[LINK] Microcredentials

[Roger Clarke]

> On 24/3/22 15:59, Stephen Loosley wrote:
>> Microcredentials standardised at last By David Braue on Mar 24 2022
>> 01:53 PM
>> https://ia.acs.org.au/content/ia/article/2022/microcredentials-standardised-at-last.html

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On 30/3/22 8:42 am, Tom Worthington wrote:
> Should be *centi* or *deci* credentials, as they are one tenth to one
> hundredth of a degree, not *micro* (millionth).
> 
>> ... enable potential students to compare short courses ...
> 
> Microcredentials are usually much longer than short courses, and have
> formal assessment, which short courses often do not have. The assessment
> is a bit under half the cost of running a course.
> 
>
>> ... ‘stack’ them to build complete qualifications ...
> 
> Yes, an lets take a whole lot of single story buildings, and stack them
> to make a skyscraper. What could possibly go wrong? ;-)
> 
>
>> ... whose clarity will make them more helpful for potential
>> employers. ...
> 
> All those courses designed by different people, at different times,
> for different purposes, when stuck together will make a cohesive
> learning experience?
> 
>
>> ... more than one hour  and less than a formal Australian
>> Qualifications Framework (AQF) qualification. ...
> 
> That is a very wide span. The smallest useful microcredenital will be
> more like a week of study, than an hour.
> 
> The smallest AQF qualification is a certificate (I to IV & Graduate),
> which requires 600 hours of learning.
> https://www.asqa.gov.au/standards-vac/10.5
> 
>
>> non-credit-bearing microcredentials ...
> 
> A "non-credit-bearing" credential?
> 
> More on microcredentials:
> https://blog.highereducationwhisperer.com/search/label/microcredential

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I'm adding to Tom's points, not disagreeing at all:

-   Degree courses (at least in disciplines that prepare students for
    professional careers) have at least a modicum of coherence.

    Commerce, Comp Sci and IS have tended to be quite strongly
    prescribed. A lot of core units provide foundations, building
    on one another, and enabling later-year options to rely on, and
    build further on, presumed prior knowledge.

    I'm not pretending that delivery's anything like perfect, but most
    degrees have provided a lot of people with a good base.

    So how does the 'micro-credential' world address the need for
    'foundations', 'coherence' and 'cumulative knowledge'?

-   People have always been permitted to enter most degrees with
    advanced standing, but based on 'equivalent prior studies'.

    What approach is taken in the micro-credential fairyland to
    pre-requisites?

    In their absence, dysfunctionality inevitably undermines value:

    -   dumbing-down of the unit content and presentation trying to
        reach the lowest-common-denominator student - who is almost
        certainly so ill-prepared as to be incapable of getting
        knowledge from the unit that's either significant or reliable

    -   many students wallowing around in ignorance, having no idea
        what the unit is about, how it relates to what little they know,
        and in what way the topics are related to one another

    -   the real target-students utterly frustrated by the
        superficiality of the content and presentation, which barely
        gets past the better tech press articles that they'd already
        absorbed and that had whetted their appetite for understanding

    -   alternatively, speaking to only the minority of people who
        *should* be in the room;  yet providing everyone in the room
        with some kind of imprimatur that is not merely undeserved
        but also misleading to employers and dangerous to society


I think the micro-credential notion is justabout the silliest idea I've
heard in 55 years of involvement with post-secondary ed.


P.S. David Braue writes a lot of good articles. This isn't one of them.


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Roger Clarke                            mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au
T: +61 2 6288 6916   http://www.xamax.com.au  http://www.rogerclarke.com

Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd      78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA

Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Law            University of N.S.W.
Visiting Professor in Computer Science    Australian National University