Partnerships

If your organization is interested in teaming up with Workcred on research or collaborative activities focused on improving the U.S. credentialing system, please send us a note.

Strengthening Integration of Certifications and Degrees

Workcred, the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU), and the University Professional and Continuing Education Association (UPCEA) have joined forced under a Lumina Foundation grant to explore how students can earn both degrees and certifications as part of their four-year degree program.

Through a series of convenings between certification bodies and higher education institutions, we are exploring opportunities for students to earn credentials with labor market value. Each convening will address a different industry sector or topic:

  • Health Care
  • IT/Cybersecurity
  • Liberal Arts
  • Manufacturing
  • Retail/Hospitality

The ultimate output of the convenings will be a framework laying the groundwork for potential pilot programs to test different strategies and practices to better align certifications and degrees.


Examining the Quality, Market Value, and Effectiveness of Credentials in the United States

Funded by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP), Workcred conducted a research study to examine how credentials are currently used by U.S. manufacturers in their hiring and retention practices, and how credentialing can be improved to advance the manufacturing industry.


Credential Transparency

Credential Engine is working to improve transparency in the credentialing marketplace by scaling a web-based Credential Registry that enables job seekers, students, workers, educators, and employers to easily search for and compare credentials, just as travel apps are used to compare flights, rental cars, and hotels. The Credential Registry effort began in 2013 when the George Washington University Institute of Public Policy, Workcred, and Southern Illinois University (SIU) Carbondale’s Center for Workforce Development launched the Credential Transparency Initiative (CTI) with support from Lumina Foundation to increase transparency in the credentialing system by:

  • Developing a common language, known as the Credential Transparency Description Language (CTDL), for describing the key features of all kinds of credentials, credentialing organizations, and the quality assurance bodies that accredit, approve, endorse, or recognize them.
  • Building a voluntary, web-based credential registry for aggregating and sharing the resulting comparable information
  • Creating and testing a search-and-discovery app that enables access to this information by employers, educators, students, career counselors, app developers, and others.