Listen to learn how Purdue University Global is crafting new pathways for learners through incremential credentialing and “degree along the way”. We are joined by Jacob Askeroth, who shares how they implemented microcredentials into their degree programs and how they are awarding Associate’s Degrees on the way to a Bachelor’s. You can read more about Purdue University Global’s exciting initiatives by clicking here – https://evolllution.com/incremental-credentialing-and-degree-along-the-way
Matt Sterenberg (00:01.134)
All right, Jacob, welcome to the podcast.
Jacob Askeroth (00:03.844)
Hey Matt, how you doing?
Matt Sterenberg (00:05.43)
I’m doing great. So we’re going to talk about your efforts with incremental credentialing, micro credentials, and some of the degree along the way stuff that you’re doing at Purdue University Global. But I do want to highlight one of your hobbies first. You’ve got a pretty significant hobby with art. I happened upon that in my Googling. So you’ve got art, you’ve got digital credentialing. Tell us a little bit about that.
Jacob Askeroth (00:25.678)
Yeah. OK.
Jacob Askeroth (00:31.82)
Yeah. well, I mean, yeah, like you said, the art is definitely more of a hobby, but has kind of grown a little bit more than what I was ever thinking that it would, where I’ve been able to kind of sell prints of that through a few different art distributors based in Salt Lake City, Utah, actually. And so, yeah, it’s a fun kind of thing to do just kind of on the side. Great kind of creative outlet.
But yeah, on the digital credentialing side, been working with Purdue Global in this role since 2022. Really fascinating kind of emerging area. Coincidentally, I did my doctoral research on digital badges at Purdue University, which obviously kind of was a natural step into this role. yeah, it’s been really interesting to…
to kind of navigate through this space as all universities are with it being very an emergent area. yeah, things are good.
Matt Sterenberg (01:40.438)
If you buy one of Jacob’s prints, use promo code credentials unscripted for 10 % off. No. So, you know, so many universities, higher ed broadly, really at the beginning stages, I think of how does digital credentialing actually impact learners? What’s the right methodology that we should take? How did you get your work started at Purdue University Global?
Jacob Askeroth (01:42.692)
Yeah, there you go.
Matt Sterenberg (02:08.588)
What was your selling point to the university? How did you get the buy-in that this was going to be worth it? And then what do you think, what was the intended impact on learners? Like what’s the real goal and impetus behind it?
Jacob Askeroth (02:22.5)
Yeah, that’s a great question. And actually, the digital credentialing work started before I joined Purdue Global and stepped into the role as director of digital credentialing. But back in 2020, university was looking kind of for new ways to package minors. were actually just looking at, can we give our students something in addition to their bachelor’s degree that would add value to them? And that kind of led them down to, what if we call them micro credentials?
And rather than reinventing something brand new again, they just started repackaging different existing coursework as part of the degree programs. And so the then result thus far has been that we have somewhere around 80 to 90 microcredentials that are both for credit and noncredit. And most of them are on the for credit side, again, because we’ve just taken course requirements from our degree programs, bundled them into smaller microcredentials.
typically around three to five courses. And then because they’re just from our degree programs, they easily stack into degrees. We tend to see the majority of students who earn the micro credentials are students who are already pursuing a degree with us, who just kind of inadvertently get that micro credential because they’re marking off or checking off the different course requirements for their degree program.
individuals are able to pursue and earn those as a standalone credential as well. And we’ve been able to see some instances, not as many as obviously the ones where we already have the students in the programs already, but where people have come in, they’ve started and earned the micro credential and then they’ve matriculated into our degree program. again, because there’s that built in tie in, they don’t have to redo those courses. It’s just an easy way to kind of start.
than pursuing a larger degree.
Matt Sterenberg (04:21.762)
So if I’m pursuing a non-degree microcredential, it ends up being for credit. Is there a bridge to credit or are they pursuing just a microcredential program that would be for credit if they pursued a full degree program?
Jacob Askeroth (04:35.844)
Yeah, really good question. Sorry if I didn’t make it totally clear. we have our non-credit micro credentials are just a single course that actually currently do not have any type of pathway into a degree program. It’s just here’s your one course. Some examples of those courses are like social media law. We even had like a COVID-19. Gosh, think the way it’s got contact tracing.
