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GSD Episode 8: The Boys Are Back
12 Plays1 day ago
Kevin, Kelvin, and Fritz get into a range of topics, including new roles, conferences, and the confusing landscape of micro-credentials.
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Transcript
Introduction and Fall Activities
00:00:21
Speaker
No, well, hey, welcome to the Getting Stuff Done podcast with, again, with the three of us, with Kevin and Fritz and myself, Kelvin. And we're, you know, it's the fall.
00:00:35
Speaker
And in the fall, I feel like there are tons of things going on. Conferences, conference related travels. And of course, with travels, there are things like weather delays and crazy weather that's going on.
00:00:51
Speaker
um Also, transitions. I think that's something that we can also talk about today. So, fellas, welcome. And what should we talk about first, given all those things?
Kelvin's New Role with NASH
00:01:07
Speaker
Well, think one thing to talk about is that we're going to occasionally do this where it's it's just the three of us. I think we're going to even call this episode, The Boys Are Back. I'm not going to put any of that audio in there because I don't know about copyright infringement, but...
00:01:20
Speaker
So this is going one of our just Friday with friday with ah Kelvin, Kevin, and Fritz. um But I think we should start, first of all, well, let's start with the the big news. I think Kelvin is starting a new role soon.
00:01:35
Speaker
Yeah, and and and interesting enough, it's actually kind of a continuation of a role that I started last year. so I actually had a chance to work with the National Association of Higher Ed Systems, who were interested in kind of bringing on a group to provide technical assistance to help them with this new community practice on micro-credentials. So You know, since 2023, I've been working with the UT system to do similar work.
00:02:10
Speaker
And NASH, which again represents lots of like yeah kind of larger community college and university systems all across the country.
00:02:22
Speaker
they received some funding from Google to actually find a way to integrate specifically the Google career certificates, as well as some of the singular courses on AI and prompting skills, ah with the hope being that doing this work would help learners nationally then, you know, have the have technical skills that could hopefully set them apart in the world of work.
00:02:47
Speaker
which really aligns with the work that we we we've been doing it the within the UT system. But of course, we've given kind of wider access to micro-credentials, not just Google, but also micro-credentials available on the Coursera platform from other providers. And so in August of last year, i was you know asked if I could basically have kind of like a kind of a part-time role kind of supporting this community of practice.
00:03:19
Speaker
I brought in some faculty and staff that, of you know, represent different campuses within the UT system who've been doing really great work with embedding micro-credentials or trying to get the word out about how campuses are offering co-curricular access.
00:03:37
Speaker
And so they became my use cases, right? And so This was like a team of about nine to 10 individuals. They led professional development webinars for this new community of practice.
00:03:51
Speaker
And it was great. And, um, And so NASH is entering kind of a new kind of ah a new phase of this community of practice where actually more systems will be added. We hope to have at least five to six new systems that our NASH members join us. So the community of practice will become larger because of that.
00:04:13
Speaker
And then we'll also be doing some pilots around the use of like training faculty on AI using Google's AI Essentials course.
00:04:26
Speaker
Also, we hope to do a pilot with a couple systems interested in piloting Career Dreamer, which is like a new AI-based career exploration platform that Google put out to do some user testing with that, with with some systems.
00:04:44
Speaker
And so as you can imagine, the more the more people, the the more projects, the need for someone to kind of help um yeah know support that work. And so I was very honored and when Jessica Taubman and her team approached me about this opportunity and just very thankful for the opportunity to to support this new, this ever-growing community of practice starting ah next month.
00:05:14
Speaker
We actually have a convening coming up So that will be really great.
Industry Credentials and Student Engagement
00:05:19
Speaker
And and it's it's a nice a way to kind of start something new. And while I'm kind of finishing up some things, I just got back in terms of travel ah from the Strada Education Foundation convening.
00:05:32
Speaker
for the Beyond Completion Challenge grant project, which UT System has been a part of for the past three years. Funding from that program created my role. So without Strada, I would not have had a job three years, almost three years ago.
00:05:47
Speaker
And so, yeah, so it's like we're actually closing one chapter and starting a new one and just very thankful for the opportunity. Congrats. You know, you and i have we've been been friends for quite a while now. We're pushing, we're like 13, 14 years we've known each other and we've we've been walking through career journeys for a long time. So I'm really i'm really happy for you, Kelvin. Congrats.
00:06:13
Speaker
Yeah, thank you. Yeah, that's awesome. That was awesome. So so talk I want to talk about your role for, because I'm just curious. So it's it's more than Coursera now then.
00:06:27
Speaker
so you're going to be doing, other types of things within, because I know before it was like Nash had that opportunity for people to embed Coursera into curriculum.
00:06:40
Speaker
And that was part of one of the things that they were doing, but this seems broader than just that. Well, broader, but actually in ah in a different way. and so because Google has a partnership with Nash, the focus is still on,
00:06:56
Speaker
The Google career certificates embedding those within courses and also co-curricularly, but now the community of practice also is going to include other types of projects. Again, the AI training for faculty and staff, and then also the career explorer pilot.
00:07:15
Speaker
and and And not all systems will participate in that. Only those that actually apply for these new pilots will do that. um Within the UT system, though, because that is more driven by um ah Coursera contract, a two to three year contract that the system actually just recently signed before our previous chancellor left to lead the University of California system.
00:07:43
Speaker
Because of that contract, there is broader access to industry credentials under the heading Career Academy. So Coursera has ah kind of this growing curated set of industry credentials from various providers, Google, Meta, IBM, CVS Health, Microsoft.
00:08:06
Speaker
um But interesting enough, you know, We find that our students are actually, you know, they have like this, they have a wide access, but many of them are focusing really on Google, Meta, IBM. I would say those are the top industry credentials our learners are pursuing.
00:08:26
Speaker
Yeah. That's interesting. Because, I mean, so we just... Um, we just started our Coursera Career Academy plus relationship.
00:08:37
Speaker
And one of the things that, that I'm working on here is trying to figure out like what, what training, what learnings and what bad, like we want to create bad, we want to lump everything into badges.
00:08:51
Speaker
And so we want to give students because, because for us, we're doing the same thing. So it's free to, it's free to our students. Um, they can access, but but we want to limit the courses.
