For the Record, An AACRAO Podcast
For the Record, An AACRAO Podcast
Trust in the Digital Credential Age
Inspired by a session at the Convergence conference co-sponsored by AACRAO and UPCEA, this episode delves into questions of trust in the digital credentials higher education is moving quickly toward–and is in fact already awarding in droves. The Trusted Learner Network (TLN) is the focus of the conversation and ways that the TLN is designed to tackle core challenges of quality, accessibility and value in the world of digital credentials by developing governance frameworks, technologies to onboard institutions into the world of digital credentials, and a community to explore and advance the ecosystem. Also, you’ll hear about an “unconference” where all the sessions are planned on the spot.
Key Takeaways:
- The TLN is more about trust than about technology; the technology is a tool, but the exchange of ideas, support, and the governance framework is critically important for moving microcredentials forward.
- There is an inherent tension between what we (as institutions) decide is “trusted” versus what we leave out of the trusted category; we (as institutions) need to be conscious of that gatekeeping and not perpetuate prior equity discrepancies.
- We are still working through all of the complicated questions about non-credit, credit, blends of each; what’s included on the transcript; whether the transcript is still the appropriate place to represent student learning (or if it ever did!); and want you to join the conversation.
Host:
Doug McKenna, University Registrar
George Mason University
cmckenn@gmu.edu
Guests:
Insiya Bream, Registrar & Associate Vice President
University of Maryland Global Campus
Meena Naik, Director, Skills First Design
JFFLabs
Noah Geisel, Microcredentials Program Manager
University of Colorado
Kate Giovacchini, Executive Director, Trusted Learner Network
Executive Director Engineering, Enterprise Technology - Engineering Core
Arizona State University
References and Additional Information:
https://conferences.upcea.edu/convergence2023/
https://www.aacrao.org/signature-initiatives/learning-mobility/digital-credentials
https://academicaffairs.rutgers.edu/microcredentialing-and-digital-badging
You're listening to for the record, a registrar podcast sponsored by Acro. I'm your host, Doug mckenna University Registrar at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia and this is Trust in the digital credential age. Hello, welcome to for the record. Thank you for listening. We have a good one today as we will be talking about the trusted learner network and the ways that TLN is addressing challenges of trust and authenticity of credentials in the digital age. We have a large panel of guests and I only wish that we had more time to dig into this important topic. Our guests presented this session at the Convergence Conference in Washington DC, sponsored by UPS and ACRO, but we weren't able to coordinate to have a recording session at the meeting. So we followed up a little bit later and here we are welcome, esteemed guests. Thank you for joining for the record. Thanks for taking the time to chat today. If you would introduce yourself, give us your name, title and organization. Just a succinct quick hitter of an intro. We'll get into some responsibilities and other depth of in a second. So, no, kick us off.-- Hi-- Everybody. I'm Noah Geisel Micro Credentials program manager at the University of Colorado Boulder.-- Hi,-- everyone. My name is Nia Bream. I am the registrar and associate vice president at University of Maryland Global Campus. Hi, all. I'm Kate Jovi, executive director in the office of the CIO at Arizona State University. Hey, everyone. My name is Mina Naek and I am the Director of Skills First Design at jobs for the future in our labs team. So, Mina quick question, clarifying question for me, that is not an institution of higher education, correct? You got that right. Welcome to the podcast. Maybe we'll start with you there then tell us a little bit about your organization and about your responsibilities within it. Yeah, for sure. So, Jobs for the future is a national nonprofit that sits at the intersection of workforce education and policy and our real goal here. And what the North Star is that we released earlier this year is that in 10 years, 75 million people facing systemic barriers to advancement will have quality jobs and that is what we really try to champion and move towards. And so where I sit and the place that JFF sits in this work has a lot to do with enabling this mobility skill movement, credential mobility, the value. And that's really what brings me into this work along with having a long background in higher education before I made this jump right on. Well, welcome Kate. Tell us a little bit about you and the tiny organization that you're involved with called Arizona State University. Sure. So, like I said before, I work in the office of the CIO, I just passed my 10 year anniversary with Arizona State University where I've done a number of technology G enabled rules, but I started off working with our registrar and ambitions offices on improving process and optimizing the technical tools that we have. Arizona State University has over 100 and 40,000 current students, graduate and non graduate. We have immersion, we have online. Um We're an R one institution, a very proud to be working in an institution that focuses on inclusion and excellence for those whom we include and not those who we exclude. Thanks very much so, University of Maryland Global Campus is also a very, very large institution. Um We've got three divisions, one state side, one in Europe and one in Asia. And we primarily serve adult learners. And so one of the things that we're striving to do is really make all of the background and experiences that our students come in with relevant when, when our students are actually going out into the workforce and trying to figure out what they want to do next. What we found is that our students come to us for a very specific reason when they're choosing a degree program and we're trying to help them articulate their learning and really, you know, bring out the skills and the things that they're coming here to us for so that they can translate that and then meet their goals and expectations in terms of what they're hoping to achieve from their higher education, their higher education. That's awesome. Noah.