Chapter Audience:

• Administrators

Why Is Institutional Governance Important for Micro-credentials?

Micro-credentials may represent a new form of credential at an institution. They may be distinct from other credentials in terms of their target audience, duration and format, and their credit/non-credit status. A set of institutional policies and procedures can ensure that all stakeholders understand what they are and how they fit into the existing credential ecosystem. These documents also provide clarity on how to create, approve, and deliver micro-credentials, as well as how to integrate them into your institution’s existing systems.

Developing a set of policy and procedure to govern micro-credentials is an opportunity to engage the community in a conversation about what micro-credentials are and their purpose at your institution. It’s also a vehicle to come to a shared understanding about who is responsible for them and how they will be implemented.

What Are Elements of Policy and Procedures Governing Micro-credentials?

Typically, policy and procedures capture the agreed-upon vision and process for offering micro-credentials at an institution. The policy document outline the underlying principles and rationale for offering such credentials, aligning them with the institution’s mission, values, and strategic priorities.

The procedures provide the details of “who, what, where, when, and how” to do it. They clarify roles and responsibilities, as well as the processes governing micro-credentials. Each institution will develop its own procedures based on its context and existing systems.

Items usually covered in the micro-credential policy and procedures documents include:

Policy

• Rationale and positioning
• Definitions
• Standing of the micro-credential in relation to the institution’s credential framework

Procedures

• Roles and responsibilities
• Processes for program approval, changes, and retirement
• Processes for quality assurance

Rationale and Positioning

Your institution may wish to begin its exploration of micro-credentials by engaging in a conversation with its internal and external community about how these credentials fit within your institution’s mission, priorities, strategic plan, values, and vision. Why should your institution offer micro-credentials? What specific needs would micro-credentials address for your learners that cannot be met with the current suite of credential offerings?

For example, a doctoral-medical institution may view micro-credentials as a tool to serve its alumni and help them meet their professional development training needs. In this context, micro-credentials are pitched at the post-graduate level and serve to maintain or update the specialized expertise of alumni. Alternatively, at a college or teaching university, micro-credentials may serve to make post-secondary education accessible for those who need flexible options for returning to education. Here, it would make sense to consider how micro-credentials can ladder into other academic programs since they serve as an on-ramp for post-secondary education.

As you engage in this conversation, consider:

• How can you use micro-credentials to achieve your mission, vision, and goals?
• Why is your institution offering micro-credentials? What do you want to do that you currently cannot with your existing suite of credentials? What is the value of adding micro-credentials to your credential framework? What are you trying to achieve?
• Who are you hoping to serve in offering micro-credentials? What do these learners need from this training?

Definitions and Credential Framework

Some jurisdictions, like Ontario (Government of Ontario, 2023) and Alberta (Government of Alberta, 2018), have a provincial qualifications framework. This framework defines each credential (e.g., diplomas, certificates, degrees) by describing each one’s typical duration, purpose, admission requirements, and the types of institution authorized to offer it. These province-wide frameworks ensure uniformity across all institutions. A certificate at the University of Calgary is defined in the same manner as a certificate at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT).

Other Canadian jurisdictions, like Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Quebec, and British Columbia, do not have a provincial qualifications framework^[1] (CICIC, 2022). What this means is that each institution must create its own.

There are restrictions on this. For example, institutions must abide by the provincial act guiding their work and the type of programs they can offer (e.g., the University Act (1996), the College and Institute Act (1996), the Royal Roads University Act (1996) and the Thompson Rivers University Act (2005)). Institutions also tend to follow the sector consensus on the scale and scope of each credential (EducationPlannerBC, 2023), so that their credentials will be understood provincially, nationally, and internationally.

Beyond this, each institution develops its own credential framework. This means defining each credential and articulating how they fit with one another. Here are examples:

• Selkirk College’s Policy #8100: Instructional Programs explains the distinction between credit and non-credit programs and defines citations, certificates of various types, diplomas of various types, and two categories of degrees the college can offer.
• The College of New Caledonia’s Procedure E-1.10 College Credentials provides a clear example of a credential framework.
• The British Columbia Institute of Technology Policy 5401 and accompanying Procedure 5401-PR1 define the types of credential offered by the institution and the credential standards for each one.
• Vancouver Island University’s Policy 97.13 Programs and Credentials and its accompanying Procedure 97.13.001 provides a list and description of all of the credentials that can be approved by senate and offered at the institution.
• The University of the Fraser Valley’s Policy 64: Credentials provides a description of each of its credential offerings.
• The University of Victoria’s Policy AC1135 Policy for the Establishment of Certificate and Diploma Programs defines what non-degree programs mean at this institution.