Course and so like that that didn’t lead into any type of degree program so that you know certainly taken as a non-degree seeking student But you can also take the four credit ones the ones that do lead into a degree as its own standalone course You have to you have to apply and get you know admitted into the university to get Started on those but yeah, you can start those as a non-degree seeking student And then and then use that to then get into a degree program if you if you choose
Matt Sterenberg (05:31.31)
And I always just like to clarify because it is, you know, there are a lot of different conversations around, well, what is the value of a non credit credential? And a lot of people are studying, like, what’s the standalone value of it? I really like what you’re doing with, I’m getting it as I’m pursuing my degree, because you don’t have to reinvent anything. And it isn’t really about the
Jacob Askeroth (05:43.662)
Yeah. Right.
Matt Sterenberg (06:00.224)
economic value of each micro credential. It’s a different way to kind of engage students and to give them bits and pieces along the way. And I think it’s like a pedagogical tool of like, Hey, just, just reminding you, here’s what you’ve learned. But I want to hear your opinion on it’s also to me, like they’re getting something that they didn’t ask for. So like, how do you communicate the value of it? You know, like it, I think there’s benefits to it, but also at the same time, it’s like,
Jacob Askeroth (06:10.926)
Yes.
Jacob Askeroth (06:21.922)
Exactly.
Matt Sterenberg (06:28.152)
I didn’t apply for this. What is this that you’re sending me? How do you navigate the tension there and making sure that they understand what they’re actually getting?
Jacob Askeroth (06:36.642)
Yeah, that’s a great point. And that has been a little bit of a challenge to educate our students on even what a microcredential is. Most people still seem to not even know kind of what a digital badge is and why they would even want one. And so, yeah, we issue probably every month or so, we probably issue around a thousand microcredentials to people who have earned them by giving them a digital badge.
A couple of years ago, we decided, let’s start doing some proactive outreach to these students. Maybe a student who’s enrolled in the final course that would then qualify them to get the micro-credential. Let’s let them know that this digital badge is going to be coming their way when they pass this last class that they’re in. And then we also looked at student populations who have completed all of the course requirements for micro-credential except for one.
And so we’ve reached out to them and say, Hey, just wanted to let you know, you’re only one course away from getting one of our micro credentials. By the way, this is what a micro credential is. Here’s a landing page that kind of explains it. Here’s things you can do with it, with the digital badge shared to your professional networks and things like that. And, you know, really just encourage them to enroll in that final course so that they can get the micro credential because they do have to select the elective in order to, to get that.
that micro-credential there. so that has, it was really slow going right at first. know, a of people were responding to me like, I don’t know like, what this is or why would I really want it? But little by little I’ve kind of seen the idea behind it, or I guess like the sentiment towards it kind of changed. Like maybe words got now a little bit more. They’re like, oh yeah, yeah, I would like this micro-credential. Let me know what I need to do to get into that last course in order to earn it.
And also too, then we’ve also, we closely monitor what we call our share rate. So obviously we have the badges that we award out to people for various different use cases like micro credentials and things like that. And then we also communicate to them, send emails saying like, hey, you got this email from Purdue University Global saying that you got a digital badge. Yes, it was from us. It wasn’t some phishing attempt.
Jacob Askeroth (08:57.508)
because a lot of people gave us some feedback that they thought they were just getting spammed. And again, here’s what it is. It was from the university. Here’s why it could be of value to you. anytime we’ve sent that out, we’ve seen a higher share rate from our users. And so I think when you can articulate that you’ve…
You’ve already done this, even though it’s not something that you signed up for and sought out, like I want this micro credential or with the degree along the way initiative that we’ve been piloting where students who are pursuing a bachelor’s degree have satisfied the requirements for the associate’s degree. like, why not let’s just give that to you if you completed the requirements for it. We’ve tried to catch it that way. Like this is you’ve already done it, you know, it’s no additional, not an additional cost.
let’s just give it to you. And our uptake on that, especially on the degree along the way has been really favorable. There was a lot of people at our institution when we started talking about degree along the way that they’re saying they’re worried that these students, if they’re just about ready to get their bachelor’s degree and we give them an associate’s degree, they’re going to stop out and not finish their bachelor’s degree. like, okay, well, yeah, like, yeah, yeah.
