Counting U.S. Postsecondary and Secondary Credentials — from Credential Engine; with thanks to Will Richardson  for this resource
February 2021

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Learners, educators and policymakers understand that high school completion and education beyond high school are critical to thrive in the workforce. However, until recently an inventory of the number or type of secondary and postsecondary credential opportunities in the United States did not exist. This is the third annual report from Credential Engine that attempts to count all these credentials. The report identifies 967,734 unique credentials in the U.S. in 16 detailed credential categories across four types
of credential providers:

  • Postsecondary educational institutions—359,713 degrees and certificates
  • Massive open online course (MOOC) providers—9,390 course completion certificates, micro-credentials, and online degrees from foreign universities
  • Non-academic providers—549,712 badges, course completion certificates, licenses, certifications, and apprenticeships
  • Secondary schools—48,919 diplomas from public and private secondary schools

Also see:

NLET Releases “Newest Economy” Paper

In The Newest Economy: Welcome to the Credential Currency Revolution, Gordon Freedman, NLET’s president, examines the discontinuity between high schools, community colleges, career and technical education, and workforce development programs and their alignment and linkages to high demand jobs and careers. The paper suggests moving beyond the current array of offerings and labor market tools to a marketplace solution using modern technology and data analytics to link credentials (badges, certifications, degrees) to hiring outcomes.

The paper is a collaboration among NLET, Credential Engine, Southern Regional Economic Board (SREB) and GoEducate, Inc. who together are building a Credential Alliance to further the work described in the report.

Press Release
Executive Summary
Download the Report

 

Why Tech Companies View the Job Search As Big Business — from edsurge.com by Ayesha Khan

Excerpt:

A pre-pandemic study shows that more than 4 in 10 college degree holders are underemployed and are likely to remain that way for decades to come. This coupled with the astronomical cost of college and mounting student loan debt raises a need for alternative pathways into America’s workforce. The current college system is not putting all Americans to work.
Jobtech has the potential to be more effective for job seekers by aligning their aspirations more directly with the needs of employers. Unlike higher education institutions, a jobtech company’s profit and survival depend on people getting placed in good jobs.

The success of these businesses hinges on securing opportunities for job seekers. This guarantees customer satisfaction, repeat business, positive margins and a healthy, sustainable business model.

 

 

A professor teaching about equations in front of a smartphone -- in order to reach remote learners

Will a Rise in Online Learning Open Remote Teaching Opportunities for Faculty? — from edsurge.com by Robert Ubell (Columnist)

Excerpts:

Liberating campus-bound faculty.
Of the many remarkable things about online learning—its principal benefit—is to give students the freedom to learn almost anywhere. And that goes for faculty members, too, who might now have access to new opportunities to teach remotely for institutions around the globe—and let colleges hire online faculty with attractive strengths who happen to live far away.

That has already started to happen during the pandemic, with so many faculty and staff working and teaching from home. Since it has made no difference to their students where they were living, some, quite privileged, took off for country homes or slipped away to vacation spots, continuing to teach online as if they were at a nearby campus.

 

109 New University Partnerships with OPMs, Bootcamps and Pathways in Q1 2021 — from holoniq.com
Universities around the world are accelerating their adoption of Academic Public-Private Partnerships.

Excerpt:

Based on the rate of partnership growth in Q1, 2021 may deliver over 400 new academic partnerships if growth continues at the same rate.


Based on the rate of partnership growth in Q1, 2021 may deliver over 400 new academic partnerships if growth continues at the same rate.


Other key points:

  • The US led the development and growth of the OPM model, now we are seeing an acceleration in adoption of OPM partnerships in international markets across Australia, Asia and Europe
  • Bootcamp Partnerships are powering Universities with immersive, short-format programs in technology and new domains in business. Expert curriculum, deep industry relationships and hiring pathways are driving very fast growth in campus-based and online programs.
  • We expect the Global OPX Market to grow at 19% CAGR, reaching $13.3B by 2025.
 

Utah Supreme Court to extend regulatory sandbox to seven years  — from utahinnovationoffice.org

U.S. Supreme Court Wary About Extending School Authority Over Student Internet Speech— from edweek.org

Excerpt:

The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday spent nearly two hours wrestling with its first case about schools’ regulation of student speech in the Internet era. The justices seemed to be searching for a way to rule as narrowly as possible while protecting young people’s right of self-expression, yet giving schools leeway to respond to threats and bullying that originate off campus.

“That sharp line … between on campus and off campus, how does that fit with modern technology?” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. asked during arguments in Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L. (Case No. 20-255).

Also see:

“The legal industry is experiencing a period of rapid transformation, and legal teams are starting to recognize the robust potential that cloud-based technology has for collaborative litigation to discover the needle-in-a-haystack pieces of information needed to argue and win cases,” said Everlaw CEO AJ Shankar.

