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Webinars

The On-Ramp to Micro-Credentials at Scale: Tips and Techniques for the Acceleration Lane

Thursday, December 7, 2023
11:00 a.m.- 12:00 p.m. (Eastern Time)

Many education institutions are designing, implementing, and scaling up their offerings of skill- and competency-focused micro-credentials. Modern media are proclaiming the value of these post-traditional instructional experiences, but how do you ensure your institution can design, develop, and offer them at scale? 

For some institutions, it’s about providing unique offerings alongside traditional credit-bearing degree and certificate programs. For others it’s about offering micro-credentials in partnership with external institutions, including corporations, specialty education providers and professional associations. Since every institution is different, what are the systemic principles that will set you up for success? How is it possible to gain support and resources while you are still in the early stages of such a venture?
 
Drawing from the presenter’s years of experience in managing organizational change, performance improvement projects and instructional systems, this webinar provides practical tips and best practices to enable micro-credential offerings at scale. You’ll look at the role of governance and policy, concerns about infrastructure and adapting your project to your own organization’s evolutionary style. No matter where your organization is along the continuum — from offering just a few micro-credentials to offering a lot of them — this webinar provides useful ideas you can put immediately to work.   
 
Key takeaways

This webinar helps you to:
•    Define specific characteristics of micro-credentials, and reflect on how these characteristics can affect organizational support and change 
•    Describe the organizational components that must be aligned to reach a level of scale for micro-credential offerings
•    Identify stakeholders who need to be brought into the micro-credential effort and develop ways to engage them positively
•    Link the micro-credential effort to key performance measures typically required by senior leadership
•    Design the micro-credential effort to include prototyping and testing of various approaches to ensure scaling can occur without future surprises
 

Host:

Dr. Arthur P. Thomas
Director of Professional Acceleration and Microcredentials in the College of Professional Studies at Syracuse University

Dr. Thomas has worked extensively in the private sector, focusing on information technology, project management and organizational change management. Some of his previous university roles include Associate Dean of Career Services and Experiential Learning, as well as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs. He holds a Ph.D. in Instructional Systems Design and Management, as well as a Master of Education in Curriculum Development and Instructional Media from the State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo. Having specialized in project management for the past 25 years, Dr. Thomas is co-author of Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM)® Exam Official Cert Guide, working in collaboration with the Project Management Institute. He also oversees the iConsult Collaborative at Syracuse University, a university-wide student experiential learning consulting program.