00:09:03
Speaker
And so it's interesting to hear you say which ones students have kind of gone towards, because we were thinking about doing like something in AI, something in project management, um something in in like the data analytics, data science type of space.
00:09:19
Speaker
Yeah, there's a Tableau something in there. Yeah, tap table that was the other one. Tableau is another. to try to, you know, build those, those skills. But it's interesting that, that you say that they're, they're actually leaning more towards just, or, you know, the Google, the the names, right? The names of, you want the IB certificate, I want, that's, that's, that's interesting. Yeah. And in some of that, I mean, I think also, i mean, we're trying to do a better job of this. yeah I mean, I think some of the,
00:09:50
Speaker
the limiting, ah some of the limiting I think is happening because even faculty, right? Like they they have access to all of these different industry credentials, but even they are like, you know what, I'm just gonna maybe stick with Google or maybe I'll stick with IBM versus looking at the full suite that's available that continues to grow because you know even when I started ah couple of years ago in the system, the the current set of industry credentials affiliated with Corsair's Career Academy was definitely half of what it is now.
00:10:24
Speaker
so it's it's growing a lot. We did a pilot ah this past spring. Yes, past spring of 25. um Our Duluth campus, the School of Business up there, Laboet School Business, did a pilot of, they just wanted one um It was a BI, a business intelligence, or one of those, one thing. They just wanted to try one thing in a few of their courses or I think early level or mid-level business courses.
00:10:53
Speaker
And it was it was a good experience. But again, they just wanted a very thin slice. didn't want the whole catalog. They wanted one thing. And they only wanted it for those 200, 300 students across all those courses. So yeah, it seems like it's a growing experience.
00:11:08
Speaker
corpus of courses and and credentials, but um I'm interested to see where the demand floats towards amongst now that you're doing this too, you know, Kevin at Nebraska. So, yeah, I guess that's kind of what I'm thinking too is is do I limit or do I expand? like right Do I just give them everything and let them choose?
00:11:34
Speaker
Part of it was we were trying to, my thought was limit what students get, control the amount of time for the learnings. right like So I think one of the nice things with Coursera here's the you know the course was built, it's going to take six hours, but on average students you know learners have been taking two hours to finish the course.
Integrating Credentials into Curriculums
00:11:55
Speaker
And so you can kind of see those two things. And so part of me was thinking, If I bundle, then I'm limiting the amount of time outside of class that if a student does, because right now we're not we're not we're not embedding into coursework. we're gonna This is going be external.
00:12:12
Speaker
really is just Are students or learners just going to find it Is it going to be communicated? through the career center etc yeah so i'm actually saying stuff that's not even like publicly available yet at the university of nebrass like like we're in the middle of building it we're not going to launch it to students until january and so what we're doing right now is we're building the back-end pieces of what badges what learning what do we want to do and getting input from our various colleges into that and so like having those conversations of well you know
00:12:43
Speaker
that's actually, you know, that's an overlap of what we teach or something like that. And it's like, well, that's somewhat, that's good, right? It gives them an opportunity to reinforce what they're learning or, or, you know, that history major that wants to learn data science, but doesn't want to take the credit courses for data science because they really want to take more history courses has that opportunity to do this other piece. So what I'm trying to do is, is, is, is make small bundles that students will not spend weeks and weeks and weeks, they'll spend 15, 20 hours total in doing that. And then when they finish that, then they'll get um versus just opening it up. Right. So just saying, Hey, you know we have you have free Coursera and you can access 8,000 courses if you want to access all of them.
00:13:33
Speaker
But I think to your point, Kelvin, that's kind of what UT did. And that's where you kind of see where students lean one way or the other. I was just trying to limit it so we can say that we have a little bit more structure and that students are not just, they're not spending hundreds of hours in this space outside of their classroom activities. Not overwhelmed by the breadth of what's offered.
00:13:55
Speaker
Yeah, and I think the answer really is all the above, right? So I think you can do a little bit of, of everything. And if you do have kind of a ah targeted need to train students in acts, let's say, because, you know, even within our Nash project, we have systems that are really pushing the, you know, they're they're really encouraging folks just to complete like the AI and prompting essentials courses because they're 10 hours versus like saying, hey,
00:14:29
Speaker
we're gonna embed an entire data analytics cert from Google in a course. And so completion rates are much, much higher you know in those singular courses than in the full credentials.
00:14:41
Speaker
Although, um you know I would say data analytics, cybersecurity, project management, those three certs from Google right now are actually on the cert side are the the most popular.
00:14:56
Speaker
but they aren' but they are time consuming because they are made up Yeah, yeah. I mean, these are not um these are these are big these are multiple the equivalent of multiple courses. I mean, these are certificates. So this isn't something you'd want to embed the whole certificate, a Courier Academy certificate inside of a course because you're- you could, I mean, you you could displace teaching and that a faculty member's already doing, but if you're adding, if you're adding it on, that's, that's a huge.
00:15:22
Speaker
And then there's nuances, right? Like if you're teaching a special topics course, you know, some of our campuses in the UT system have explored, Hey, if we have a special topics course, maybe then we can just say the focus of this special topics course is you earn the credential, right? Um,
00:15:39
Speaker
yeah And then Coursera has also this career, this course but builder tool. So you could actually pull in content, um like just snippets of content from from an entire so certificate. And so to, you know, Kevin, to your point, if you do that, and and you could offer your own digital badge based on, you know students maybe doing a little bit of this, a little bit of that.
00:16:04
Speaker
um And then another thing too, that's interesting, Google, you probably all saw, Google just released a new singular course. It's called People Management.
00:16:15
Speaker
So it's kind of like another 10 hour course that will... So it'll be interesting to see like within our NASH group, will they gravitate toward assigning you know content from that course as well?
Researching Certification Impact
00:16:30
Speaker
So I think Google is trying to... i think they've they've been hearing that the the traditional certs that they've been offering are so time consuming and so maybe we can provide content in even smaller bits and bytes to satisfy skill development and improve career readiness as a result.
00:16:54
Speaker
So how does Nash plan to share their findings of of what's happening in this space? Is it is it Yes.
