Ten Ontario post-secondary institutions to participate in the ARUCC MyCreds™ Virtual Skills Passport pilot project for micro-credentials

29 August, 2022

Developing next-generation digital sharing technologies for micro-credentials

The Association of Registrars of the Universities and Colleges of Canada (ARUCC) is delighted to announce that ten post-secondary institutions have been selected as participants in the MyCreds™ Ontario Virtual Skills Passport pilot project for micro-credentials. The ground-breaking initiative will advance the development of micro-credentials across Ontario, in the delivery of verifiable digital micro-credentials via MyCreds™ and the creation of open standards for digital micro-credentials.

Fleming College students

After an intensive review process, the ten institutions that have been approved for funding to participate in the pilot include Brock University, Centennial College, Conestoga College, Durham College, Fleming College, Humber College, Niagara College, Oshki-Pimache-O-Win: The Wenjack Education Institute, University of Windsor, and Western Continuing Studies. The participating institutions represent a diverse array across several dimensions consisting of institution type (Indigenous Institute, colleges, universities), departments (registrar’s offices, continuing education divisions, faculty areas), academic focus, location, and more.

Centennial College students

The keen interest in this pilot project by Ontario’s post-secondary community demonstrates the importance of not-for-profit and government collaborations to advance and incentivize the adoption of digitization and micro-credentialing initiatives to support Ontario citizens.

Conestoga College students at Waterloo Campus

This pilot project will move forward development in the Verifiable Credentials and self-sovereign identity (SSI) space, two concepts of increasing importance in today’s digital world. The ultimate objective is to provide individuals with control over their digital lives and a mechanism to carry their many identifying credentials in one place. Verifiable Credentials and self-sovereign identity will enable the MyCreds™ network to extend beyond its current scope and offer learners next-generation enhanced service and security, for lifelong management and control of their digital lives.

Western University student

“The Ontario government is pleased to fund the Virtual Skills Passport pilot, which will be instrumental in ensuring post-secondary institutions have the capacity to securely issue micro-credentials to learners,” says Jill Dunlop, Minister of Colleges and Universities. “In an increasingly digital world, the ability for a learner to easily share their skillset with a prospective employer will have huge impact – it will support labour market mobility, provide employers with tangible evidence of competence, and help to address skills gaps and shortages in Ontario’s economy.”

“As the ARUCC board representative on the Expression of Interest review team, I was very pleased to see the rich variety and quality of the submissions,” says Romesh Vadivel, Past Chair, ARUCC; Assistant Registrar & Director of Service Point, McGill University. “Each school is pushing the innovation envelope with their micro-credentials and participation in MyCreds™. The thoughtful partnerships with industry and the curricular focus on meeting learner and labour mobility goals, supported by the government grant funding, represent a winning combination worthy of applause. We look forward to helping them move the needle on expanding the MyCreds™ digital learner wallets with micro-credentials.”

“At Western Continuing Studies, we’ve been very successful in developing and delivering micro-credentials,” says Nicole Tate-Hill, Director (Acting), Western Continuing Studies. “Being a participant in the pilot project means we’ll be able to issue our micro-credentials by leveraging the latest digitization principles to ensure that we’re meeting the evolving needs of our broad spectrum of adult learners.”

“Our micro-credentials are designed to meet the needs of our Nishnawbe Aski Nation (NAN) Territory First Nation Communities,” says Lorrie Deschamps, President, Oshki-Pimache-O-Win: The Wenjack Education Institute. “Through the pilot project, we look forward to expanding our use of MyCreds™ and issuing our micro-credentials to our learners as Verifiable Credentials to help them find their path and achieve their goals.”

“In Continuing Professional Learning at Humber, we’re proud to offer micro-credentials that certify the ongoing achievements of our learners in an ever-changing world,” says Frank Cappadocia, Dean, Continuous Professional Learning, Humber College. “Participating in the pilot project ensures we’re at the forefront of the MyCreds™ extension into the world of self-sovereign identity and Verifiable Credentials and can pass these advancements along to our learners.”

