Microcredentials - Teaching Innovation and Program Strategy

Developing Microcredentials

A guide for faculty and program leaders to design, implement, and issue high-quality microcredentials

What are Microcredentials?

A Microcredential is an umbrella term for several types of small-scale, skill-based, earned recognitions of proficiency in a designated competency or set of competencies. Types of microcredentials include digital badges, certificates, licenses, endorsements, and assessed PDUs/CEUs.

Programs that award microcredentials should have these three characteristics:

The skill, competency, or knowledge must be corroborated through some form of assessment (Note: If skills are not assessed, digital recognition badges are still available to document participation);
It is of smaller scale, focused on a subset of skills or competencies (i.e., smaller than a degree program);
It focuses on skills or competencies that can be directly linked to career growth, career change, or professional development.

Microcredential Program Types

Credit-Bearing - Consisting of for-credit courses
Credit-Ready - Offered in the non-credit space but linked to for-credit courses
Non-Credit professional learning and continuing education
Co-curricular - for CU Denver students only
Faculty/Staff Professional Learning - for CU Denver employees only

Developing Microcredential Programs (Step-by-Step)

Content and Design Decisions*

Identify key skills/competencies and determine evidence of need through market intelligence or other evidence (Contact TIPS Market Intelligence Team).
Determine program characteristics best for your learners, such as modality, stackability, articulation with for-credit (Consultations are available with the Office of Academic Planning & TIPS Program Development).
Design program outcomes, content, and assessments to validate skills; working with employers is highly encouraged (Contact TIPS Instructional Designers to partner in this work).

Follow Proposal and Approval Process within your School/College or Administrative Unit

Each school and college has processes and guidance for proposing and approving microcredential programs. This typically entails department approval, curriculum committee approval, and Dean approval. See the field guide [COMING SOON] for specifics about your particular unit.
For units outside of schools/colleges for co-curricular programs or faculty/staff professional learning programs, supervisor and Associate Vice Chancellor sign-off is required.

Campus-Level Process

The starting point for all microcredential programs will be completing the temporary Microcredential Establishment Form [COMING SOON] until the permanent Microcredential CIM form is available.
This form will also collect information to establish digital badges; These badges are available to use as an artifact to document successful program completion (for more on digital badges, see our page).
Feedback may be provided noting potential duplication with other programs across our campus; collaboration and differentiation is encouraged.
If you are establishing a digital badge, work with the Director of Microcredentials to finalize your badge template in Credly (badges are optional).

*Decisions around curriculum content and design are at the discretion of faculty.