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Infographic of LER creators and LER dataflows by the creators of SmartResume.

Report from the Alternative Credentials Workgroup on definitions, strategic alignment, campus stakeholders, infrastructure, standards, destinations, and timing around digital microcredential use.

Skills-based practices make pathways to good careers more accessible to a wider segment of the workforce by focusing on what workers can do, not on the degrees or certifications they’ve earned. The verifiable credentials wallets highlighted in this market scan give learners and workers the tools they need to communicate the totality of their skills and abilities and translate their achievements into future opportunities.

Report on Phase II of 12 CLR pilots conducted by AACRAO under a Lumina Foundation grant, focused on scaling the pilots with the aid of partner associations NASPA and NILOA.

A guide for creating credential transparency to support a future credential marketplace for everyone.

Credentials come in all shapes and sizes, but those issued electronically as standards-based digital credentials have the potential to remove systemic barriers, facilitate recognition of KSAs, improve the hiring process, and recognize learning and achievements earned in traditional and non-traditional ways. But what do all of these terms mean, and how does one differ from the other?

In Summer 2023, CAEL (the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning) and The EvoLLLution conducted a survey of CAEL higher education members and The EvoLLLution subscribers to investigate the extent to which their institutions are considering CLR implementation, and whether they are taking steps to reconceptualize their courses and credentials in terms of skills or competencies rather than credit hours. Follow-up conversations with select CAEL members who are taking steps to move towards skill-based credentialing models and an informal information-gathering roundtable at the 2023 CAEL Conference in November further informed the study.

This report reflects the culmination of the first phase of a two-year initiative focused on exploring both the opportunities and the risks of utilizing blockchain to translate skills and educational experiences into a language that individuals—and employers—can use.

Terminology is important. The words or names we use to label and describe a program, project, innovation, or movement can make or break the success of those initiatives. With our words, we can inspire, describe, motivate, and engage. In the same vein, we can also unintentionally confuse, alienate, or repel. In our work to understand the messages, narratives, and themes that leaders are using to describe “blockchain-powered credentialing technology” and “self-sovereign identity solutions,” we came across dozens of terms that describe the same general body of work. This brief describes our findings and makes some early recommendations for language and messaging strategies that may resonate more with employers.

Over the last few months, I’ve asked the same question to corporate leaders from human resources, talent acquisition, learning and development, and management backgrounds. The question is this: What kind of data needs to be included in learning and employment records to be of greatest value to you in your role and to your organization? The answer varies slightly by industry and position, but unanimously, the employers I’ve talked to would find the greatest value in utilizing learning and employment records that include verified skills data. There is no equivocation.

This report attempts to map the space that exists between the promise of digital credentials that represent skills, competencies and abilities and their widespread adoption in employment-related use cases. It is based on a set of semi-structured interviews with leading experts and decision makers in North America and Europe, desk research and expert analysis.

A first detailed look “under the hood” of talent acquisition systems through an education-oriented lens — which clearly highlights both the opportunities and the gaps to close in realizing the potential of digital credentials within the evolving talent marketplace. As both the demand for digital credentials and the need for new talent strategies and solutions grows, key actors including credential issuers, talent acquisition technology providers, policymakers, and employers have the opportunity to work more collaboratively.

Community based organizations have an important role to play in a large-scale effort to build systems that increase access to good jobs by enabling workers to share digital records of their education and employment histories with employers, schools, and training providers.

General digital wallet policy brief

There are significant obstacles between current Learning and Employment Record (LER) design strategies and broad adoption by employers, and similar barriers exist in work to communicate with, for, and about the employer’s stake in this work. As employers continue to face hurdles in identifying and hiring qualified talent, the potential for skill- and competency-based digital credentials is likely to grow. This report, based on a deep review and analysis of existing literature on the topics of digital credentials and LERs, complemented by interviews with experts and program leaders, provides a current state assessment of how employers are learning about and being engaged in these efforts. It also describes some emerging messages, themes, and tactics that show promise in building employer awareness, understanding, and ultimately adoption of LERs, digital credentials, and verified skills. We outline the current state of content about LERs directed to employers and look at how both the benefits and challenges of LERs are discussed for employers, as well as opportunities to frame the work around LERs differently to motivate employer engagement and begin moving the needle on employer engagement around LERs.