Matt Sterenberg (10:16.226)
Which is such a funny way of thinking about it, isn’t it? Like I’m paying all this money. I came here for a bachelor’s, I’m close to it. And if you give me an associate’s, I’m just gonna walk out the door. Like, yeah, yeah. When we have 43 million Americans who have some college and no degree, like the data suggests that like so many people stop out for not that reason, any other reason than that. Yeah, yeah.
Jacob Askeroth (10:25.432)
Yes.
Jacob Askeroth (10:28.9)
Right.
Jacob Askeroth (10:43.364)
Exactly, yeah. There’s so many other reasons why they would stop out. And so if they’re going to stop out, it’s probably due to something else. after we did our first beta test of degree along the way, we sent out, after the students got their digital diplomas through Parchment, actually, we sent out a survey and just said, hey, like in your own words, like what did it mean to you to get this associate’s degree that you weren’t planning on getting? And so many of the
respondents just said, you know, it was nice to get something. It’s nice to know that I’m still going to get my bachelor’s degree, but it’s nice to know that I already have a degree now. It’s something I could put on my resume, something to show for the work that I’ve done. Some of our students, mean Purdue University Global is the online university for working adults within the Purdue system. So all of our students, well, shouldn’t say all, like the vast majority are, you
parents, they’re working full time, and they’re just juggling a lot of different things. Many of them have never gone to a traditional college campus experience, and so they’re just being able to give them some type of win, you know, early on before they even get their intended goal really just kind of seems to give them a boost of confidence and motivation.
Matt Sterenberg (12:03.842)
Yeah, and you highlight that in your piece really well, and I’ll link to it in the podcast description, but you have a piece in evolution and it’s called incremental credentialing and degree along the way. And you highlight kind of the mental, emotional components of just like goal setting and how important it is to see those small wins and give yourself confidence. I also think like from a macro level, confidence in higher ed, like when I hear these stories, I’m like,
Jacob Askeroth (12:06.436)
Okay.
Jacob Askeroth (12:23.139)
Yes.
Matt Sterenberg (12:32.994)
They don’t have to do it, but I have completed all the degree requirements for an associates and they have the infrastructure in place and they’re kind of paying attention to me as a learner to give me something instead of like allowing me to walk out the door when I’ve done everything I need to do for an associates. Like to me, that’s a powerful message that higher ed is communicating to the learner. Like that’s important to me because we have so many people that walk away without.
Jacob Askeroth (12:42.372)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Jacob Askeroth (12:56.418)
Absolutely. Yeah.
Matt Sterenberg (13:00.878)
any credential whatsoever, $80,000 in debt and two years of college. Like that’s not, that’s not good thing.
Jacob Askeroth (13:04.248)
Yeah.
Jacob Askeroth (13:08.174)
Well, and again, going back to that concern that many expressed about, like, if we give them the associate’s degree and they stop out on earning their bachelor’s? Like, well, I mean, if they choose to do that, they do that, but at least they’ve walked away with something. You know, they have an associate’s degree with us now and, you know, that had some value. Again, we didn’t think that that was a significant risk. And so we’ve, you know, felt confident in moving forward with, you know, testing out degree along the
and all that stuff. But yeah, I totally agree with you. I think that it signals to the student that we are recognizing things that they’re doing, trying to meet them where they are, and also just kind of give them little pat on the back. like, hey, you’re doing great, you’re succeeding already, keep going.
Matt Sterenberg (13:50.572)
One of the themes that seems in your piece is the hidden value of credentials. And again, I highlighted there’s data that’s come out of like, Hey, do these short-term credentials actually improve wages, economic mobility, candidly the, again, pro credential podcast, but some of the early data on these short-term credentials isn’t amazing, right? They’re, they don’t have the proof points yet. And that’s why we’re having these conversations, but they haven’t been able to prove.
Jacob Askeroth (13:56.58)
Mm-hmm.
Jacob Askeroth (14:02.51)
Yeah.
Matt Sterenberg (14:20.942)
kind of broadly that these short-term credentials are leading to wage gains, economic mobility, but there’s the hidden value that you’re communicating just around persistence, confidence, hard things to measure. So kind of an open question to you, but like, how do you begin to think about these things as part of your programmatic development?
Jacob Askeroth (14:36.94)
Yeah.
