The Noonan review of the Australian Qualifications Framework (CMM October 24) reports education providers recognise micro-credentials are coming but prefer if they did not arrive for a while

“Overall, there was a strong view that it was premature to include shorter form credentials, particularly micro-credentials, as qualification types in the AQF. The panel formed the view that credit recognition was the preferred way of recognising shorter form credentials,” Professor Noonan and colleagues report.

However, a survey of the 45 institutions in the Australasian Council for Open, Distance and e-Learning indicates that change will be sooner not later. In a conference paper last month, Ratna Selvaratnam, (Edith Cowan U) and Michael Sankey, (Griffith U) found most members are not ready yet but are thinking about what they need to do.

Some 73 per cent of respondents said their organisation did not have a matrix for credit-badges to be offered at specified learning-levels and 68 per cent did not use a “credentialing-engine”, Credly and the like.

However, 80 per cent reported institutions are already, or planning, to introduce micro-credential short courses, with PG programmes to come. “This is likely as short courses are low-hanging fruit that can be credentialed into an award pathway. Undergraduate courses will need to consider the student experience transitioning into higher education and may explain why institutions may be reluctant to micro-credential these courses for now,” Selvaratnam and Sankey write.