Experience You explores how emerging technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) can aggregate unstructured learning and employment data and convert it into machine actionable, structured data as LERs. Most current LER initiatives primarily center on creating and securely sharing records based on recent learning and employment experiences. To achieve widespread adoption and transformative impact, it's essential to address the gap in providing LERs for all workforce participants, including the past education and employment experiences of over 160 million U.S. workers.

Learning and Employment Records (LERs), an individual’s records of verified credentials, skills, and employment, have the potential to transform the nation’s education and employment systems. Yet, when it comes to convincing employers of their value, the focus on “potential” is a problem. While aspirational language can be an opening hook in any sales pitch, any user will expect concrete details about a product or service before signing on. Much of the existing messaging supporting employer adoption of LERs for upskilling (for current employees) or skills-based hiring (for new employees) focuses on benefits for employers that are vague and unlikely to inspire continued interest at scale. Language used in LER literature is frequently hopeful and ambitious, rather than speaking to outcomes.

Strategies for common talent acquisition issues using open data standards to improve hiring and advancement systems and practices. Pilot ideas related to publishing job postings, creating and using skills frameworks, accepting alternative qualifications, masking identity, and issuing and accepting Learning and Employment Records (LERs). Simple reference to relevant standards and associated communities of practice

Summarizes survey results from employers and hiring managers about recruiting and hiring practices including skills-based hiring as well as aligning education with workforce needs.

Digital credentials can contain a link to more information about the credential on Credential Engine's Credential Registry. This information can help employers and others better understand the meaning of the credential.

Digital Promise collaborated with workers in frontline sectors along with leaders in higher education, design, and technology to explore how LER technology could be used to promote greater equity across education and workforce systems. Drawing on our Inclusive Innovation Model, we engaged frontline workers, referred to as participant-advisors, in a series of design sessions to understand their perceptions of emerging LER technology and identify potential gaps in the design for developers.

To achieve interoperability, action is required by the public and private sector. To guide action, a common set of principles for education and employment data has been created for use by key decision makers who provide education and training to millions of Americans each year, including policy makers, state and federal agencies, philanthropy, employers, colleges and universities, K-12 district leaders, workforce agencies, and military branches.

Staff at the White House compiled this inventory to provide insight into the landscape of interoperable learning records (ILRs) as of November 2019. There is currently no intention to update the inventory for subsequent periods. Many of the stakeholders referenced in the inventory contributed to the compilation of the included information. The inventory is broken out into five sections: 1. Secure Issuing and Verification Protocols (page 3) 2. Data Standards (page 9) 3. Ontologies/Frameworks (page 21) 4. Implementations, Pilots, and Implementation Support Networks (page 26) 5. Products and Services (page 49).

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation (Chamber Foundation) and the T3 Innovation Network (T3 Network) launched the Jobs and Employment Data Exchange (JEDx) initiative in 2021 to develop a public-private approach for collecting and using standards-based jobs and employment data. JEDx builds on the Chamber Foundation’s Job Data Exchange (JDX) initiative to promote public-private standards for job descriptions and postings, and the T3 Network’s Employment and Earnings Records Standards Project to develop and use public-private standards for comprehensive employment and earnings records.

A group of leading organizations in education, workforce development, and human resources collaboratively developed this LER Ecosystem Map to offer a shared vision for realizing the potential of LERs. The map highlights key stakeholder groups, describes the necessary steps to accelerate development and adoption, and offers a charge for action.

This tool has been developed for colleges and universities that are ready to establish or grow a learning and employment record (LER) system to support skills-based learning and hiring. Use this tool to determine your current stage of development across the categories identified. Colleges and universities in the effective practice stage of development are best positioned to empower underserved adult learners. Please also refer to Rethinking Community College Systems for a Skills-Based Talent Ecosystem: A Playbook for Learning and Employment Records for examples and key strategies that will help you succeed.