00:17:05
Speaker
i can use um Can someone sign up and like get information from, do you have to be a system school? do You have to be a system school to participate in the community of practice, but there will be with phase two of our community of practice, we will be working toward identifying an external research partner to help us summarize our data and also insights, right? So,
00:17:32
Speaker
And that will be more publicly available when it's when it's time to share share that out. um The same thing is happening within the UT system.
00:17:43
Speaker
Working with Strata, we're going to be working also with a research, or the system is going to be working with an external research provider as well to do some you know some qualitative and quantitative research.
00:17:57
Speaker
ah research. So that, that will also be something that probably a year from now will be available to the public.
00:18:07
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, I mean, cause I mean, as you know, i mean, Nebraska of course is a member of NASH part of that system, but um yeah. And it'll be interesting. I don't know if Nebraska will eventually join this community of practice. I know Nash has reached out to member systems to say, hey, we have this new phase.
00:18:29
Speaker
And so it'll be interesting just to see, yeah, you know, when when it's made public, I'll have to provide that update in terms of who our new systems are. But our current systems, ah you know, include very large systems, Cal State, CUNY, SUNY, University of Texas, is as I mentioned before,
00:18:51
Speaker
And then also some community college systems as well, Maine Community College and Texas A&M, Texas State as separate systems. So Texas is well represented in this community of practice, interesting enough. And looking forward to- It's interesting. Yeah, just looking forward to us moving forward to see what the data tells us in terms of who the learner is, their experiences, doesn't have any perceived or actual impact on on outcomes, not those types of things.
00:19:25
Speaker
Yeah, i mean, to me, I think the biggest,
00:19:29
Speaker
does does it help people get them, like, does it help our learners, our students get employed? You know, um are there any, you know, any impacts socially in where they're able to go?
00:19:41
Speaker
um i would love to see you know, are there under, with underrepresented students, are some better served by taking certificate, taking these certificates versus not taking these certificates in their ultimate outcomes of, of employability or even graduate, like does, does even helps, like it takes me back to my dissertation, like, right, like my dissertation looked at students who came in into the community college in developmental education, meaning they didn't test high enough to get into college algebra or English Comp I, so they had to take all these developmental courses.
00:20:15
Speaker
And so my dissertation looked at, can you pair four credit courses to what they were enrolled in? So someone who's in developmental math, but put them in a history course, would that help them down the line? and So it's kind of like this almost the same thing. Like if you gave if you gave if students had access to some of these certificates or these courses, in addition to their training, would they feel more engaged with the university? Would they participate more with the university? Like it takes you, like there's so many aspects of student affairs, student life, academic affairs, kind of like- Student engagement,
00:20:49
Speaker
yeah like does it does it make them does it give them a better sense of belonging to the institution because now they have this um they'd be interact like michigan i know gives it all their students for free texas gives it to all their students for free does that does that help enrollment like is there any is there any indicator saying that if you gave coursera access to potential students that were going be coming, do they enroll at a higher rate at your institution because they're going to get this in addition to? Oh, wow. That's a really, yeah. right like i mean there's um to me i mean, that's just where my mind goes with, at least with the relationship we have with Coursera, right? like we yeah we we We made an investment to give this to students for free. And so now it's just like, what's my what's my overall impact? Yeah.
00:21:36
Speaker
of students having us. We're wrestling with the same things. We don't, we don't have career academy implemented at the university. Like I said, we did some piloting and we're going to take that now that we have, we, where our strategic plan is the framework is finally out, which is great.
00:21:50
Speaker
Um, now we can start working towards I mean, border region still has to approve, but they'll approve it. Uh, but we're still working are my office where I work, this office of distributed learning, we're trying to figure out how do we best utilize Coursera? Cause we are a Coursera for campus.
00:22:06
Speaker
partners. So we create content we have and I'm I got a lot more content in the pipeline. So we're trying to figure out best engage the system of University of Minnesota to utilize it in not just it's available to faculty, staff and students, but to make it available in learning.
00:22:23
Speaker
So yeah we were going we're looking to improve how we diffuse it through the system, through all all those populations, because it's freely available. Our stuff is freely available. To them, the there's a consortium with a just over 200 institutions, I think their content is freely available to our community and vice versa.
00:22:42
Speaker
So there's a lot there. So what we're doing now is I am actively moving forward the canvas Corsair integration. so I'm working with RIT and all sorts of groups to get that moving because it just would make it, you'd be able to find and discover and integrate content just like you would library resources, which is very smooth and very streamlined now. So, uh, we're still figuring all this out.
00:23:08
Speaker
Yeah. Well, again, and as we're talking about, mean, there's lots of different avenues to to go with, with this type of research. Um, And the interesting thing is that if you think about it, there there are many schools, like let's just put Coursera to the side for a bit, which it gets confusing because when you talk about like, let's say the Grow with Google program, Coursera still enters it because Google's certs are on the Coursera platform, not on platform that they own. So that's where it gets a little funky and there's a messy middle there. But but just think about right now, to- today,
00:23:48
Speaker
How many, and maybe this is more of a a question for Google or Coursera to confirm with us if they can, or we use AI to help us, but there are so many schools that are already grow with Google institutions, right? Because the licenses are free. theyre they're they're They start out at about 500 licenses.
00:24:09
Speaker
but So there's already a lot of data out there about people pursuing ah these certs. you know Google has shared that what 75% of people who pursue their career certs basically report a positive experience from that.
00:24:24
Speaker
So there's so much more that we need to know, but we don't know it because there's not there hasn't been a way to really like summarize the data in the ways that we're talking about, like type of student and does it impact retention and does it impact anything post-graduation?
Role of Strada Education Foundation
00:24:42
Speaker
So I feel like this is the type of research that's needed now more than ever as we are shifting in higher ed on this focus on, hey, the college experience is great, but then how can it be how can we better prepare people for
00:24:58
Speaker
this ever-changing world of work now, especially with AI and just everything that's going on in the job market, these things. You were, and you had research like that in motion.
00:25:10
Speaker
You have it in motion. We do. We do. And so that's yeah the report that will come out, I say, roughly a year from now. And again, thanks. This is a strong plug for them, which is warranted, but, you know I'm very thankful for the Strata Education Foundation for, you know, for creating the Beyond Completion Challenge grant and then doubling down and saying, hey, your project, we really do want to help you collect, you know, summarize your data, identify the insights, and then use it as a way to hopefully make the Texas credentials for the future project even better, right?
