processes. And so for the completion badges, because those are you know, different than the comment dispatches, there's no specific requirement for assessment or for a score.
Those have those can be approved by the administrator of the BRB. Comminance badges, that's where we really require that subject matter expert, to come in and say, okay, what are what are the learning objectives of this right, of this activity. What is a learner supposed to walk away with? And from there, say, okay. How was this assessment constructed? Is an effective assessment know, does it need modifications? And this goes back to the idea that the, the the VRB is not meant to be strong oversight. Right? And so it's not as if someone will submit a request for a competence badge, and it's gonna get rejected, and that's the end of that.
Right? It's more like, okay, you know, here's a good starting point. Here's some feedback, some things you might wanna consider, go back and then, you know, make some updates and, and then submit it again. So it's it's really an iterative process. Right? We keep using that word, but it's really what it is. And so, we've it's been a big learning process, right, going through this for the past, year or so.
And it, I think it has really allowed us both the flexibility for certain types of programs but then also ensuring that the badges that we are putting out there that have, you know, the university Texas at Austin, you know, sort of very heavily displayed, that they have the value that we say that they have. Right? And so we wanna be able to and behind the badges that we're putting out there. And so the process and the governance that we've created, you know, ultimately the committee felt comfortable that this was gonna work for us moving forward. And now I say work for us, you know, I've made that distinction between because one thing I've learned in the past couple years is if it works for one institution, that doesn't necessarily mean it's gonna work for yours, right, the specific details. And when we talk about hybrid models of governance, like, yeah, localized in stitutionalized, those are, I think, concepts that transfer, but the specific taxonomy, the specific levels, the specific types that can change based on every institution's needs and institution's goals.
And so a question that we get a lot when we're creating new programs is what are other schools doing? Like, oh, we're really used to thinking about that with traditional programs, but this doesn't really transfer. Right? There's no Department of Education policy or state policy around this. Right? And so it's it's it's really an open field, which is why we have to focus on what do we need what do our students need and then design design to that. Right? So that would be my other my other two, piece of advice. So I love that that this is a this is a good structure and it works for you.
And I, generally, like, loosely like it for a lot of the schools that we work with because you are talking about kind of a broad view that establishes what what does good look like? It is our brand that's being represented, and you wanna have control over that. You don't want it to be the Wild Wild West. And the local, college schools and units have their own perspectives on the world. They have their own things that they really value and want to convey, and there has to be room for everybody to have it's I I it's not cookie cutter. It's just not.
And I love that construction that you put in place where competence is assessed, right? Completion is noted. So, yes, you completed. We note that, but it's not assessed. So competence is is assessed. That's gonna be hard for me to say.
Completion is noted. And even in the and I'm just gonna go back to that page where that bitly, QR code actually, leads to, which is this page, because you've even expressed that in your badge designs where you've said, okay, competence, which is assessed, these are the designs that you can use to, to put together a competence badge, and these are the designs that you can use to put together a completion badge. And so even there, that taxonomy that you've structured for own internal badging purposes, is expressed in the visuals that carry the brand of the university. So I love all of that. Let me ask you one more question before we wrap up here.
When somebody you you said, when somebody submits a request, what does that look like for somebody to submit a request? Yeah. Does that look like? Yeah. So when, you know, when a a faculty member or staff member, know, a unit is interested in submitting a request. They effectively have to submit, you know, sort of basic information like the metadata that's gonna be on the badge. Right? So that there's a full understanding of what that badge is supposed to mean.
Yes. And then there's other details, like, who's who's submitting it, you know, who's the who's the requester. How is this getting how is this getting, awarded, you know, is it from one system versus another, is it part of a pathway? You know, you'll sort of see there, in our two lower levels of badges. You can only request those if they are part of a pathway. You know, the the what we call terminal badges, which is the ones on the far array.
Those are the only ones that can be standalone. Okay. And and so I'll I'll touch a little bit. Also, I saw a question in the Q and A about, you know, sort of locally local governance. So what I mean by that is For example, in the business school, we have our own process that happens before a before a request is actually submitted to the institutional review process.
And so we developed this process to to collaborate, I know, side by side with an interested party or group to create a new badge, new badge program. And so we help them with designing it. We help them with, okay, what are your learning objectives? Why would you wanna do it this way? Here's some recommendations based on those practices. And so by basically what that does is this local process effectively streamlines the institutional process because by the time that we land on, here is a, you know, a a request that's ready to be submitted to the institutional process. Right.
It's pre it's gone through a similar, if not in some cases, you know, more intense process locally because we want to make sure that by the time it gets to the institutional process, Yeah. It's it's pretty much effectively gonna be approved with some, with maybe some comments. Yeah. But I will say that requires a lot of effort and a lot of time. And we are one of the few schools that has an office like ours, you know, the office of instructional innovation that can support that.
Right. Some units don't have that. And so it's a little bit of a different, you know, experience for a different school that doesn't have the ability to create a local process, which is why it's not required. Right? That's why we we've made a robust and, you know, sort of inclusive institutional process so that if you don't have the ability to create a local one, you don't have to. Yeah.
I I love that, that idea of, like, the the badges kind of bubble up through the system, right? They start at the local level. They're refined there. They go to the organizational level with something that's where the process is formalized. I mean, there's literally, like, the forms forms that you fill out in order to kind of move those things up as they but, there's there's also fluidity in that process, as you're kind of moving things along. So it's not super rigid where, you know, you could get a hard no, and there would be nothing that you could do about that.
I I love the program you've put together. I'm absolutely delighted that we had the opportunity to, to have this chat today. I think if if you wanna con connect with either of us those QR codes will take you to our, our business cards on, link. And so feel free to scan those and grab those, which have direct contact information for us both. We, my my my team, thank you Joanna.
Thank you, Jason, so much for participating in today's conversation. I think always helpful to have knowledgeable folks looking at the chat and, and reviewing the q and a. So thank you both so much for joining us today. And to all of you who, who hung with us for an hour. Thank you.
And we look forward to connecting with you further to continue this conversation. Thanks, Javier. So much. Bye everybody. Bye. Thank you.