General Terms
- Badge: Digital badges are visual, portable, verified, proofs of competencies, skills and learning achievements, that are not typically recognized on academic transcripts. Digital badges contain meta-data (such as competencies) that can be easily viewed by clicking on the visual element.
- Competency: A measurable and/or observable knowledge or skill-set gained.
- Learning Outcome: What a learner is expected to know, understand, or be able to do after successful completion of a planned process of learning.
Noncredit Bearing Professional Development
- Certificate of Completion (not credit bearing): A document that recognizes completion of a learning activity that does not confer credits, thus do not require external approval.
- Certification: Mastery of or competency in specific knowledge, skills or processes that can be measured against a set of accepted standards and typically awarded by professional bodies, organizations, or industries.
- Continuing Education Unit (CEU): Not an academic credit; it is a nationally recognized method of quantifying the time spent engaged in the learning or training activity, typically required to maintain professional licensure or certification.
- License: Legal permission, typically granted by a government agency, to allow an individual to perform certain regulated tasks or occupations. Licenses are based on pre-determined, standardized criteria, involving educational programs of study, assessment, and/or work experience and are time limited requiring periodic review and renewal.
- Exam Prep: The content provided in a course or program that covers the body of knowledge required to prepare learners to take an examination that is typically tied to an industry-recognized certification.
Credit-Bearing Work
- Certificate (credit bearing): A credential issued by an institution in recognition of the completion of a curriculum that usually represents a smaller domain of knowledge than established degrees.
- These certificates typically contain fewer credits than a degree program.
- All credits must be applicable toward a degree program at the issuing institution.
- Degree: A credential conferred by an institution (usually a college or university) that has state, tribal, or federal government authority to confer such a credential. A degree represents satisfactory accomplishments of an accepted body of knowledge.
- Stackable Credential or Career Pathway: Part of a sequence of credentials that can be accumulated over time to build upon an individual’s qualifications and help that individual move along a career pathway and further education.
- Noncredit to Credit Pathway: The translation of noncredit achievements, into credit toward a degree or credential.
- Credit for Prior Learning: Evaluation and assessment of learning gained outside a traditional academic environment for college credit, certification, or