00:25:48
Speaker
Given the investment, like Kevin, you mentioned the investment piece, like we've already invested some money, right, in terms of of this work. And so how can we ah leverage the research too to help us figure out how to to get even more out of that investment as we move forward?
00:26:07
Speaker
and you know yeah It's interesting you bring up Strata. um I think we miss the boat a lot of times in higher ed of a lot of organizations that are nonprofit. that are thinking about the same things that we're thinking about and actually trying to help us be better in this space. And I think Strata is definitely one of those organizations that yeah really thinks about higher education research, the usefulness of that research, and you know the fundraising that they do and the foundation that they have in order to port you know to create these grants and to put all this stuff together.
00:26:44
Speaker
you know i think i think oftentimes we don't shout out enough those types of organizations that are really striving to help us be better. I'm to say this without selling us products, right? right Like they're really like really helping us to be better institutions without the other pieces. Now i know there's other components of Strata, so don't get me wrong. Like I know there's, they have a lot of other organizations that are part of what they do, but at least that backbone of the research, right?
00:27:15
Speaker
And so kind of like a lot of the organizations that we belong to that also kind of think along those same lines. and And then you know my hope too is that given that we, this is related to what you just said Fritz about you're already, you have some research kind of already in play.
00:27:36
Speaker
My hope is that maybe there's aspects of that approach or at least the data bits from the UT project that might help inform the types of data that we're gonna wanna collect for our NAS project, right? Like there will be, but then I think because we have even ah potentially a bigger sample of learners at least representing more institutions versus just one system, think there's an opportunity for us to to really maybe get at like outside of just one system, what are the common themes are we seeing, right?
00:28:13
Speaker
community college versus university, demographically, what are the differences? By college majors at different institutions, are there some
Data Collection for Learning Outcomes
00:28:22
Speaker
commonalities? So really looking forward to, i mean, I feel like this is just like basic foundational work, right? Just like helping us understand the landscape, the ecosystem that we're in not that we're going to be able to solve for everything and and account for all the variants and all the complexities of human behavior, right? Like that's not the goal of this, but I think it's just, how can we do this work and make this, make this type of an effort also just much more transparent and go beyond just a nice shiny case study, right? Which is, doesn't really get into the weeds.
00:29:01
Speaker
Yeah. yeah And really kind of under, know, cause that's, that's where I want to go. I want to just really see like good, bad and ugly. Like, you know, what is what what is going on for the learner?
00:29:13
Speaker
What are we hearing from faculty in terms of embedding micro-credentials? Like, are we noticing that it's a certain type of faculty in terms of their discipline, a type of course within that discipline? Like, what is it?
00:29:27
Speaker
Because we don't really have that type of summary report today based on the micro-credential work that that we're talking about today. So this, this, as you can tell, I'm really excited because I think that's what it's all here. So it's awesome. So logistics, i miss ah are you all, are you staying in Texas and Austin? Yeah. Well, luckily for me, like I feel like in my career and maybe I've touched upon this during my, my, you know, our, our podcast interview of each other.
00:29:59
Speaker
ah felt like previously I've, i think we have to pick up the family and move every time. Right. And so I feel like my past couple positions have been definitely more on the remote side.
00:30:11
Speaker
Luckily Nash is, ah is a, although a national organization, it's also remote. And so, yeah, no, no. So, so now I can continue to have the love of my, my, my wife, Courtney and our kids, because especially with our kids, right. Cause Courtney and I are remote employees, but,
00:30:32
Speaker
to take a, uh, to take a 10th grader and a sixth grader out of school and move them God knows where to start over with new friends. Like, yeah, you know, that's a hill I never really want to be on.
00:30:46
Speaker
at Um, yeah, now I think it's easier, right. When they're like two or three years old and you don't have to worry about it too much, but. Well, that's great. It sounds like a whole lot of wins. Well, speaking win-wins,
00:30:57
Speaker
but speaking of winwins
00:31:01
Speaker
I think you have a win-win to share, don't you, Fritz? I do. i um I have a, I don't have, I wouldn't call it a new role. I have a new title.
00:31:14
Speaker
i am now the Director of Online Program Support Services for the Office of Distributed Learning at the University Minnesota. Congrats. Congrats. Thanks. Congrats back to you still.
00:31:25
Speaker
Yours is here's this big, but this is something that's been in motion for a while. And i have to give a shout out to my boss, Eric Watkins. um it really, what it does is it makes my title reflect what I do, third which is, you know, it's, I'm a two part at the big level. I have a two part role.
00:31:46
Speaker
One is I, I am the person who steers Coursera, not steers it entirely, but I'm the one who administers ah course a lot of the Coursera aspects for the university. So the relationship with Coursera initiatives, you know, the,
00:32:01
Speaker
some technical kinds of things like this canvas integration, but um i yeah I find opportunities for to develop new content for Coursera for Campus instance and get them developed and set them in motion and get them launched.
00:32:14
Speaker
So there's that half. And then the other is this online OPSS, we call it Online online Program Support Services. So we help programs around the system figure out what the opportunities are in the online and hybrid spaces and even on ground and um help make that happen. So it's been a journey to to get to this, you know, with a provost transition that slowed things down a bit. But so, yeah, I'm really happy. It it takes a, you know, it it takes time in institutions.
00:32:43
Speaker
it wasn't like weighing on me. like, you know, is this, when's it going to happen? How's it going to happen? And then it was, I woke, honestly, woke up. I think there's some things that happen automatically. Like I got an email from HR that's just automated. Like you have a new title.
00:32:56
Speaker
That's when we were in Colorado. i was like, so we were with our friends. So I went down in the kitchen. i was like, Hey everybody, my, my job shift came and everyone's like, yeah, it was fun. It makes the breakfast food that you were eating that day. Even. Oh yeah. Yeah.
00:33:10
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I think we went out to dinner with some friends that night along with them. And that was, you know, it was fun. So yeah, it just, you know, it kind of, Solidify is what I'm already doing. And was joking with Kevin, like no one reports to me, which is kind of nice. So it it's ah it's all good. I'm very, very excited. So here's a quick question for you. Now that, I mean, it's it's taken a ah bit of time, right? to make To make this transition in title and responsibilities.