 

 

How to Design a Hybrid Workplace — from nytimes.com

Excerpt:

But many companies have hatched a postpandemic plan in which employees return to the office for some of the time while mixing in more work from home than before. The appeal of this compromise is clear: Employers hope to give employees the flexibility and focus that come from working at home without sacrificing the in-person connections of the office.

From DSC:
There has been — and likely will continue to be — huge pressure and incentives put on companies like Cisco, Zoom, Microsoft, and others that develop the products and platforms to help people collaborate and communicate over a distance. It will be very interesting to see where these (and other) vendors, products, and platforms are 2-3 years from now! How far will we be down the XR-related routes?

How will those new ways of doing things impact telehealth? Telelegal? Virtual courts? Other?

 

This is an abstract picture of a person's head made of connections peering sideways -- it links to Artificial intelligence and the future of national security from ASU

Artificial intelligence and the future of national security — from news.asu.edu

Excerpt:

Artificial intelligence is a “world-altering” technology that represents “the most powerful tools in generations for expanding knowledge, increasing prosperity and enriching the human experience” and will be a source of enormous power for the companies and countries that harness them, according to the recently released Final Report of the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence.

This is not hyperbole or a fantastical version of AI’s potential impact. This is the assessment of a group of leading technologists and national security professionals charged with offering recommendations to Congress on how to ensure American leadership in AI for national security and defense. Concerningly, the group concluded that the U.S. is not currently prepared to defend American interests or compete in the era of AI.

Also see:

EU Set to Ban Surveillance, Start Fines Under New AI Rules — from bloomberg.com by Natalia Drozdiak

Excerpt:

The European Union is poised to ban artificial intelligence systems used for mass surveillance or for ranking social behavior, while companies developing AI could face fines as high as 4% of global revenue if they fail to comply with new rules governing the software applications.

Also see:

Wrongfully arrested man sues Detroit police over false facial recognition match — from washingtonpost.com by Drew Harwell
The case could fuel criticism of police investigators’ use of a controversial technology that has been shown to perform worse on people of color

Excerpts:

A Michigan man has sued Detroit police after he was wrongfully arrested and falsely identified as a shoplifting suspect by the department’s facial recognition software in one of the first lawsuits of its kind to call into question the controversial technology’s risk of throwing innocent people in jail.

Robert Williams, a 43-year-old father in the Detroit suburb of Farmington Hills, was arrested last year on charges he’d taken watches from a Shinola store after police investigators used a facial recognition search of the store’s surveillance-camera footage that identified him as the thief.

Prosecutors dropped the case less than two weeks later, arguing that officers had relied on insufficient evidence. Police Chief James Craig later apologized for what he called “shoddy” investigative work. Williams, who said he had been driving home from work when the 2018 theft had occurred, was interrogated by detectives and held in custody for 30 hours before his release.

Williams’s attorneys did not make him available for comment Tuesday. But Williams wrote in The Washington Post last year that the episode had left him deeply shaken, in part because his young daughters had watched him get handcuffed in his driveway and put into a police car after returning home from work.

“How does one explain to two little girls that a computer got it wrong, but the police listened to it anyway?” he wrote. “As any other black man would be, I had to consider what could happen if I asked too many questions or displayed my anger openly — even though I knew I had done nothing wrong.”

Addendum on 4/20/21:

 

AI in education: Features already adopted by companies, universities, and schools — from belitsoft.com by Dmitry Baraishuk

Excerpt:

AI use cases in education include such kinds of applications as: Artificial Intelligence in training, learning and development, AI in higher education and Artificial Intelligence in K-12 education. We’ve gathered and outlined real-life examples of AI in education for each of these three application areas. If you’re an L&D or HR pro, you will find insightful the section “AI in talent management and in Learning and development.” College and university leaders will discover helpful tools to significantly improve their educational process in the section “AI in Higher Education.” For school leaders, we’ve prepared the section “Artificial intelligence in K-12 education.”

Screenshot of a software app showing what an interface might look like for creating a personalized learning journey for someone. You can select from industries, roles, employees, and more.

This screenshot of an app shows what type of skills-related information could be earned, tracked, gathered and displayed.

Addendum on 4/23/21:

 

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and the future of…everything — from fierceelectronics.com by Matt Hamblen

Excerpt:

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang confirmed his reputation as a futurist, predicting every single car, truck, cell tower—indeed every single edge device—will in effect be a data center in a decade.

 He also said in a call with reporters on Tuesday that the chip shortage hurting automakers will sort itself out in a couple of years.

The concept of edge devices acting with the capabilities of a data center might not be completely new, but Huang cemented it.

“Every single data center will have its infrastructure computing platform isolated from the application platform in five or 10 years,” he told reporters as part of the company’s GTC21 event.  “It’s going to be complete. Every single edge device will be a data center…Every single cell tower will be a data center, every base station…Every single car… truck, shuttle will be a data center.”

