Digital credentialing: opening-up with to new modalities of learning and types of qualifications
Recent research led by the UNESCO (2018a) highlights that the digital transformation of learning has opened new opportunities and challenges for qualifications systems. The emergence of fourth-generation qualifications frameworks, which are more inclusive of non-degree credentials and open to new learning domains such as global citizenship, and the application of new digital technologies to recognise outcomes of learning and credentialing are questioning some of the established principles that have governed policy in the domain of qualifications.
UNESCO (2018a) underlines the growing role and value of new different types of credentials, of smaller size (“micro-credentials”), that can be combined (“stacked”) and verified and managed in digital frameworks and instruments.
Traditional degrees (macro-credentials) are no longer the sole signal (representation) accepted by employers and by other societal players to value and recognise the knowledge, skills, attitudes, competence, autonomy and responsibility of graduates and learners.
Digital credentials can increase efficiency and portability of qualifications and skills between countries. Digital credentials can reduce administrative burden for citizens, learning providers and businesses; decrease credential-fraud; empower citizens to own and control their own credentials; and contribute towards digitisation of government processes.
Digital credentials that use badging have a number of benefits, such as: granularity of the information on the demonstrated skills; stackable: can be combined in purposeful manner with other degree or non-degree, or with smaller credentials to boost the employability of the individuals; personalised and accurate information on the learners’ achievements; machine-readable: using open technical standards, they can be used for fine-grained and real time analytics.
At the same time, the strong impetus for massification of digital badges is not risk-free, and accurate information is yet to reach the majority of wider public. There are issues of security, quality assurance and transparency, users’ perception and access to the Internet.
The use of new digital technologies to manage qualifications and validated units of skills acquired through lifelong learning is spreading rapidly. This benefits both young and adult learners.
Figure: New Europass – digitally signed credentials
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The new Europass has the ambition to offer the possibility of “digitally signed credentials” (badges). The EU digitally signed credentials framework is based on the following principles: user centricity, inclusion and accessibility, openness, data protection, interoperability, transparency, resilience, reusability and qualifications as a public good. |
Figure: Piloting digital seals and certificates by South African Qualifications Authority
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In 2017, SAQA launched a world-first pilot project to provide online, electronic, real-time verification of the SAQA Certificates of Evaluation (SCoEs) by making digital seals and certificates available to selected qualification holders. This pilot project places SAQA at the next level of cutting-edge technology as the first Qualifications Authority in the world to embrace elements of the 4th Industrial Revolution through the use of digital seals and certificates. The advantage of the real-time electronic SCoE (eSCoE) is that the holder of the digital certificate can make it available immediately to education institutions or potential employers to fast-track placements either for study or employment. There is no need to wait, and the certificate never gets lost or needs to be replaced. This SAQA initiative will assist the mobility of a skilled workforce across Africa and the rest of the world. Importantly, the initiative will also reduce fraud because, unlike the paper-based certificates, the electronic certificates are more difficult to forge. SAQA is driving a SADC digitisation pilot as part of the modernisation of verification practices in SADC. In 2018, it met with Botswana, Namibia and Zambia to discuss the requirements to move forward the pilot on the countries’ e-Certificate of Evaluation. The pilot project emanates from the digitisation project that SAQA had launched to provide electronic, real-time verification of the SCoE through digital certificates. |
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Source: SAQA, Celebration of 21 years of a world-class NQF that works for the people: the South African case. Communication at ACQF inaugural workshop, 2-3 September 2019, Addis Ababa. |
Further reading:
- UNESCO (2018a), Digital credentialing. Implications for the recognition of learning across borders, 2018. Available here.
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