00:33:44
Speaker
what What are maybe the the top couple things that you're looking forward to accomplishing now that it's official that you are in this new role?
00:33:56
Speaker
And what are maybe a couple of things you might miss given that you have this new role? Just curious. Well, i mean, it in a way it really doesn't, it doesn't change much what I'm doing. It just clarifies when I introduced myself, because before I had a title of distributed learning program analyst, which doesn't, I don't know what that meant.
00:34:18
Speaker
um So this actually gives people some clarity when they say, oh, Fritz is, you know, he works, he directs online program support services. It's easy to find out what those et cetera. So what I'm excited about is um it I mean, really, so we were just in Duluth, my boss and I earlier this week for a visit with heads of programs, deans of the colleges, the executive vice chancellor to talk about what we're what specific projects, but I'm just, I'm excited to keep talking to leaders and faculty around the system, the entire university to find those opportunities and to, and to help bring them to life. So they want to scale like every institution. There's a, we have a challenge of, of leveling enrollments or declining
00:35:06
Speaker
it's it's tough on certain campuses. So, but there are opportunities in that and to collaborate across all the campuses. So, you know, my excitement is to just keep doing what I'm doing and keep digging into it further. I think not so much my title change and any shifts in my role. What I'm excited about is now that we have a strategic plan in our office, it's not directly invoked, but a lot of things in there are already drawing us in.
00:35:31
Speaker
So I'm excited to dig into those things to, the systemness of the university, integrate things across campuses so that students can just move between campuses for courses they need, or they want to put things together. Or we develop programs that span that, ah whether they're online or not, a lot of them will be because no one's necessarily going to move between campuses over two, four years for an undergrad or otherwise.
00:35:57
Speaker
So um yeah, I think the the strategic plan gives us a lot of now clarity to keep just to now make it happen. So that's what's going to happen. The strategic plan will get passed, approved by the Board of Regents.
00:36:10
Speaker
There will be task forces for each of the big buckets for the strategic plan. You know, the, you know, there's ones related to online learning, essentially, or you know, effective learning, cutting edge learning, and we'll be ah really involved in that. And there's,
00:36:27
Speaker
You know, all all types of things. There's a big healthcare component. So um now those tax forces will be invoked in those to to get it done. Let's go do this. Let's get to work. Instead of waiting and what's it going to be in all this now, let's let's get to work. So I'm excited to get back. I was already working, but let's let's get to work.
University of Minnesota's Strategic Plan
00:36:45
Speaker
so is So is that a system strategic plan or is that a... So that is the next strategic plan for the entire university, all five campuses. so but And it was the other one that had run its course. It was called M-PACT 25. So it's 2025, that one buttoned up.
00:37:03
Speaker
And now with a new president, a new provost, it really, it was a nice changeover that they then got to have a lot of input into the strategic plan. So, um yeah, let's we're getting to work, which is good.
00:37:17
Speaker
So, Kelvin, you were just on Paris for a conference.
Global Collaboration and Skill Recognition
00:37:23
Speaker
I wanted to know, how does that how was it, first of all, and then how does that tie into your your new role, if at all?
00:37:32
Speaker
No, thanks thanks for that question. So the conference I was attending, the the major theme, I would say, is that it was focused on how do we recognize um like skill acquisition, overall learning,
00:37:49
Speaker
um with like regardless of where it actually happens, right? so So this is really focused on kind of open recognition of of again, skills and learning And you know I went to this conference just last year for the first time, and it was also in Paris. So that was my first time there. So that was really cool just to kind of see the sites. But you know at times, what was even cooler, though, was to go to this type of international event.
00:38:22
Speaker
because there were folks from you know various countries there. I feel like Australia was really well represented by folks who are doing really great work with like you know prior learning assessment, again, open open skills, badging.
00:38:40
Speaker
I feel like Australia is definitely... um leading the way and in in different aspects of that. And so I was attracted to this conference because some of my colleagues who attend like like similar conferences here in the United States, like you know conferences sponsored by CAIL, Council on Indulgent Experiential Learning and Conversions, which is supported by ACRO, the the National Association for Registrars, who are also trying to figure out
00:39:11
Speaker
learner employment records. Like, I feel like the open recognitions conference is definitely in this same space about like, how do we recognize what people know and what they can do?
00:39:23
Speaker
And ah again, regardless of where that happened, maybe it happened, maybe the the knowledge and skills that were acquired in ah in a higher ed context, but maybe not.
00:39:34
Speaker
And if not, how can someone actually, yeah how can how will employers, for example, um feel comfortable accepting that that statement of truth, right, around those skills and knowledge.
00:39:55
Speaker
And so, but yeah, really good conference. Again, smaller, I would say we have maybe about somewhere between 100 and 200 people there. So it was great for networking as well to to really kind of talk with people about what they're up to around this space. Yeah.
00:40:14
Speaker
And my hope with my new job, regardless of whether or not I go back to this, that particular conference, my hope is that um I can still you know, go to conferences, regardless of where they're held, where there is this ongoing conversation about like in the learn work ecosystem, how do we help people validate what they know and they can do, again, regardless of where those skills and and that knowledge was actually acquired, especially in a way to help them with upskilling, reskilling,
00:40:54
Speaker
and in the world of work where employers are not always um set up, I would say, technology-wise to accept, let's say, a digital badge or um You know, and with AI too, like, again, recruiters are just overwhelmed by tons of resumes, which may or may not actually reflect what a person knows and what they can do.
00:41:17
Speaker
so how do we, yeah know, so another thing is like, how do we verify, how do we leverage verified credentials? Or can we come up with what the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, there's a, there's a,
00:41:34
Speaker
there's also a focus on LinkedIn claims. So how can you actually like validate that Kevin and Fritz have data analytics skills?
00:41:45
Speaker
And maybe one way to do that is almost like an old school way, having someone who knows you validate that you do have those skills and can provide more context around that.
00:41:59
Speaker
I fully vouch for both of you, by the way. And vice versa, yeah. So I'm going to ask a and ah naive education question. The US system of education, high school to baccalaureate to masters to doctorate is not the same as Europe.