-- Um-- You know, I just want to start by Shad a Mina for folks who didn't catch that. She did come from higher ed at University of North Texas. And, you know, while there, she, I think straight to the heart of most registrar professionals was very concerned with the reliability and the narrative of the credentials they were issuing. She's somebody who, you know, I met because I basically wanted to beg borrow and steal everything that she was doing in regard to, you know, taking credentials that might have guess work and introduce credential transparency. So definitely wanna really shout out Mino on that and yeah, I'm AC U Boulder and for listeners of, for the record, we, you know, my boss Christy Will mccormick and I were on an episode a couple of years ago. And so rather than be labor with what my wife says is pretty great in voice. I'll uh you know, just sort of say I work in the office of the Red Star, which I think is a really privileged place to be. Do you know we and doing this work and serving our campus with your micro credentials and our efforts, you know, from the and through the lens of transparent credentials that are reliable and trusted, you know, so they're worthy of the Cu Boulder brand. I wonder if it makes sense to begin with sort of an overview of the current status of micro credentials in higher education, sort of as a backdrop for the kinds of challenges that trust learner network is trying to address. So maybe Noah, you could start us there and if anyone else wants to share what their institution is doing with micro credentials, that might be helpful as well. I'm happy to kick things off and then have the others clean up my mess. I think that, you know, based off of just where we were, you know, just, uh, you know, what feels like a few months ago. But basically when Christy and I were on your pod is, you know, when I first started to see Boulder three years ago, I found maybe four or five other people in the country had job titles with dedicated te that, that were addressing digital badges, micro credentials. Now, I think there's probably over two dozen and I think we're moving to a place where they pretty much is going to be. Every college and university in the country is going to have some sort of a job like this. I, I get emails pretty much every day, including this morning from somebody saying, what does this look like? You know, what, what should we put in a job posting? For this. And so, you know, I think part of the just landscape is this notion of moving from a suspicion that this is going to be ubiquitous to really starting to see this becoming ubiquitous. And I think that looks differently depending on where you are. I think in a lot of campuses, it's definitely with one eye on the, you know, impending enrollment cliff and saying, how do we sustainably continue to generate revenue and keep the doors open? I think at other campuses where that's not necessarily the imperative for the credentialing work. It's really looking at how do we continue to meet the needs and maybe meet the needs even better than ever for our learning populations by leading on these tools for your recognition and storytelling to notice name and credential in trust in reliable and verifiable ways, uh the learning and achievement that's happening in our classes and beyond, right, that the learning happens anywhere and everywhere. And we have the tools now to, you know, offer official campus recognition for that. And you certainly see some of the expansion of conversation in places like the badge summit and then obviously in conferences like Convergence co sponsored by A BS and ACRO does anyone else want to comment?-- We can-- share a little bit about what we're doing at University of Global Campus. So I would say that we've been kind of playing in this space since roughly 2016. And I would say that even today, we're still trying to experiment and figuring out, you know, what is right? But I think, you know, as Noah mentioned, what's really critical is that any institution who is trying to figure this out, goes to conferences and shares what they're doing because it's so dependent on the student population and what makes sense for your students. And so where we sort of started our efforts is by developing a comprehensive learner record. We were part of a grant in 2016 with ACRO NSP and Luminate Foundation. So we're one of those 1st 12 schools to kind of participate in that sort of effort. Today, we have a comprehensive learner record for our MB A students, which translates into about um 7000 records that have been distributed. And, you know, in order to make sure that there is trust in our CLR, we make sure that it's all around the learning that happens within the classroom. So we're kind of confining it to that space. And I just, I feel like, you know, one of the reasons I feel like we're still early adopters um as well as, you know, folks that have a lot to learn is because, you know, we're trying to figure things out. Like how do you give students autonomy with credentials like this? How do you expand this to organizations where your students are currently working or learning? And I think that's one of the reasons why I'm ecstatic to be part of the trusted learner network because we're trying to tackle some of those really difficult issues. So that is actually a great segue about the trusted learner network. And so Kate, maybe you'd like to lead us off there because it's hosted at a su what is the trusted learner network? Yeah, great question. So, so we'll do a little bit of history here in 2018, 2019. Folks at Arizona State University technologists recognize that that Blockchain was changing the way that things like supply chain function was changing the way. I mean, we know crypto, but let's leave that aside because that's not really that exciting. But recognizing that technologies were emerging in which we could sort of distribute trust amongst different entities and simultaneously be able to provide learners with records that they could go and verify themselves, right? Just simply through presentation, recognizing that this could provide a huge opportunity. We began experiments in the technology space. Um But what quickly emerged is that this is the this is a much larger opportunity uh across uh a lot of different vectors to create sort of meaningful change that would empower our students with the agency that they need to go and make a series of lifelong learning