Micro-credentials are a new type of credential. Thus, institutions need to engage their community to determine how and where they fit within their existing credential framework.

Although B.C. does not have a province-wide credential framework, it has a Micro-credential Framework that defines the credential, including the number of hours typically allocated to this form of training.

Institutions are not mandated to adopt the Micro-credential Framework for B.C. Public Post-secondary Education System (2021) into their own definition, but drawing from this document can facilitate a common understanding of micro-credentials among learners, employers, and post-secondary institutions in B.C.

It is possible that your institution will define not one micro-credential, but rather a suite of credentials corresponding to the Micro-credential Framework for B.C. Public Post-secondary Education System (2021). Some of the characteristics of these programs that can be used to define separate categories of micro-credentials include:

If your institution chooses to define several categories of micro-credentials, it is helpful to describe how these are related to one another and to other credentials at your institution (e.g., What distinguishes one from the other? Can one type of micro-credential ladder into another?).

The name of the credential at your institution may not include the word “micro-credential.” In these instances, it is important to clarify which of your institution’s credentials align with micro-credentials as defined in the Micro-credential Framework for B.C. Public Post-secondary Education System (2021). This will guide members of your community in activities such as engaging in conversation with external stakeholders (i.e., because stakeholders, like employers, may be more familiar with the term “micro-credential” rather than your institution-specific term) and in applying for funding.

Roles and Responsibilities

When developing a process to govern micro-credentials, the people or units involved and their roles and responsibilities should be clearly identified. This will provide clarity and prevent conflicts.

Some of the roles and responsibility to consider include:

Process for Program Approval, Changes, and Retirement

Procedures provide instructions about how to carry out each of the three stages in a program’s life cycle: program proposal, changes, and retirement.

Although Selkirk College’s Policy 8100 Instructional Programs was developed for academic courses (rather than micro-credentials), it can serve as an example of what to include in a procedures document to define roles, responsibilities, and actions for:

• Creating new programs (Section 2: Creating New Programs, and Section 7.1: New Course Development)
• Modifying a course or program (Section 4: Changes to Existing Programs, and Section 7.4: Changes to Existing Courses)
• Retiring a program (Section 6: Program Suspension or Deletion, and Section 7.6: Suspension or Deletion of Courses)

Proposal

When a program is first proposed, it is likely to come under greater scrutiny than at later stages. Several questions need to be answered at this time, such as whether there is a need for it (and perhaps more importantly, whether there is a demand for it), whether there is a viable business plan in place to sustainably offer the program, whether the institution is appropriately positioned to offer it, how the program fits into the institution’s existing suite of offerings, whether the institution has the resources to support it, whether partners have been consulted, and other benchmarks of quality (see Process for Quality Assurance below).

The procedures should describe how someone who is interested in proposing a new micro-credential would go about doing so. It should also outline how the proposed program will be evaluated and who has the authority to approve it. The procedures also may contain the criteria that will be used to determine whether to greenlight a new proposal.

Changes

Whenever a program is modified, there is the possibility that the program will lose its integrity and that its quality will not be as high as the original one. In its commitment to quality assurance, an institution should clarify when and how to handle such program changes. The need to review program changes should be balanced with the need to give instructors the ability to improve the program based on feedback from past offerings and evolving external partner needs. The procedures document should address some of the following questions:

• What extent of change triggers the review of a program?
• How is the extent of change measured? Are there specific aspects of a program that, when changed, automatically trigger a review? For example, do any changes to a program’s learning outcomes (or targeted competencies) trigger a review? Or, is the extent of change measured in quantitative terms, e.g., when more than 10 per cent of the course content is modified?
• Once the threshold for review has been met, what is the process to review the program? Who should submit the program for review, and to whom? What information should be submitted? What criteria will be used for the review? How will the outcomes of the review be communicated and when? How is this information documented?

Retirement

Micro-credentials are meant to respond to employer or community needs and are therefore ephemeral. Once a program is no longer needed, there should be a clear process for retiring it. This could include information such as:

• Who may propose to retire a micro-credential?
• What information should be presented?
• Who should be informed of a program’s retirement? Consider internal as well as external stakeholders.
• Is there a prescribed timeline for informing all stakeholders? Consider how much notice learners need to ensure that they can complete their ongoing program before it is retired.
• Does a program retirement require the approval of a person or group?
• How will the information about this program – its syllabus and list of learners who completed the program – be archived?