Describes the importance of the learning recognition of the future: integration of learning and work; equity and inclusion, the centering around a student’s individual learning and competencies, and, woven throughout, the leveraging of technology in new ways to improve efficiencies and affordability.

With the generous support of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Digital Promise collaborated with historically and systematically excluded (HSE) adult learners and workers to establish a set of design principles to inform the development of LER technologies for use over an individual’s learning and career journeys, including their learning transitions. Through one-on-one interviews and group workshops with HSE adult learners and workers, fundamental design principles have been identified to influence LER data infrastructure from education to the workforce.

Use this introduction guide to plan for and implement your LERs using Credential Engine’s open technologies. It is intended for people planning for or in the process of implementing LER solutions and includes both general information for non-technical understanding and technical information for implementers. It will be updated as additional examples are developed with other LER-related specifications.

The National Governors Association has engaged trusted education/workforce journalist Paul Fain to examine LER issues through a journalistic lens, with a focus on the practical realities on the ground rather than theory. We will focus heavily on the moves that states and other key actors are already making—and whether they are seeing early wins or learning hard lessons. The goal is both to provoke deeper thought about what it really means for states to invest in LERs and to shed light on uses that have the most immediate potential to shift workforce dynamics, invigorate local economies, and change lives.

In a September 2019 white paper, the Working Group recommended three actions to accelerate the development of the LER ecosystem and the process of bringing LERs to widespread use within the labor market. The three recommendations were: 1. Create an LER Inventory; 2. Convene an expert group of employers and education institutions who will develop a project plan for the piloting of LER prototypes; 3. Champion FastTrack Prototyping against specific milestones. The goal was to achieve these milestones as of July 2020, and this goal has been met. The White House, through AWPAB, has facilitated progress toward this goal by enabling collaboration between employers, academic institutions, technology firms, and government partners.

This paper provides a high-level map of the landscape of education and labor market innovations in formal and informal education (including the workplace), with an emphasis on digital credentials and LERs.

To learn how employers and employees view and value alternative credentials and explore workforce readiness alternatives that build access and diverse talent strategies, the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) and the SHRM Foundation, with funding from Walmart, conducted research during the summer of 2021. They surveyed U.S. executives, supervisors, HR professionals and workers with no direct reports. Additionally, qualitative information was gathered through a series of focus groups (Learning Labs). The results were then reviewed with HR professionals to gain greater insights on the findings.

Learning and employment records (LERs) such as diplomas, transcripts, badges, micro-credentials, certifications, and work experiences are being published as verifiable digital credentials according to the well-established and supported technology standard, W3C Verifiable Credentials (VCs) (https://www.w3.org/TR/vc-data-model/). This web specification provides the guidelines and models for how to develop software that issues and verifies cryptographically secured digital credentials that are flexible enough to accommodate identity verification, supply chain management, government documents, and also learning and employment records. This paper describes how VCs have increased the efficacy and integrity of digital learning and employment records, reviews the roles and activities involved with VCs, and discusses the status of the education data standards that are adjusting to this new paradigm.

Provides a blueprint for how to measure the impact of key skills-based talent practices at your company. Intended for senior HR and DEI leaders tasked with understanding how to drive critical DEI outcomes and expand economic opportunity and mobility at your company. Includes practical advice from companies who have used the framework.

This report makes the case for the urgency of connecting employers with untapped talent and how to do it in a way that will invigorate the economy for the mutual benefit of those individuals, employers, and our communities. We’ll unpack the larger trends influencing the workforce and highlight actions to help business leaders, policymakers, advocates, educators, and innovators seize this opportunity.

The what, why and how of learning employment records (LERs) for HR professionals.