and employment decisions, right? Gone are the days where you go into a four year institution at 18, you emerge at 22 and then you never go back to learn anything again because you you land in your emerge, fully formed as a butterfly. You exactly. And then, and then you go and land on your particular flower and spend the rest of your career there. So recognizing that, that, that there was a future we were envisioning, right? There was a lifelong learner journey, the TLN emerged and TLN is essentially three things. It's the, it's a set of technologies to enable institutions that issue credentials, to easily jump into the space to be able to a manage their own data. But simultaneously give that agency to their learners and create a platform for credentialing, not only the uh for credit things that we're familiar with, that have extremely strong trust signals, but also the opportunity to experiment and lean into those newer signals that we know our institutions are generating, right? We generate a huge amount of value. Let's create technologies that make it easy to broadcast that value to our learners. That's number one, number two. And this is what brings me and these lovely folks together once a month to chat about controversial topics is our is our governance work. So recognizing that this is not about technology, this is about trust and trust is about interpersonal relationships and trust is about the relationships and the way that we function as a community of educators and administrators that are interested in advancing the lives of our learners. The final component of this is a community effort. So recognizing that we needed to create a pre competitive space for all types of constituents. Like folks that are already doing digital credentialing, folks that want to do digital credentialing folks that are developing credentialing technology, folks that are skeptics, folks that are we wanted to create a space and we call that the TLN on conference where we bring folks together once a year, we generate the agenda on the fly and uh and we work together to advance some of these really challenging topics around trust around policy, around governance. When you say folks, do you mean literal people or are you meaning it's sort of folks in a broader sense of like people at institutions, but the institutions are doing the exploration, say more about that. So when I think about our TLN community and I think about the events that we host and the information that we try to put out there, we are talking about a huge spectrum of people, right? So we have registers, registrars like in a that join us, we have people that are operating, you know, a one program, digital credentialing unit that they're trying to expand out to the rest of their department that then goes to their unit. So I would say that it's a, it's a group of individuals, it's also a group of organizations that uh believe in this work that's helpful. I will come back to how to get involved sort of at the end. And if your institution is on the cusp of exploring and want to reach out. We'll talk about that. What are some of the controversial topics that get discussed at the monthly meetings? I'll jump in and say, you know, a big one. As Kate said, this is not about technology, it's about trust and you know, one of the things that, you know, Mina and I and others pound the table for it is that we need to expressly recognize that there's an inherent decision happening, wrought with power of deciding what counts, what is trusted. Because when we're doing that, we are inherently also deciding what isn't trusted. And that there's just a whole lot of power there and a whole lot of ability to, you know, and potential to help and, and heal and, and help avoid perpetuating historical inequities. And there's also a whole lot of opportunity without ever even trying to, but nonetheless, doing so of, you know, causing and perpetuating historical harm. Can we concretize that? Can we make that more real for people? So when you talk about the power that's wielded as part of this process, say more about that, what do you mean? What are you really saying? There's probably better people at this to do it. But I, since I'm the one who put it out that I think that part of it is about, you know, when we're, this network exists to signal trust, if something is on this, the trusted war network there's a signal going out to audiences that you hopefully are able to trust it even more than if it was being sent out by itself. And so, you know, when we, you know, say that when we do that, there's a degree of gatekeeping that's happening and you know, we want to be inclusive but necessarily have to be exclusive. And you one example that I'll give that I didn't come up with our colleague Ashley Proctor in Canada, you know, gave this great presentation talking about Indigenous knowledge and you know, they're working in medical settings with midwifery and you know, maybe it's not recognized through the local medical school. And at the same time, if we are not including it, we are excluding, you know, millennium work, indigenous knowledge and practices that maybe should be included and trusted. And so, you know, there's just a real slippery slope in landmines, I guess to kind of avoid there. Yeah. And I think just sort of expanding. So part of the reason that especially after I moved to JFF, that I continue to stay involved in this work and was grateful for the opportunity is because we also need to zoom out beyond the world of higher ed. And so thinking of Higher Ed as a, let's think, economics, you've got supply and demand, you've got demand of jobs that need to be filled opportunities that need people and talent and quality workers and people who feel like they can contribute. The supply side is one of our biggest supply spaces as post secondary education. And so when we're talking about what counts, what is trusted, what isn't in terms of these credentials or these micro credentials or the stable credentials and certificates? It's important to make sure that what we're communicating is as valuable and trusted as what employers think about when they think about a degree, degrees have long been a standard of for lack of a better term filter for candidates who are qualified because they went through a certain educational journey with a certain amount of rigor. There's trust in the institution. Yes, pedigree is a part of that. The hope is that equity