Brock University

Brock University has recently implemented MyCreds™ for undergraduate level programs for transcript documentation. This project will expand Brock’s use of MyCreds™ for micro-credentials, providing consistency and expansion of how the university acknowledges completion of micro-credentials and badges through its expanding Professional and Continuing Studies unit.

Centennial College

Centennial College, a MyCreds™ early adopter, will focus this pilot project on the micro-credential that was created in collaboration with the Canadian Fluid Power Association (CFPA) to improve students’ marketability or the expansion of their career paths in this industry.

Conestoga College

Conestoga College implemented MyCreds™ in the summer of 2021 and is issuing digital transcripts with great success. Conestoga will further leverage this innovative technology by expanding the use of the MyCreds™ platform to include badges and micro-credentials.

Durham College

Durham College is new to MyCreds™ and will use this pilot to onboard digital micro-credentials. This platform will allow students to download their micro-credentials and display their skills in a secure digital wallet and share their achievements with partner companies.

Fleming College

Fleming College is currently in the process of developing and launching eight micro-credentials in Virtual Reality and five in Digital Marketing, through the Virtual Learning Strategy project. In addition, Fleming is developing 26 micro-credentials in Sustainable Community Food Production and 20 in Urban Forestry. The Service System Manager is launching an Employment Counselling micro-credential in September 2022. Digital badging has been identified as the industry standard, and preferred method of credentialing for this project, which Fleming will be advancing through this initiative.

Humber College

Humber College is publishing its micro-credentials created in the Modern Campus Destiny One system out to the MyCreds™ platform. Humber is contributing to the Ontario micro-credential data convention and aims to deliver a framework that will be used as a reference for upcoming MyCreds™ implementations, in addition to badges.

Niagara College

Niagara College is newly adopting the MyCreds™ platform with this pilot project and will advance future work for the college’s digital micro-credential offerings.

Oshki-Pimache-O-Win: The Wenjack Education Institute

Oshki-Pimache-O-Win: The Wenjack Education Institute will be expanding its use of ARUCC’s MyCreds™ platform to issue digital micro-credentials and contribute to community data open standards consultations. Oshki-Wenjack will also take part in future-focused consultations to guide digitization principles and open standards for micro-credentials, and work with learners and verifiers to collect feedback.

University of Windsor

The University of Windsor has established over 120 micro-credentials over the last year and is in the early stages of building out its framework and infrastructure. The university’s regional location as a border city and significant skilled training industry positions Windsor to be a key player in informing the regional/provincial framework for badging and digital credentialing.

Western Continuing Studies

Western Continuing Studies (WCS) will use this pilot opportunity to learn more about its students’ needs, to demonstrate the industry demand for this type of learning and, internally, to begin integrating digital badges into our Micro-Credential programming. WCS will put forward four micro-credentials for this pilot which will provide opportunity for the unit to evaluate both a stackable certificate and stand-alone model.

Humber College campus

About MyCreds™

MyCreds™ is a national, shared service and platform that provides students and graduates access to a secure, online, password-protected learner credential wallet. This virtual wallet allows them to view and share their verified and official transcripts, credentials, and academic documents in a digitized format on a 24/7 basis – anytime, anywhere. Secure, cryptographically signed documents can be sent conveniently and require no further verification. MyCreds™ is the first and only national bilingual system of its kind in Canada. Visit www.mycreds.ca for more details.

About ARUCC

The Association of Registrars of the Universities and Colleges of Canada (ARUCC) owns MyCreds™. ARUCC provides leadership in the post-secondary education field and service to its member institutions nationally and internationally, helping foster the advancement of registrarial practices and learner-focused service delivery in Canada.

ARUCC is supported in the program management of this initiative by Duklas Cornerstone Consulting Inc. and is working with two internationally renowned technology partners, Digitary and MATTR. These organizations are combining their talents to deliver self-sovereign identity and Verifiable Credentials for the MyCreds™ virtual wallet.

Media

MEDIA RELEASE – 29 August 2022

Joanne Duklas, Executive Lead, ARUCC. E: info@aruccnationalnetwork.ca

This project is funded by the Government of Ontario.