Jacob Askeroth (14:43.886)
Well, and obviously we always want to make data driven decisions that we can really justify, hey, this is why we’re doing it. This is why we’re creating new credentials and new academic offerings and things like that. But to your point, like there’s not a lot of great data out there and our institution doesn’t have sufficient quantitative data to really make strong conclusions that this is going to in fact, make students persist at a higher rate or earn
you know, more increase our earning potential or things like that. That’s all kind of implied and just kind of a bit assumed. We’ve just, I think, taken the approach that, you know, while we don’t, I guess we don’t need to wait around until we have the data in order to at least just start trying things out. And so just kind of go with our gut that like, yeah, this is going to be good for the students.
You know, I know in that evolution piece, we kind of talked about that, you know, students who, we did some analysis that students who earn micro-credentials persist to the next term at a higher rate than those who do not. Now, obviously there’s a handful of reasons why, you know, those students would persist to the next term. These might be overachieving students already who are just doing great and not getting out their courses, and they’re going to keep persisting on their own, whether they have the micro-credential or not.
But I do, again, just going back to many of the conversations and feedback that we’ve received from these students is that just the fact that your institution, we’ve already talked about this a bit, but that your institution is recognizing that you’re making progress and that you’re accomplishing something and that you’re learning along the way. And digital credentials are great way to then demonstrate that you have
that you are learning things along the way, think is really just helps that student gain confidence and momentum and to kind of continue on. know, there’s one in particular, you know, story that I really love to share is I had a conversation with a student who, you know, she was a single mom, never went to college, was working in an IT role for Walmart and was wanting to kind of work her way up, but obviously knew that in order to become a manager one day, she would need a degree.
Jacob Askeroth (17:07.364)
but she felt very nervous and lacked confidence about her ability to go to college and get a bachelor’s degree. And one day she just happened upon Purdue Global Cybersecurity Fundamentals microcredential. And she thought, you know what, this is a bit lower risk. I’ll give this a try and we’ll see how I do. She was doing great in all those courses. She earned the microcredential and that really just, she said that just gave her the confidence to like, okay, I can do this college thing.
she was able to balance work life and all that with school. And about a couple months ago, I just saw on her LinkedIn page that she shared that she just completed her bachelor’s degree. So after getting the micro-credential, she felt confident enough to matriculate into our bachelor’s degree program. so stories like that, think really illustrate, okay, this is why we’ve put this together the way that this is what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to make it easier for us to help students
allow them to get that confidence. And obviously we would want them to have better career outcomes as well and have data that we could point to say like, yeah, we’re influencing that data point as well. But I really am proud that we’re helping the students feel like they’re making progress.
Matt Sterenberg (18:27.03)
Yeah. And that data piece, think a lot of people are trying to figure that one out. think, you know, we’ll see where that goes. And, the episode before this, we talked about, policy implications of a short-term credentials and potential funding and how that could impact reporting and things like that. the, thing I really liked too, about your incremental credentialing and, and awarding people things as they’re pursuing a degree is that.
Jacob Askeroth (18:44.099)
Mm-hmm.
Matt Sterenberg (18:56.162)
doesn’t cost them anything else. You know, they’re pursuing it. And we talk about how the degree has been a proxy for, knowledge and learning and it’s bachelor’s degree required. And when you sit back and reflect, you’re like, well, what about a bachelor’s degree? And if you’re a student and you just graduated, you’re often like, all right, I got this degree. I know I learned a lot in four years, but it’s actually kind of hard to recall all the things that you learned. And so.
Jacob Askeroth (18:58.212)
Mm-hmm.
Jacob Askeroth (19:18.82)
Yeah.
Jacob Askeroth (19:24.738)
Definitely.
Matt Sterenberg (19:26.092)
Being able to go back and point to these checkpoints and milestones, I think is really valuable as a student’s building their resume, communicating something to employment, I think is underrated.
Jacob Askeroth (19:37.89)
Yeah. Yeah. And in this student’s case that I just shared, you know, she was able to, when she earned the micro credentials, she was able to go to her employer and say, Hey, look, I just want to show you that I have this micro credential. I mean, I’m still gonna, I’m still gonna look at getting my degree, but look, I like, I have something. And I’m like, it was a tangible way to show that, like I took some real courses and learned some things here. And, and yeah, so it, it just, I think better helps the student tell their story.
and articulate some of the value that they’re gaining from hopefully earning our degrees on any of our credentials.