would mean pedigree isn't a part of that, right? The Ivy Leagues versus an A SU or a UN T or other places shouldn't be a thing. And it is. And so that's one of the things we can start to dismantle through work, like what the trusted learner network is doing. But the other part is, is thinking really critically about making sure that all of these new features that are coming out these new micro credentials and certificates. What credential engine has counted at over a million actually have some sort of quality indicator in them that says, hey, that's a real thing. I can trust that as someone on the demand side to say that that individual who's coming out of the supply pipe is a good worker has something to offer and that I can expand the aperture of what it is I consider and that's where trust and gatekeeping and deciding what we cosign and what we don't and what we endorse as an institution and what we don't become so powerful. The challenge of course is, is that there's the reality where higher education isn't the only source of supply. And in expanding the micro credentials, we're actually expanding who else is at the same level as higher ed? You know, there used to be and, and I say there still is actually the sort of hierarchical, right? You've got these multiple pathways that should be normalized. But there is a hierarchy, apprenticeships versus some college, no degree versus a short term certificate versus a boot camp versus higher education in many spaces. Not all higher education still trumps all. And by higher education embracing micro credentials, you're actually bringing my higher ed to the same level as all of these others. And so we can't, we can't step over the others, we can't stomp them out because higher education is coming to them. We have to be able to coexist. And so it's aligning against those standards and those indicators and those trust signals as well. I can say something if you don't mind. Let me speak to this. So I think that we talk about disruption and we talk about controversy. One of the things that trusted learner network, I think something that's foundational for us is that we are designed to move forward as an ecosystem, not designed to move forward as individual components. And the reason I say that is that we do have an opportunity to see this as additive, right? So we can think about the degree as being a trust signal that is a boolean, yes or no, yes or no. Did you complete the degree or not? We can think about a transcript as containing maybe about 60 lines of discrete information that describe what that degree ends up being. And so I think that we have an opportunity in higher education and beyond to recognize that the work that we do with students and learners is greater than the sum of its parts. We have a tremendous amount of information. We have a tremendous amount of data that we can reflect back to our learners to say you accomplish this, you've developed these skills, you've developed this specialty and you can move it forward. Which is another way to say, I think what Mina is saying is that the reality of our lives, our working lives are um our personal lives, our educational lives is that they are the sum of a series of very diverse experiences. And so how do we increase the signals of those diversity of experiences in a way that, that we can even start comprehending what those signals mean when they are combined? What does it mean for me when I've taken six courses that are related to English and I've had five volunteer opportunities where I've worked with students in a writing center that tells a totally different story than yes or no. I completed this degree, completing the degree is a great trust signal on top of that. But, but I really encourage us all to be thinking about this as, as additive, as generative as, as doing more and better rather than, uh than um thinking about replacement or displacement. Because that's simply not the reality that we're living in now. And uh I don't think that that will be the reality that we're living in in the future. I don't, I have some follow up questions based on some of the things that have been said so far. And I want to start with sort of the governance effort because when I think of governance as the registrar, I think of shared faculty governance, I think of curriculum committees, I think of policy committees. What does the governance structure of the trusted learner network look like? And how or is it replicated down to the individual institution participating institution level? What, what's the overall schema of the governance environment as part of this ecosystem? I can lead off with just some general thoughts and then what would I love to turn it over to my colleagues here and they can tell me the truth about what I'm saying. So we started off with the governance uh work thinking. So, so we need to define some rules or some policies or some guard rails for folks to understand how this new space works and what our responsibilities are to honor the agency of the learner and to honor the agency of the institution and also to create guardrails around what it means for services to be able to consume data that the learner shares with them and then provide insight. Um and that type of work. So we started off there with this, we started off with the charter which is like, why are we here? Um And we outlined our principles and we outlined some rules for how we would get together. But the first work we did was what is the learner policy? What are the rights and responsibilities of the individual learner? What are the rights and responsibilities of the individual issuer? I don't think we're sitting down to create black and white rules. I think we're sitting down to draw a line in the sand to create a space for folks to read Act, to push back, to push forward so that we can come to a set of principles and guidelines that can help all institutions move forward. And, and I think it's worth saying that when I think about our governing body, we have folks from four year institutions, two year institutions, public, private, urban, rural community colleges. And we did that very much on purpose because we all share the same vision but are often constrained by different sets of rules, turn it over to everybody else to, to add in. Yeah, I can jump in here. So, you know, I think it's interesting because um we are looking at this from an institutional perspective in terms of, you