Kansas State University

Microcredentials update: Spring pilot offerings and first badge awarded

Submitted by Jennifer Thornburg

Kansas State University's efforts to build a lifelong learning ecosystem continue in the pilot year of the Microcredential Initiative, with 12 microcredential opportunities offered during the spring semester. These pilots showcase the variety of learning that can take place with credit and noncredit offerings for undergraduate and graduate students in person, online or in a hybrid format.

The spring microcredential offerings include:

• Facilitation of Basics for Research and Extension Professionals — College of Agriculture and K-State Research and Extension.
• Content Creation; Media Writing — College of Arts and Sciences.
• Microcredential in Mathematical Modeling — College of Arts and Sciences.
• Law and Justice — College of Arts and Sciences.
• Introduction to Strategic Innovation — College of Business Administration.
• Formulating an Innovation Strategy — College of Business Administration.
• Implementing an Innovation Strategy — College of Business Administration.
• Microcredential in Lean for Leaders — College of Business Administration.
• Working with Older Adults in Cooperative Extension — College of Health and Human Sciences.
• Getting Started with 3D Printing — K-State Libraries.
• Grant Development and Management — K-State Research and Extension.
• sUAS Pilot — K-State Salina.

Another important milestone has been achieved for the initiative. The first round of badges has been issued from the Credly digital credentialing system to earners who successfully completed the fall sUAS Pilot microcredential.

"K-State Salina is proud to issue the first digital badge to earners of the sUAS Pilot microcredential," said Kirsten Zoller, executive director of strategic initiatives at K-State Salina. "Microcredentialing is an important part of K-State's educational offerings and another example of how we continue to provide relevant learning for our students, alumni and corporate partners. K-State Salina is excited to expand our microcredential portfolio alongside our university colleagues."

"Onboarding Credly, our microcredentialing system, has gone smoothly, and we are excited that learners will be able to share their skills earned at K-State visibly as badges with strong metadata behind them," said Jo Maseberg-Tomlinson, interim director of program development management at Global Campus. Maseberg-Tomlinson serves on the technology implementation work group of the microcredential initiative.

The K-State Microcredentials Initiative task force is also seeking summer pilot offerings for credit and noncredit microcredentials delivered online, in person or in a hybrid format. Because these will be pilots, a limited number of offerings will be accepted to ensure a broad sampling of pilot microcredentials. Faculty and staff are asked to indicate their interest by submitting a brief online form that requests the following information:

• Title of pilot microcredential.
• Contact person name and email.
• Department or unit.
• Microcredential level, such as credit-undergraduate, credit-graduate or noncredit.
• Modality, such as in person, online or hybrid.

Questions about the summer pilot opportunity should be addressed to microcred@k-state.edu.