00:42:17
Speaker
I believe it's not the same as Australia. so i'm I'm interested in how these other countries are thinking about prior learning assessment and competency based education.
00:42:30
Speaker
in a different structure of what a baccalaureate degree means you know in the UK versus what a bachelor's degree means here. yeah that Is that part of that? Yeah, I would say so. um And I think you know it's also just trying to figure out too, like regardless of whether you leverage micro-credentials, digital badges,
00:42:57
Speaker
um the piece that's still missing, which was a bit missing at the, at the conference I went to in Paris is like, how do employers feel about all of this? Right. Because we we can call it whatever we were going to call it. We can say we're offering more competency-based courses.
00:43:16
Speaker
Um, online, hybrid, whatever. But at the end of the day, it's like we're still trapped in the matrix, right? Like the agents still are at every door and they control all the locks. And so how do we ah do we still stay alive in a system that is still somewhat regulated and controlled, right?
00:43:37
Speaker
where individual decisions about, let's say, for example, hiring, could this come down to someone, again, like, hey, I only have so much time per resume. How am I, you know, and I might not even look at your Google search from data analytics because maybe I'm more enamored just with your overall years of experience and the fact that you went to Harvard versus a community college, for example, right? which So there's still biases in the system that yeah we also have to kind of point out and and talk with recruiters about like, how can we get past that?
00:44:15
Speaker
Yeah, i mean, might so our daughter is starting the the college search apparatus. I said we were were in Colorado Went to some institutions there in the Denver, Colorado Springs area.
00:44:27
Speaker
But, you know, so she's wrestling with ACTs and s SATs and standardized tests. And oh my gosh, it's so intimidating. I didn't get the score I won. I want to do more, blah, blah, blah. So but she's like, why do they do this? Even my family, my in-laws, my wife, why do they do this? I'm like, because...
00:44:43
Speaker
it's a proxy. These things are all proxies, you know, test scores, diplomas, ah certificates, because otherwise how, as you're saying, Calvin, how do you verify the validity of any of this?
00:44:55
Speaker
So I can see how i know that there's a push and pull between industry. Maybe it's leadership saying, Oh, these are, this is great. Yeah. We want to like the States we want to, you know, we'll accept,
00:45:08
Speaker
credit or experience as um non the experience of people don't have degrees as towards job application. But then i the I know the HR units are like, how the heck do we verify the not only the accuracy of this, because, you know, they can say they have this, but how do we know they have this competency? It makes these vetting go layer you have to go backwards through these layers. And if you have the volume of kinds of the volume of applic applicants for individual roles, it is, I don't know how they would manage it. So um it's really perplexing. And I can understand how institutions are going back to standardized test scores as a way to filter the,
00:45:47
Speaker
insane amount of applications they get because now you just press a button on common app and just you just scatter shot your application everywhere if you want so i can see how they're scrambling to figure it out and as ai is changing everything it'd be hard enough without ai and and now it's making it exponentially harder so um it's it's interesting times maybe we live in interesting times Yeah, and it's interesting, you know, I mean, there are institutions that are participating in pilots of learner employment records.
00:46:25
Speaker
So a way for you to have kind of like a one stop shop for for anything that can help tell your story about what you know and what you can do. the skills that you've acquired.
00:46:37
Speaker
It's more sophisticated than simply posting a bunch of information about yourself on LinkedIn, which is, yeah which it can still be helpful. But, you know, with LERs, you know, maybe it's connected to, again, a digital wallet.
00:46:51
Speaker
um It's part digital wallet because now you you can, you know or easily store and share your digital badges. But again, at the end of the day, who's asking for those, right? like that' will wait Will that matter in any way outside of just almost kind of a traditional resume description of what you've done over the past 10 years and with whom?
00:47:17
Speaker
who can rise through the right letter of recommendation also, you know, be seen over someone else who maybe does not have such a ah strong recommendation letter, right?
00:47:30
Speaker
Because, yeah. I mean, to me, the the harder it is for and organizations of any kind, nonprofits, private sector, companies, to figure out who to hire, that actually, to me, creates more risk for bias and problematic hiring where like, look, I'm gonna hire this person because I know them.
00:47:52
Speaker
I can't, I can't eat this giant elephant of 2000 applicants for one role. I know this person. And then I'd say everyone who does that is bias. I mean, networks are the oldest way of finding a job still, you know, your your network to get it to get to get visibility. But to me, the the the explosion of technology and um the ability to I don't know. I mean, I'm sure there are people, they're fake, they're faking it. You know, they have resumes and cover letters all written, you know, so to me, it's at some point there's gonna be people get really far along in processes, job searches, and then they're gonna, it's gonna be a harder fall. You're gonna get a job that's really high stakes because you,
00:48:35
Speaker
you've fibbed your way in and then you're going to fall so hard and that's going to impact your future because then you know who's going to hire you after that because people do talk so it's um it happens so fast i mean the speed of this stuff is just boggling yeah i wanted to bring up a point and at some point we'll do our well next maybe our next uh just the three of us we'll talk about the fulbright specialist program but I think being able and I know this is not exactly a financially flush time for any institution, but being able to go to a conference outside of the borders of the United States is really valuable.
00:49:19
Speaker
And, but I will say one thing, cost, I've been to a couple and one I went to this 10 years ago. It was substantially less expensive, including international travel and hotel and all that to go to that conference in Spain.
00:49:33
Speaker
Shout out to IATED and the ISERI conference. wait Because it was like a $300 registration fee. The hotel was very inexpensive because you know, Sevilla in the fall is not exactly prime tourist time. So it was very inexpensive.
00:49:48
Speaker
um Then going to say, Educause, an Educause conference in the States, and sometimes a very high price of conference hotels. So I think it's invaluable to do that.
00:49:59
Speaker
um But I know not everyone gets an opportunity, but I just still want to, I think it's so, so important. So I'm, you know I'm glad nothing seems to be you know nothing's getting in your way of doing that, Kelvin, recently at least. yeah no I appreciate no that point because I look back at some of the conferences I went to just for this you know last year into now this year, and some of the more expensive conferences were here.