This playbook for learning and employment records outlines a first step in unpacking the complexities of LERs identified by policymakers and employers into the day-to-day efforts of higher education. The LER Stages of Development: Skills-Based Education and Employment Ecosystem, an LER engagement and implementation tool that accompanies this playbook, provides a self-assessment framework for functional areas including academics, student services, workforce partnerships, data and technology, and the state or system landscape

A one-pager on how skills-based hiring infrastructure can better connect job descriptions, intermediaries, jobseekers, education providers, and digital wallets.

Skills visibility is about making the skills a (l)earner has acquired open, transparent, and accessible to the (l)earner, providing agency to showcase their curated skills and competencies to employers in the marketplace. It's also about employers articulating the 21st century and technical skills needed for the job, as well as making those skills visible to prospective candidates. Finally it engages (l)earners as co-creators and centers their needs and goals in its design, particularly those we know to be most harmed by the current capital- and degree-driven state.

Develops aspirational use cases to align leading employer practices in skills-based hiring and advancement that have the potential to achieve results for both employers and job candidates based on a balanced set of success metrics. This project includes aspirational learner/worker-centered use cases that empower them to use innovative developments in resumes, profiles, learning and employment records, and guidance services. Identifies likely failure points in implementation and scaling, including employer and candidate capacity, time and resource commitments, and the state of available data, technology and standards.

Generating Learning and Employment Records (LERs) and using them in skills-based hiring and advancement requires the use of data standards. The T3 Innovation Network is supporting the development and use of data standards and related technologies to empower learners and workers with data about their knowledge, skills, and abilities. This digital transformation will better connect learners and workers to employment opportunities and help bring about a more equitable talent marketplace.

This document is a one-stop guide to help employers build business agility, workforce diversity, and resilience through skills-based talent practices. It includes business cases for a skills-based approach and resources to assess a company’s maturity and readiness to identify and adopt specific skills-based talent practices

Five categories of requirements and options for creating Comprehensive Learner Records (CLRs) for Competency-Based Education were identified and tested with several colleges and universities.

Captures what TPM partners have learned to date to benefit current practitioners as they develop and enhance their own TPM projects. Provides a detailed comparative analysis of survey results and focus group takeaways from two states that have been engaged in TPM implementation: Michigan and Kentucky.

National Skills Coalition’s new report The Non-Degree Credential Quality Imperative encourages state policymakers to invest in quality NDCs; shares how we’ve worked with states to define, measure, and track quality; and offers takeaways for how to advance quality assurance so that policymakers feel confident in investing in non-degree credentials, students have confidence in their training programs, and employers know which programs effectively prepare people for careers.

Increasingly, U.S. workers are turning to alternative credentials as a way to enhance and demonstrate skills and work readiness. But can certifications, badges and apprenticeships stand in for traditional education and work experience when seeking a new job?

Through research on the landscape of digital micro-credentials, we hope to provide insights and policy recommendations to decisionmakers and stakeholders, such as education and labor policymakers, to expand access to skills and quality jobs to the most disadvantaged learners and workers across the world.

Short-term training and education programs can play an important role in a skills-first economy, but the value of the credentials they lead to is often unclear. Marketplace improvements will help ensure that they fulfill their promise.

Use Cases for Education and Training Providers to Implement Labor-Market-Informed Strategy, Career Pathways, Skills Alignment, Digital Credentials, and Continuous Improvement.

Diplomas, licenses, certifications, certificates, micro-credentials, badges, and other types of achievement recognition and credentials in education and employment are increasingly being issued in digital formats that require different methods of demonstrating integrity than paper documents. These digital credentials when issued as W3C Verifiable Credentials can be asserted as cryptographically secure, privacy-respecting, machine-verifiable, and interoperable verifiable credentials. This gives individuals access to and control over their achievement data when they need it and throughout their lifetimes. This document outlines user roles in this ecosystem and use cases documented by the Verifiable Credentials for Education Task Force community that describe user needs, user tasks, and technology needs.

This report is the product of a federal Executive Order which established the American Workforce Policy Advisory Board (AWPAB)'s Data Transparency Working Group. It introduces the Interoperable Learning Record (ILR) which has now been renamed to the Learning and Employment Record (LER).