 

5 Ways to Marry Higher Ed to Work — from campustechnology.com by Dian Schaffhauser

Excerpts:

  1. Treat employers as customers.
  2. Move beyond the idea of the bachelor degree as the end-all.
  3. Link coursework with competences.
  4. Develop a “shared vocabulary of skills” that can be used by employers and peer institutions.
  5. Design for equity and inclusion.

From DSC:
It’s great to see more articles like this that promote further collaboration — and less siloing — between the worlds of higher education and the workplace.

My guess is that those traditional institutions of higher education who change/adapt quickly enough have a much greater chance at surviving (and even thriving). Those that don’t will have a very rough road ahead. They will be shadows of  what they once were — if they are even able to keep their doors open.

Disruption is likely ahead — especially if more doors to credentialing continue to open up and employers hire based on those skills/credentials. One can feel the changing momentums at play. The tide has been turning for the last several years now (history may show the seeds of change were planted in times that occurred much longer ago).

 

Nearly Half of Faculty Say Pandemic Changes to Teaching Are Here to Stay — from campustechnology.com by Rhea Kelly

Among the findings:

  • Fifty-one percent of faculty said they feel more positive about online learning today than pre-pandemic. Faculty were most satisfied with how efficiently they were able to communicate with students — but across the board, a majority of faculty were also satisfied with how efficiently the technology worked, how well students learned and how well students engaged in class.
  • Fifty-seven percent of faculty said they feel more positive about digital learning materials than pre-pandemic.
  • Seventy-one percent of faculty reported they make considerable use of digital materials today, compared to 25 percent pre-pandemic. And 81 percent said they expect digital material use to remain the same or increase post-pandemic.
  • Fifty-eight percent reported considerable use of online homework and courseware systems, more than doubling the pre-pandemic share of 22 percent. Seventy-four percent expected the use of those systems to remain the same or increase post-pandemic.
  • Only 8 percent of faculty said they would revert to their pre-pandemic teaching practices after the pandemic is over.

Also see:

Two-thirds of people in the education sector expect to see a continuation of remote work post-pandemic. Sixty-five percent of respondents in education agreed that due to the success of remote collaboration, facilitated by videoconferencing, their organizations are considering a flexible remote working model.

 

Reimagining Higher Education: The Post-Covid Classroom — from er.educause.edu by Rob Curtin
As we prepare to return to campus, many of the technologies that helped us simply survive and sustain classroom continuity will become permanently embedded in our educational methods and play a pivotal role in the refinement of practices consistent with an ongoing shift to more student-centered learning.

Videoconferencing -- a professor teaching a class of virtual students

Credit: as-artmedia / Shutterstock.com © 2021

As learning practices continue to evolve, new remote learning and collaboration technologies, in concert with pedagogy, will be critical to enabling inclusive, personalized, and engaging hybrid learning experiences to bring students together beyond simple videoconferencing and recording of lectures. 

 

Adjunct college faculty taking the biggest hit from pandemic job losses — from highereddive.com by Hallie Busta

Dive Brief:

  • Higher education institutions employed 5% fewer adjunct faculty during the current academic year compared to the year before, according to the latest annual data from the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources.
  • All faculty groups experienced job losses during the year, though adjuncts were hit the hardest. The cuts didn’t affect the share of women and people from racial and ethnic minority groups among tenure-track faculty.
  • Salaries for full-time faculty posted the lowest median annual increase since 2010, at less than 1%, as colleges grappled with budget cuts and revenue loss.

From DSC:
And a potentially-relevant item for the future if these trends continue:

How To Pre-Sell Your Online Course And Make Money Before You Launch It — from elearningindustry.com Kathy Alameda
In this article, I’m going to explain why pre-selling your online course is important as an online course creator.

 

More Employers Are Awarding Credentials. Is A Parallel Higher Education System Emerging? — from edsurge.com by Sean Gallagher and Holly Zanville

Excerpt:

As the acceptance of new types of credentials grows, a number of employers have become learning providers in their own right, in a way that could shake up the broader higher education landscape.

A growing number of companies have moved beyond training their own employees or providing tuition assistance programs to send staff members to higher education. Many of these employers are also developing their own curricula and rapidly expanding their publicly-facing credential offerings.

But the current boom in employer-issued credentials is different—and potentially transformational. Unlike the traditional IT certifications of decades past, these new credentials are less focused on proprietary technologies related to a given tech vendor, and are instead more focused on broadly applicable tech skill sets such as IT support, cloud computing and digital marketing.

 

Altered Work Landscape Points to New Directions for L&D — from learningsolutionsmag.com by Pamela Hogel

Excerpt:

Learning and development (L&D) leaders emerged from 2020 with increased respect and influence in their organizations—presenting opportunities to shape workers and drive readiness for further changes. Many organizations emerged from 2020 with an increased openness to digital transformation and an accelerated timetable for achieving online learning maturity.

The 2021 LinkedIn Learning Workplace Learning Report, released in early March, bears this out.



From DSC:
Which fits nicely into this vision. 

 
© 2024 | Daniel Christian