Matt Sterenberg (20:14.52)
So the degree along the way, I’m curious, what work did it take to get that stood up? You mentioned a few of the potential reservations or hurdles, objections that you might’ve gotten. know, reverse transfer has been a conversation for many years and states are trying to implement this. So like, how did you actually get it off the ground and not have to completely revamp your programs to make this a reality? And what recommendations potentially would you have for other institutions thinking about this?
Jacob Askeroth (20:23.428)
Yeah.
Jacob Askeroth (20:28.174)
Yep.
Jacob Askeroth (20:44.42)
Yeah, that’s a great question. Yeah, so you mentioned reverse transfer. We did look at our reverse transfer processes that we already have in place and kind of mirrored off of that. We started small with just a handful of programs. fact, our first pilot, we only focused on one program, which was an associate’s degree in human services. And we picked that one because after doing some analysis with our registrar’s office on our degree programs, that one was the one that looked like it had them
the most overlap in terms of the associate’s degree requirements and the bachelor’s degree requirements. I it was like 94 % overlap. And so the dean of that school was willing to substitute the associate’s degree capstone course with a 300 level elective. And so students who are in the bachelor’s degree program who had completed all the other requirements except for that associate’s capstone course,
but and then had taken one more elective 300 level or higher, we then just, so we created a SQL report that we could then pull, identify the students that met that criteria, and then sent an email to the students saying, we just wanted to let you know, hey, great job on, you’re making great progress on getting to your bachelor’s degree, but we wanted to let you know that you have actually satisfied the requirements for this associate’s degree. Do you want it? And because we didn’t felt like,
we didn’t feel like it would be good for us to just award someone an associate’s degree without their consent. Yeah, there was some confusion even just from, we tried to educate all the necessary people internally, like our academic advisors, not all of them got the memo, I guess, because one student went to their academic advisor and the academic advisor was saying like, no.
Matt Sterenberg (22:18.326)
like, are you kicking me out? What’s going on? Yeah.
Jacob Askeroth (22:39.012)
Like you’re pursuing your bachelor’s degree, don’t get this associate’s degree. So we had to clarify. Yeah. But so yeah, you know, the first pilot, think we had something like 51 % of the students that we invited to have the associate’s degree awarded to them took us up on it. And so in our second pilot, we’ve opened it up to a few other degree programs and to…
Matt Sterenberg (22:43.416)
Well, you guys sent this to me, so someone explain yourself, yeah.
Jacob Askeroth (23:07.726)
kind of seen a little bit smaller rate, we’ve also took within our second sample of students were some of the ones that we had previously reached out to. And I just think maybe they’re not just seeing their emails or they don’t care. but yeah, it actually wasn’t quite as hard as we thought it was going to be. Now, as we look to scale for the entire university and all of our programs, our School of Business and IT, they’re looking at
actually just embedding the associate’s degree in all of their bachelor’s programs, which is going to be really big. So to make this scaled for the whole university is actually going to require a lot of different process changes in terms of reports and different things, way that these students are classified in our SIS. And so there’s going to be some work for that. But as far as just kind of testing out, you know,
Will this work? How will students respond? Will this be of interest to students or not? We were really able to just identify the students who met the criteria that was established, reach out and ask them if they wanted it. then so far, we’ve been pleased with the results.
Matt Sterenberg (24:20.29)
That’s great because a lot of the data on transfer from community college to four year with the, numbers are staggering where they surveyed all community college students and have said, you know, are you planning to transfer to a four year to get your bachelor’s and vast majority of them say yes. And, the vast majority of people end up not transferring, getting their bachelor’s. so it actually gives you.
Jacob Askeroth (24:26.68)
Mm-hmm.
Matt Sterenberg (24:50.254)
Like, you know, if you’re just thinking about it from a time spent perspective, I’m going to pursue my bachelor’s right off the bat. And if I get an associate, it’s great. if, if that’s enough for me, fine. But it’s, it’s at least giving people something and taking some of the transfer stuff out of it. Not that the same person’s necessarily going to choose Purdue university global over their local community college or whatever else, but there is.
a problem with the transfer of people that are pursuing an associates or taking coursework for an associates with the thought of, want to pursue a bachelor’s. And it just makes that process a little bit more seamless without having to move from one institution to another.