know, how do you transfer certain micro credentials into the institution? And how does that build into another credential or an entire program? Right. And then exactly how do they all stack together? What does the student ultimately end up with? How does that go transfer somewhere else? What is the interoperability of that credential? But then also within the institution, if we want to introduce a micro credential, what does that process look like? Right. I mean, I think at convergence during one of our presentations, we were like, there were so many questions about, ok, well, do you add a non credit offerings into your catalog? You know, how do, how are micro credentials represented within your catalog? You know, do you kind of create a separate space for all of that? And, you know, I think that the panelists, none of us had had a clear answer that because we're still trying to figure all of that out. So, you know, I think it's, it goes anywhere from like Target and other organizations uh offering classes to upskill their staff and then their staff wanting to use that to kind of build and, and earn a degree at an institution to, you know, displaying something at your institution and figuring out, OK, what is the governance around that isn't only good for a certain period of time? Uh And so those are definitely things that we're grappling with right now. Yeah, I definitely think that micro credentials overall to echo some of the things that Noah started with. We're in this sort of nascent but growing and so by definition, sort of that liminal space between where we are starting and where we want to wind up. And so I think we'll see continued shifts and continued growth and continue pushing over the next couple of years. I mean, it's higher ed. So things move a little slower but, you know, let's say years over the next couple of years. Yeah, I, I'd love to hop in and piggyback on nia's Point there like these questions of because we hear that all the time. Are you transcript these and, and transparently as of right now, the recording, we are not um we are paying attention to space but, you know, we are viewing, you know, these as official university records that, that complement the transcript but do not necessarily yet at least appear on the transcript. And, and, you know, a great example is something that, that we have of a non curricular micro credential is a something to the effect of uh workplace skills for student workers that we had to use on campus that said, you know, what students spend more time in their work study with us than they do in any given class at a, in a semester. And they have the opportunities to demonstrate really important real world skills and abilities with us. And it doesn't show up any except if they assert it in a cover letter on their resume. And so what if we had the ability to notice name credential that as the university to, you know, say, don't take their word for it, take our word for it that these student workers have demonstrated these workforce, you know, skills that, that are really important. And so, you know, it's something that's not gonna probably ever appear on the transcript, but at the same time, it is an official student record. And, you know, we said, see you bolder, we've made a decision, you know, if not us, then who should be the stewards of these official records in order that they are still trusted and reliable. You know, so that, that's one reason why we really read it as also the red Shark E Boulder. And one of the reasons why we're really glad to have a seat at the table at the trusted we network as we think about, you know, these different things that, that people need as life wide learners and earners, you know, that go from, you know, credentials that we normally think of them such as academic things. But also things, you know, like a employment verification letter. You know, that we, you know, that's something that I pound the table for in our means of. I think that should be something that the people should trust and that should be able to be stored on the trusted winner network. This is so fascinating the way that it ties back into questions of the transcript and, and it really highlights ways that that document created by registrars way back in the early 19 hundreds. Like this is my fault. It's not mine. I'm not, I'm not that old, but this is registrars built this, we made this and then we didn't change it. And so we, I think we're at a reckoning with that document and how it it is deficient, it needs an overhaul and whether that's the comprehensive learner record or an L er or just enabling other ways to link or embed metadata and other information with the transcript, that's a reckoning that I think higher ed is long overdue for. And so registrars are going to be deeply involved in that process as it happens. That's a podcast episode for another day. But I want to talk a little bit and ask a little bit because we've, we've referenced, OK, not the transcript, but we want things to live on the trusted learner network. And so part of the ecosystem of TLN is described as being created using a secure and trusted technology system built on a distributed ledger, which in my brain is Blockchain. Tell me more about the technologies that are employed by TLN. Can I call it TLN? Do you call it TLN or should I just say trusted learner network still?-- Yeah.-- No, I think TLN is great. And I think you're also pointing out that we, yeah, uh we have opportunities to diversify. We started out with the TLN and said, this is a great name. Um And uh and ever since, you know, if you grow and expand, you say, wait a second.-- So-- am I still saying trusted learner network? Right?-- Yeah.