Process for Quality Assurance

Quality assurance is the set of practices that an institution puts in place to ensure that any program it offers meets certain standards. Having transparent standards and processes gives external stakeholders, like learners, employers or community or Indigenous partners, and other institutions, confidence in an institution and its programs.

One aspect of micro-credential quality assurance that may be different to quality assurance for other programs is a focus on outcomes (Liu, 2020; Moodie & Wheelahan, 2022; Taylor & Soares, 2020). The standards for traditional academic programs tend to focus on inputs, like the design of the program, including the learning outcomes, the assessment activities, the qualifications of the instructors, and student ratings of instruction. Since micro-credentials tend to have more pragmatic aims, often aligned with the workforce, there is an argument to be made that what happens during the program doesn’t matter so much as what happens after the program. Markers of quality might then provide evidence in answer to questions such as:

• Are employers (or community or Indigenous partners) willing to publicly endorse the program?
• Do employers require the credential for hiring purposes?
• Are graduates of the micro-credential sought after by employers? How long does it typically take for a graduate to be hired on the basis of this credential? What percentage of graduates find employment in the field shortly after completing the training?
• Are the employers who hire graduates satisfied with their abilities?
• Do employers consider the verification of assessment that occurs during the training an accurate reflection of how well a prospective employee is likely to perform in the workplace?
• Can learners apply what they have learned in new situations?
• How does completion of the training translate into an employee’s increased income potential?

Programs are typically reviewed for quality assurance prior to approval and then periodically thereafter to ensure that they continue to meet the institutional standards for quality.

Quality assurance is covered in more detail in the chapter Quality Assurance.

Three Approaches to Developing Micro-credential Policies

Each institution should begin the process of formulating a micro-credential policy by examining their existing policies and procedures. Based on existing documents, three approaches have been adopted by B.C. post-secondary institutions:

The section What Are Elements of Policy and Procedures Governing Micro-credentials provided a range of topics to consider when developing a micro-credential policy. Here are questions to ask about the process of policy development and broader questions to consider about its contents.

Policy development process

• Who should be assigned responsibility for developing the policy? What expertise might be helpful? (e.g., policy knowledge, teaching and learning innovation, strategic focus for the institution, etc.)
• How will the perspectives of diverse stakeholders be solicited and incorporated? For example, how will you ensure that the office of the registrar, the school of continuing education, and learners are consulted? How will key elements of the policy be communicated to stakeholders as it is being developed to prevent any surprises when it is presented to the wider community?
• How might you incorporate the advice of external stakeholders into the process? External input is not typically sought in post-secondary institution policies but may be particularly important for micro-credentials which have an external audience. For example, employers, community, or Indigenous partners could provide insights on the quality assurance process and its impact on the credibility of the program from their perspective.
• How will the policy be embedded within existing governance processes? How can you ensure that the policy is respected and accepted at your institution? Who has the authority to do this? (Note: Usually this is the senate, faculty council, or a deans’ council).

Policy content

• How will proposed processes fit within existing policies and procedures? Is it possible to draw from existing procedures? When creating new ones, what are the implications? How will modifying one part of the institution’s systems modify other aspects of the institution’s systems?
• How can the institution balance the need to respond quickly to employer needs and funding opportunities when creating micro-credentials with the need to apply rigorous oversight and quality assurance processes, which can be time-consuming?
• Should authority for the creation of micro-credentials be centralized at your institution, or should several different groups have the ability to create them? Who might want to create new programs? Who has the resources and knowledge to successfully manage and offer them?

Examples of Micro-credential Policies

Below are some examples or micro-credential-specific policies that may inspire the development of your institution’s own:

B.C. institutions

• Kwantlen Polytechnic University’s AC15 Micro-credentials Policy and AC15 Micro-credentials Procedure
• University of British Columbia Okanagan Campus’s Policy O-129: Non-Credit Credentials
• Langara College’s Policy F1001 Regular Studies Credentials and Micro-credentials and its accompanying Regulation

Other institutions

• Western University’s Certificates, Diplomas and Micro-credentials policy
• Toronto Metropolitan University’s Policy 76: Development and Review of Continuing Education Offerings
• Deakin University’s Micro-credentials Policy

The State University of New York (SUNY), a leader in micro-credentials, has developed an overarching framework to guide its many campuses in developing their own micro-credential policies and procedures. The Suggested Resources section provides information about the SUNY framework and links to the policies of individual campuses.

Suggested Resources

Works Cited