Jacob Askeroth (25:33.464)
Yeah, exactly. And one of the challenges we were seeing with our reverse transfer process is that, you know, the, we would notify students that, Hey, you’ve, you’ve satisfied the requirements in the courses that you’ve taken here at Purdue global that would satisfy an associate’s degree at this community college where you maybe started attending and then you transfer before you got your associates. And so we’d let them know. And then they would obviously go back to that community college and go through their necessary process. But unless the student
then transferred that associate’s degree back over to Purdue Global, we would have like, we wouldn’t have any idea whether or not they actually got that associate’s degree or not. So the degree along the way where we’re kind of awarding that, not retroactively, but just saying like, hey, you’ve, you’ve gotten all these requirements done for the associate’s degree. Let’s just give it to you while you’re getting your bachelor’s as well allows us, I think, identify those students and, and be more intentional and,
hopefully helpful to them as they kind of keep going towards their bachelor’s.
Matt Sterenberg (26:37.39)
So Jacob, you have your thumb on the pulse of digital credentialing. You’re someone that cares a lot about this. You obviously got your PhD in it. So what do you want to see next? If you’re talking to companies like Parchment and Structure and just broadly talking to institutions, what are you hoping to see in this landscape over the next few years?
Jacob Askeroth (26:46.926)
Thanks
Jacob Askeroth (27:01.432)
Yeah, great question. I think that what we really need to see, and obviously there’s a lot of work being done on this with a lot of there’s great frameworks being built and standards being put in place that would enable this, but I haven’t yet been able to see it work in real time of just kind of the interoperability and transferability of a digital credential from one platform to another. Some platforms are doing it.
better than others, but I think like obviously the key idea or premise of digital credentials is that you can easily move them from this platform to this other one. And there’s still just some hiccups in being able to do that. So I think that as long as the work continues on that, like I’ve noticed, one EdTech is developing their trusted credential framework.
for micro credentials to kind of put some type of standardization about what a micro credential is, is really going to be helpful. But I think that as we can just work more towards interoperability and transferability is going to be key and really important for learners because, you know, with the way that I think we’re seeing things change, you know, I might rather than just get all of my education from one institution, I’m going to get something from a micro credential from here.
a bachelor’s degree from here. I’m going to do some professional development over at this institution and I want to be able to put it all in one place and it’s just not, yeah, I’ve yet to see. Now someone could show me and maybe I just haven’t seen it yet, but an easy place where that can all exist. Yeah, a wallet, yeah.
Matt Sterenberg (28:41.368)
Yeah, the centralized like wallet. Yeah. Everyone’s like, use our wallet. But we don’t want someone else to be able to import our credentials. Like our wallet’s the one. It’s like the universal charger. Like everyone’s like, this one’s, we promise this is the last charger you’re going to need for your phone. And then yeah, the new one comes out. Yeah. I think that’s a really, yeah. How do we.
Jacob Askeroth (28:51.298)
Yeah, yeah.
Jacob Askeroth (28:57.688)
Yep. International, all that.
Matt Sterenberg (29:07.5)
Because if this is going to scale, has to be economy of communication too. And if I’ve got to access eight different portals, logins, wallets, in order to get a comprehensive look at what I’ve done, that’s not going to scale really easily for the learner.
Jacob Askeroth (29:24.312)
Right. And it’s just, it won’t add as much value. And I think that, you know, we’ve, we’ve piloted a few LERs or wallets with some of our students. And I think that that’s one area where, where students kind of lose interest. Like, okay, like this just is another place for me to put resume information. So like, I’m just going to go back to LinkedIn. And so until we have a place where like it can really house everything for someone like.
It’s just not going to add the value that the digital credentials has the potential to do.
Matt Sterenberg (29:58.892)
Well, Jacob, you’re doing some really awesome work and Purdue University Global is doing some really cool things and yeah, appreciate you sharing. And like I said, I’m going to put the link to the article that you wrote in the podcast episode description, but really appreciate you joining me.
Jacob Askeroth (30:13.762)
Yeah, thanks so much, Matt. I really appreciate it and enjoyed it.