-- So the TLN the technology, like I said, I'm office of Cio, I, I love the technology, but I love the technology because I love plumbing and I love infrastructure. That has always been my passion. And I think that that is something that has helped align me to my colleagues in the registrar's office and the admissions office because we're making stuff work, right? The data has to flow to make the university or the institution function. And I think that that is so cool. So as we're, as we're building this out, we came to a couple of recognitions. Number one that there, there's a lot of really cool emerging wallet technology, but it requires a huge lift from the learner earner in order to learn how to manage that technology. What does it mean when I hold my own wallet? What does it mean when I drop my phone down a great at a hockey game. Like I've literally seen students do at our campus. Does that mean that all my credentials have disappeared forever? So, recognizing that we need bridges. So the, the the technologies that we're building, first of all are bridges, institutions need bridges too, right? Are we expecting an institution to jump in and start managing decentralized identifiers and building a trust registry that they're going to execute? Like no, how do we build bridges? So at its baseline, what the TLN is is we've come up with a cool infrastructure in which an institution can place a TLN database inside of their perimeter. So you could drop a TLN database in there. You can push credentials from different types of uh different types of generators, right? So we, we know the SI S, that's where all the action happens. We also know that action happens in the L MS. We know that folks have badging credentials. There's lots of different ways the credentials could be generated. So pushing a copy of that data into one space A. So the registrar or the admission officer can actually see it in a comprehensive view for themselves. But b and what's really cool here is that the learner comes, they can connect using the identity that they're familiar with, with their institution. And what they can do is they can virtually access that data that's sitting in your house, but they can access it and they can manage it and share it and they can do that across different institutions that are in the TL I because when they go into their application, that application is sending a question to all the network, all the network participants and saying, hey, do you have anything for noa we say yeah, cool, we connected. So that's one component of it. Um And when we talk about the ledger underneath, right? Blockchain is one version of that ledger. But what we're really talking about is we want an immutable ongoing list of transactions and actions, which means that we can, we can make it extremely tamper evident, we can make it extremely secure. That's really the key pieces of that. And then what I think is, is what enables this to be a bridge, move into the future is that one of the choices that a learner can make when they're on the TLN is they can attach a wallet and they can generate verifiable credentials that can go with them wherever they go to their employer, to their next learning opportunity to their volunteering opportunity to whatever and they can move around the world with those with the safety of knowing that they can come back to the TLN if they drop their phone down the grade at the hockey game or, you know, simply if they get a different phone, right? So that's what this technology is. It's a series of bridges and we've designed it with a very, very strong desire to make it as accessible as possible for all different types of instant. This cannot be a bank buster solution. This needs to be a utility that allows us all to work together better in this new digital credential space and provides learners with the agency to do stuff with their credentials. It's a yes and, and that's great. I I like the additive nature of this conversation. It's been mentioned a couple of times that these things are adding to the trust signals that the university is sending. We're broadening the ability to communicate positive things out. Kate. One thing you mentioned that I want to follow up on real quick is you said specifically that data could be shared with any other TLN network institution or an institution within the TLN. How is information shared then external? Is there, is that missing piece still a wallet or an interface or is there anything required? And maybe I just don't know what I'm talking about. That's a possibility. I mean, I think it's also the joy that really none of us can actually say that we comprehensively know what we're talking about when we're talking about this giant space because things are changing constantly, right? So TLN intra tr a intra TLN communication for learners, we wanted to make that really accessible and easy. You know, that's a one click. The thing about taking that really important credential data and moving it forward the wall it's our best bet right now, but very, very open to, we have our ears to the ground for what is the way that this is going to land for learners in a way that still protects institutions and what their responsibility is and what their goals are with their credentials while also enabling the agency of the individual. So the wallet is a great option. There's also interesting options for things like API S and services. The key here is that all sharing is at the discretion of the learner. The learner is the only person in the network that can say I want to share these records with another institution. Institutions cannot do that inside of the TLN on behalf of the learner.-- That's a very intentional choice so-- that the agency, I'm sorry, I spoke over you that gets directly to the agency of the learner. Precisely, Mina, you had something that you wanted to throw in. Yeah. Yeah. And I, I love the, the focus on the agency of the learner. It's one of the things that I think TLN having learner in the name really is, is like the constant reminder to us that we have to make sure we're centering them. If you ever hear the word self sovereign thrown around, that's what we're talking about because that's the technical term that gets tossed around a lot where people nod and don't always know what they're what they're nodding. Yes to I think the other part and, and to, to what Kate was saying about, you know, the wallet is, is the tool right now and ears to the ground about what's coming because this is such a fast evolving space. The couple of things that are being built in, I think within the TLN but also broadly and again, or JFF is trying to balance its role as facilitator, negotiator, convenor is defining the technical standards that make sure that as the market actually evolves that no one is building, I shouldn't say no one that we are reducing the potential of proprietary pay for services that actually create additional inequities. And so as we're putting these records into the hand of the learner, how do we make sure that forevermore, they're able to share them that they're able to define the combination and collection of this credential from here, that employment record from