00:50:28
Speaker
Yeah, you know, not to throw too much shade at any one conference, but I, you know, I won't say the name of the conference, but there's one in particular where it was like, I want to say the the fee was like $2,000 or something like that. And that was for nonprofit organizations.
00:50:45
Speaker
It's actually even higher if you represent like a for profit company. So And then you look at it, you're like, well, what I get out of it more is not just these you know big, famous people on the main stage. I get more out of the networking and really talking with people about, hey, Fritz and Kevin, what are you doing? And what roadblocks, what does change management look like for you in this cool project? like That's where i get more value.
00:51:14
Speaker
but da But yeah, $2,000 for a conference. i'm like And then there are even some conferences that are half that. And I'm like, it's still $1,000. So exactly what am I really paying for?
00:51:25
Speaker
And that's not inclusive of of, again, hotel, as you mentioned. so
00:51:31
Speaker
So what's on the what's on the roadmap for you guys for conferences in the near or further out time frame? I'm going to OLC in three weeks.
00:51:45
Speaker
So in November. Is it still in Orlando? It's in Orlando. At the Dolphin and Swan? Yep. At the Disney Resort. Yeah. Yeah. but You know there's something to be said for a place just going to the same place all every year. You know where it's going to be. Kind of know the price. Yeah. I mean, ah there's pluses and minuses to that, right? Like, so as an organization, you have to think about...
00:52:09
Speaker
Will my people from Washington and Oregon come just because but it's Orlando? Is it more expensive for them to fly into Orlando versus if I would have something in Kansas? you know It's funny how you think you look at conferences and where conferences go.
00:52:25
Speaker
No one goes to Kansas City. No one goes to Omaha. no like No one's in the central part. mean You get some in dinner every once in a while, but most, I mean, they're almost always in you know San Diego,
00:52:39
Speaker
New Orleans, DC, like trying to get all those things. Yeah. Like even, i mean, even when I was at EAB, you know, we would always bring people to DC cause that's where the corporate offices were. it's like, why don't we do a meet? Like, why don't we do a meeting somewhere on the West coast or somewhere in the central? Like, so people, so more people can get there, there, and maybe it's more affordable for them to get there, but everybody like,
00:53:02
Speaker
But I agree. So yeah, so I am going to OLC. I'm presenting on iPads data oh cool at that conference. um And then, i mean, that's all I'm doing this. That's the only one I'm doing this fall.
00:53:19
Speaker
More than likely, I'll probably go to Epsia
00:53:24
Speaker
in April. it April? i think it's in April. Oh, annual? The annual, yeah. I'll be there, yeah. I'm already booked and ready to go. I'm presenting... um with someone that I work with here and in our office about our OPSS, Online Program Support Services, now that we have some track record to talk about how it's going. now And they we're co-presenting with another institution in a similar topic, just to you know talk about similarities and differences and what we're doing for others who are interested in that.
00:53:52
Speaker
Yeah, I'm also presenting at EPSIA, probably also in the same... pain of distance education and yeah iPads. and I'm also the chair of the central region.
00:54:03
Speaker
So I'm going to part of it. you know and You're in the central region. you you have Hey, i'm um'm I'm networking. So ill have to be there for the breakfast and all that stuff. yeah Yeah. So there's some there's some stuff. And I actually couldn't make it last year because it was over a spring break, I think.
00:54:19
Speaker
So as the incoming chair, I slated to be there. But anyway, so i got i have some central region things to do as well. so But it'll be good. I think yeah i think my rhythm will probably be to go to annual each year. Then my boss will go to solar for upsea because it's usually summertime for that. So that's a good a good rhythm.
00:54:38
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. But Kelvin, for you with the new role, is that is that going to change the kind of professional networks you plug into? I mean, I know Nash is a professional network in a a way. It's a network. But is this going to change where you or we would find you?
00:54:54
Speaker
You know, i I mean, perhaps because maybe i won't. um be able to go to you know maybe as many conferences. I think that's that's still yet to be determined.
00:55:07
Speaker
and So I need to just be, I guess, just looking very carefully at the at the calendar over these next several months. But my my hope though is to still be as active as possible because what I'm finding, as as you all know, probably even better than I am, like it's great to go to like this conference and this conference, but then you quickly realize, oh, crap, there's there's gaps still.
00:55:33
Speaker
Like, I'm still not meeting the people that I want to talk with. And I feel like, again, with some of the conferences I mentioned earlier, like Convergence, um ah There's some other ones too, like the BAGS Summit, which is also really good. And I'm looking forward to hopefully going to the BAGS Summit. That's the University of Colorado Boulder, very affordable conference, right? It's like one-tenth the cost of you know of some of the conferences.
00:56:05
Speaker
that more expensive conference that I brought up, it's like almost a tenth the cost, which is amazing. but But i feel like there's still like, there's still like something missing, at least um within higher ed where there's, it's higher ed industry.
00:56:23
Speaker
um and you know and And then also maybe maybe there's also like a K through 12 component. Like I feel like there's still not one conference that pulls in all the people that we would want to see around this topic of the learn work ecosystem, right?
00:56:40
Speaker
where it's like part tech but part stakeholder groups like you know k through 12, higher and then on the talent side, again, industry, because that yeah having that voice in the room is just so important.
00:56:59
Speaker
So my hope is that, and our listeners too, if you have any sway in this, talking with the powers that be at the individual conferences we go to, just to see if there's an opportunity for like maybe a ah newer type of conference that's joint ah fun you know supported across different organizations. and maybe maybe we'll see that because the competency-based education network, ACRO,
00:57:25
Speaker
um I believe Kale, they're all working together around like LER stuff and skills. And so maybe there will be that type of a co-hosted conference, which would definitely save us some funds.
00:57:40
Speaker
But even more importantly than just that, it would bring a lot of different voices in the room that are not together always when we go to a conference.
00:57:52
Speaker
Yeah, it's interesting you you say that. we We had a coffee chat in Upsia a week or so ago, and we were talking about the Convergence Conference, which is Acro and Upsia bringing those folks together. And I just kind of posed to the group. I'm just like, who like if you if you could just create like this...
00:58:10
Speaker
conference of the right types of people to be in this space for the world. but But again, even with Apsia, you have people running in two different worlds. You have not necessarily two different. I mean, I live in both of those, but you have professional development, non-credit type stuff, and then you also have the four credit degree. And so even those two people those two things,
00:58:29
Speaker
diverge a little bit even in in in the work that we do on campus. But I did kind of I threw that out there too. I'm just like, who else would you bring? Like financial aid never comes to any like conference around distance education LER.
00:58:42
Speaker
ah e are i mean, they're going to be impacted by LERs. mean, they're currently being impacted by workforce Pell. I mean, but there's that. li So I will give a shout out to liaison.
00:58:53
Speaker
I don't know if either one of you utilize liaison, but, They have a conference. They do a pretty good job of bringing industry and higher ed.
00:59:04
Speaker
But what I found was it was just more It was more industry focused, like more business focused than higher ed focused. And so it was hard to kind of have like a higher ed voice in that. But I think that is because I mean, again, they're doing a lot of that research on where are people getting jobs, what's the employment outlook look, you know, all, you know, collecting all that data and bringing all those things together, which a lot of businesses have interest in how many people are graduating with degrees.
00:59:31
Speaker
But I don't think that connection, like the, what, what, what does that mean? You know, for, for all of us to be in that room, having that conversation versus just here's some software that gives you data.
00:59:44
Speaker
Right. To me, there's such a big, this whole question and it's, it's an ever, it's always been around. What is the value of a credential, not just a bachelor's degree, but a credential, high school diploma, everything up to a bachelor's and beyond that matches, et cetera.
00:59:59
Speaker
um you know I read about it all the time as in my own work, but is there a space where they gathered ah for both sides, at least on the higher ed side and the industry side to talk about what is the value of these things? What do industries need? What employers, what does the labor market need?
01:00:17
Speaker
And what does you know what what can higher ed do to shift and accommodate that while still meeting? We have missions that we want to fulfill So yeah, if there's anyone out there who knows of a great space where these conversations are happening, whether it's virtual, whether it's a conference, whether it's a community, I'm all ears because there's a lot of...
01:00:39
Speaker
I just feel like there's there's a lot of talk about what is what are these things? What is the value? But is everyone really talking to each other about, okay, let's get to work and make them valuable.
01:00:50
Speaker
let's give We'll give you what you need. Just tell us what you need and and you know specifically. Let's create a framework for this. so And I know that's essentially the world you're in, Kelvin, and we all are in a way. But um yeah, I'd love for that to be a ah place.
01:01:08
Speaker
And get on the same page with terminology. not Even spelling, right? There some places that spell micro-credentials where they use a hyphen. Others actually just, you know, it's one word. I might use that versus... I use the Oxford comma, I admit. Yeah.
01:01:28
Speaker
Yeah, agreed. Micro-credential. i would I'd love for there to be a, and I know there's a, and I'd have to dig the link up, but there is a group working on a taxonomy for non-baccalaureate, post-high school, post-secondary credentials.
01:01:42
Speaker
A taxonomy, not unlike what a bachelor's degree is, what a master's degree is, so that with a... with a structure and we can actually start to then figure out what they are, what they need to be, what they could be, who's doing what, a market, a visible market, transparent marketplace that we can then work towards. Yeah, but then it's getting all of higher, like all of, like I'll just use Oregon State. Oregon State says micro-credential, but their micro-credential is for credit courses.
01:02:10
Speaker
My micro-credential is non-credit courses, four credit courses, graduate and undergraduate certificates and specializations, right? Like mine's mine's the pathway before a baccalaureate degree or post-baccalaureate degree. yep And so like even that is just, so when some when some people, when like when you go to like,
01:02:33
Speaker
you know, go to convergence and someone goes, oh yeah, we're doing micro credentials. It's almost like, well, what are, what is your definition of what you're doing? I hear you, but it's just like, you're like, oh my God, someone else is doing this. It's like, no, that's not what we're doing. because but I hear you, but it's not what our definition is.
01:02:48
Speaker
If it's, if it's so, ah un, un, almost unknowable, how do we, how do we as institutions know what to offer and then invest in it? If we don't, and right now we're in a space where if an institution doesn't know, it's not that they're going to get a return, but they want to do something that's going to successful for their learners.
01:03:07
Speaker
And that's not going to put them financially in a hole. yeah They're not going to do it because the the risk profile is unknown. So they're going to, they're going have to wait because like, we don't know the risk. It looks too risky because we can't even understand any risk because we don't know what we're trying.
01:03:21
Speaker
We don't know whether it's going to do like do well by any of those audiences. So to me, that's the problem without there being any framework for microcredentials, just like if there's no framework for what a baccalaureate degree is, it'd be a mess. So, you know, it's, it's just, it's very messy right now. And I think the messiness does not, some people might say, Oh, it's innovative. It's an open, innovative space. Like,
01:03:41
Speaker
Yeah, I get that, but it's it ends up being messy and the the payoff and the value to learners and people who are need the credential, it's it gets lost in there.
01:03:52
Speaker
Yeah, it gets tricky with the whole micro-credentials thing because like even in the SUNY system, right, like across their system, they, you know, existing schools, faculty at those schools created their own micro-credentials, which is then separate from SUNY's participation in our NASH community of practice, where it's a focus on embedding and using industry credentials, right?
01:04:19
Speaker
Which are created outside of SUNY by a third party. And so they are even making sure that they're starting to have that distinction so that not all of that gets lumped messily under micro-credentials.
01:04:36
Speaker
But yeah, to be continued, I think we'll definitely have to circle back on this when we have more time.
01:04:46
Speaker
This was great. yeah I love these little conversations where we just dive like just dive into all these different things. and so yeah Yeah, we went from Calvin getting a great new role to the the very messy nature of micro-credentials and on all that space. so Yeah. and so i i mean you know I would just say like if there's listeners out there and you're listening to this and you're in any of these spaces,
01:05:10
Speaker
Let us know. Happy to have you on. We can have a conversation and we can talk about your, you know, your insights into some of the things that we're talking about. We can always expand on any topic that we, that we.
01:05:26
Speaker
Well, everyone have a great weekend. We'll see you next time on getting stuff done in higher ed.
01:05:39
Speaker
you