there, that learning indicator that I got from a non higher ed institution can all actually be leveled into a, you know, into a single profile, hey, think resume. But the new 2.0 version of it that I can actually share that out with full confidence that if someone wanted to say, hey, is this the real deal that they could click into it and see that it's verified that it's trusted that it's coming from the source it's coming from and of course, making sure we're elevating the right indicators, right. So we're elevating that this is from higher education versus that self asserted one. And we're making that really clear, but that's the ideal goal. And so wallets right now are the way to do that. It's the way that I can store all these things in my, you know, in my phone really. But I don't know, two years from now it could be something completely different. I microchip in our, in our watch is actually the way we do that and we just walk up to people and we're like here, you like, you know, think, think of the way we do Google pay right now. Like what is the potential of that as we shift forward? I think more and more. I don't know how many of you have the business cards where you just someone's phone and the contact information transfers, right? So as we move forward in this world, all of this is evolving in a way that hasn't yet been connected, making sure that we've got the technical standards which TLN is, is working really hard on means that over time as all of the different players coalesce, we can talk to each other through our technology. The learner doesn't get a broken system, right? Where the legacy system means that they can't move it because they was built on a different technical framework and the TLN was built on a technical one. And now I have to carry four phones because I have to have a wallet for each one, you know, like this is, this is the reality of what we're talking about. And ultimately, if the end goal is that I have agency and I'm empowered and enabled to share the best version of myself as indicated through these credentials and these signals. How does the technology? Let me do that. I want to spend a couple of minutes talking about the community in particular and how do community members in TLN engage with each other? How do you join the community of TLN? What's the threshold? Is there a requirement? Are there dues and fees? So maybe someone could talk about their experience with the community and share some insight. Yeah. Yeah. So one of the best ways I think in the way that I got engaged truthfully however many years ago, pre pandemic, the last thing we did, I think before the pandemic possibly was the, the annual uh a Sutl and UN conference. And uh what did you just say on conference? Yes. Yes. And, and if you remember when Kate said earlier on, right, like we build the agenda on the fly like it's, it's a real time thing. That is exactly what it is and the reason it's an UN conference because it is an UN conference. It is the antithesis to go in identify on your schedule, which sessions you're going to go to show up in a room and then go to the next one. This is a vote. With your feet, define what the real questions are based on what all of us are doing. I think that is the beauty of this. As you've got folks who are really rolling their sleeves up and trying to figure this out, who are trying to understand what the technology needs to do, what the conversations need to be, what the governance needs to be, how this impacts the way we talk about education, the data pieces, the record keeping all the way up to funding, like how do we make sure we can maintain this? And so at the end conference, we come together, it is a room of folks who pull their sleeves up, it is intentionally kept small, which is great because we're able to have deeper conversations and dialogue. There are a couple of curated sessions which are mostly there to get all of us thinking. And then from there, we all actually brainstorm and think about what we would like to talk about more deeply, those get posted up, they get voted on. And that is how we spend the bulk of our day is digging into those conversations. And I think it is one of the most valuable approaches because let's be honest, most conferences, this isn't, I'm not knocking conferences, we all go to them, but most conferences, we are submitting proposals 345 months, sometimes a year in advance. By the time we get there, it's no longer fresh and real we still will embed all of that into it, but that's not what it is. And then you have such a large convening of people that you have a harder time getting those conversation and you have to do hallway conversations and meals inside meetings and not be fully present for the actual session. And so unique opportunity, really good way to learn more about what TLN is doing, find out who's involved and who is thinking about being involved. Think about what are the front end questions that everyone is digging into and how that's moving forward. If you want to understand how this large effort is underway at a sort of nexus of a su and all of its partners, this is place to be for that. And then of course, every time and I think this is how each of us has come in to be engaged with the TLN over time it's attending. That is the opportunity to raise your hand and ask for more. That's not the only way that is a really good low stakes way to come in and put your foot in the water and see how you feel about all the things. But Kate, I know you've got more direct opportunities as well. So the UN conference, I think Mina hit it on the head. I think we wanted to create a space where it was all hallway conversations and happy hour conversations and lunch conversations. Like let's flip the script and have the the intense real conversation in a space where folks can potentially wander in and learn something completely new or a completely novel approach can be brought to the table as a response to, hey, you guys are all thinking about this in a way. I'm thinking about this in c way, like let's figure out how to mesh those together. So, really cool. Absolute hosting. It is one of my personal highlights uh because I love bringing people together. So getting involved with the TLN is as simple as going to TLN dot A su.edu. And right down at the bottom of every page, we have a way for folks to sign up to signal what they're interested in as we move into this fifth year of the TLN. What we're also looking to do is is to activate ways to create community in a way that isn't miserable, which is probably the most challenging thing to do on the internet, right? Which is like, how do you create either a community of practice or a conversation that can bring energy with it and bring, bring real real engagement. So we're thinking about what is our community of practice look like, what is a series of events that we can hold to help folks at a lot of different levels. And, and really the point is it's not about the TLN the TLN communicating out to people. We really want this to be a space where people are communicating with people and TLN can just say, yeah, cool. We have these rooms, we have these resources, we have the space to enable. Again, we need this pre competitive action in order to get this right. I love how he put it out there. Just we're figuring this all out. And you know, that's one of the things I love about the TLN is this, you know, admission uh and humility to admit that uh a lot of this stuff needs to be working documents because we only, you know, we barely are wrapping our heads around the present. And you know, so in future proofing is in part about, you know, not setting stuff in stone yet and being open to where things are going to go. And definitely want to mention some of the ways where in addition to the ton community is happening for Acro, there is a, you know, on the new Acro exchange, a digital credentials community of practice. You can find that at tiny url.com/digital dash credentials dash community. And then as has been mentioned earlier in the pod, we do have a conference that we host at the University of Colorado Boulder, the bad summit at Cu Boulder. It is in August August 5 67 2024 in beautiful Boulder, Colorado, which is a pretty amazing place to be in August in case uh that's uh the teaching that the learning sharing is not enough of a hook let let the mountains and the weather in August be-- and-- then convergence next year is first part of October 2024 in New Orleans in Newlands. So October 1st to third, I think you said happy hour conversations. That sort of sounds like October 1st to third in New Orleans. It sounds like together, we have quite a circuit which is going to be a great opportunity. I mean, because I think what's also really fascinating having had the opportunity to go convergence, very honored for that, having had the opportunity to go to Bash Summit this year that we're all doing different variations on the same theme. And I know I have learned something at every single one of these conferences that I never would have even imagined before. Totally same agree, agree. A couple of links that have been talked about. I want to assure you that the you will be able to find all of those links in the show notes along with some other documents and other things that we'll post there. So if you are trying to keep track of ways to engage or resources that we have discussed, go to the show notes, page, the links will be there as we wrap up the conversation for today. There's a lot to be said and there's, you know, there's not a way to end this conversation, there's not an end to this conversation. This conversation continues. But are there any closing thoughts about ways that you might encourage an institution to explore or reach out or move forward with micro credentials in a way that perhaps they have not considered, I would say, you know, just start asking the questions, right? I mean, listen to reach out to any one of us as a starting point, you know, talk to your sister institutions within, within your system schools um within your States, right? Start talking to your system offices, just have the the the conversations because again, I think, I think no one has this figured out completely. And like we were talking about with the trusted learner network, I mean, we're, we're having these conversations, we might be spearheading these conversations, but they are conversations, right? We want to learn from each other, figure out what's right. And as we, you know, continue to develop this, I mean, a lot of this, you know, from a higher perspective is like in my mind, just us kind of getting in line with what technology has to offer today, right? We use it in so many different spaces within our life. And it's sort of how do we do that with credentialing as well. So I would say just, just ask the question, just put it out there.-- I-- think that's solid advice. Anyone else,-- I'll-- just echo Noah and uh Mina and in a in when we were talking about trusted learner network, what we were talking about is creating the space for evolution and growth and change. And that space is infinitely enriched with every voice that comes to it. And so it would really love folks to sign up at TLN dot A su.edu. Get engaged. Check out our resources, tell us where our documentation and our policies are dead wrong. Let's have this conversation and please join us, co-signed. Thank you, Kate and thank you all of you for being here today. This has been a fantastic conversation. And as you said, like every time you engage in one of these conversations, you learn something and that's where I feel like I am in this micro credentialing digital trust building space. Is that learning process? So I I genuinely appreciate you being here and sharing your thoughts, your experiences, your expertise um with the larger Acro community. So thank you all very much. Thank you. Thanks for this. Thank you so much to our guests today. As promised, there are a bunch of links on the show notes page for further exploration. Be sure to check them out. Thank you again to the ups a staff for the on site podcasting opportunity. And congratulations to Acro and Abs for putting on such an enlightening and thought provoking conference. Be sure to check out the other Acro podcasts heard the transfer tea and admit it found wherever quality podcasts are streamed. Thank you for listening. Until next time, stretch your legs, drink some more water, get your COVID booster and be Well, I'm Doug mckenna and this is for the record ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba, oh my God. Cut this. But can somebody somebody that the whole awkward silence is staying in? That's my favorite part of every podcast episode. So, Mina, I think you've been to like literally, as promised, there are a bunch of links in the show notes page for further exploration in the show notes page.