Featuring Di Xu from UC Irvine this webinar presents rigorous quasi-experimental evidence from Virginia’s FastForward program on the labor market impacts of earning industry-recognized credentials through noncredit workforce training at community colleges. Using linked administrative and earnings data, this analysis indicates that credential attainment leads to significant quarterly earnings gains, facilitates transitions into higher-paying industries, and offers a highly cost-effective workforce development pathway. These findings highlight the importance of credential-focused program design and pay-for-performance funding models in expanding economic opportunities for diverse and underrepresented adult learners.

Watch the recording here.

Understanding the value of credentials at community colleges is a key policy goal and challenge for researchers to link to practice.

Harry Holzer, professor of public policy at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy and Rachel Cook, Senior Researcher from American Institutes for Research (AIR) discussed the research examining community college programs with a range of labor market outcomes at 35 community colleges across the country to identify institutional characteristics, contextual factors, and college practices that generate credentials with labor market value.

Watch the recording here.

In our spring conference, Holly Zanville and Wendy Sedlak (and their AI bot, Signal) set out to discuss the past, present, and future of non-degree credentialing — but ran out of time before having a chance to present their reflections of the future. In this webinar, they picked up where the conference left off and peer into the future. What are the key developments we expect to see for the field over the next five years and how might technological and other key changes affect non-degree credentials in the coming years? What research questions are we likely to answer, and where might we expect knowledge gaps to persist?

This conversational webinar gave participants the opportunity to share their perspectives about the future of non-degree credentials.

Registrants received a working draft of a three-part blog series Holly and Wendy drafted after the Spring Conference. The webinar discussion was used to compile a fourth blog to accompany the series.

See the proceedings transcript at this link.

Read all four blogs here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4.

Collin Sullivan, Program Director of Digital Credential Innovation at University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) is featured on this April 22 webinar.

Taxonomies have become a best practice in designing microcredentials, helping institutions clarify what a credential signifies and supporting consistent quality assurance. However, are the hierarchical frameworks most of us inherited truly suitable for the diverse, learner-centered experiences that microcredentials can recognize? This session uses UMBC’s governance model and portfolio data as a starting point for a broader discussion on taxonomy design and introduces the Radial Microcredential Taxonomy, a flexible framework that combines Fink’s six domains of significant learning with three levels of depth. Attendees will be encouraged to examine their own taxonomies and consider whether a more holistic, nonlinear model might better serve their learners and institutions.

Recording Available Here: Beyond Bloom: Proposing a Radial Taxonomy for Microcredentials

Across higher education systems, universities are increasingly integrating industry and professional credentials (certificates, certifications, micro credentials, badges) into degree pathways to improve employability, widen access, and accelerate time-to-completion. However, implementation remains uneven. Institutions face persistent “break points” such as unclear credit or learning-time equivalence, misalignment between industry standards and academic outcomes, inconsistent quality assurance, weak recognition or portability across providers, fragmented governance, and limited evidence on learner and labor-market outcomes. These issues are amplified in cross-regional comparisons: the US often operates with decentralized credential ecosystems, while ASEAN and Malaysia must navigate multi-country alignment efforts and national QA systems; creating different constraints and enabling conditions for integration at scale.

Members of the NCRN community shared their perspectives and questions.

Recording available here: What Works, What Breaks: From Credential-to-Degree Integration in the US, ASEAN and Malaysia

Join Deborah Everhart from Credential Engine and Chris Mullin from Lumina Foundation. Credential Engine’s recent Counting Credentials 2025 report shows rapid evolutions in the credential landscape. This poses many questions for researchers trying to understand ways to define credentials, trends in credential attainment, and many other questions. Deborah Everhart from Credential Engine will share updated findings from the Counting Credentials 2025 report and insights on the expanded array of credentials in this comprehensive count. Christopher M. Mullin from Lumina Foundation will provide reflections on this new count and what this view of the evolving field of credentials means.

Members of the NCRN community shared their perspectives and questions.

Recording Available Here: Making Sense of the Evolving Credential Landscape

Join Paul Daniels from NLx Research Hub at NASWA, Jeff Strohl from Georgetown University and Peter Norlander from Loyola University Chicago. Job posting data have the potential to inform crucial policy decisions, particularly as states seek to assess labor market demand and develop quality lists to guide funding. At the same time, many NCRN members have used data from job postings to identify trends and patterns in labor market demand for credentials and skills, among other research topics. Interest in job postings has grown significantly with advances in natural language processing and large language models, yet concerns persist about the accuracy with which job postings describe the actual world of work and their usefulness for informing economic projections. This webinar will explore what we know about job postings as a source of data and how researchers can make use of data from job postings in their research. Speakers include Jeff Strohl, director of the Center on Education and the Workforce at Georgetown University, who will discuss CEW’s experiences using job postings as a research data source, and Paul Daniels of the National Association of State Workforce Agencies, who will discuss the capabilities of the National Labor Exchange Research Hub and opportunities for researchers to access its data. Peter Norlander, who recently completed a project building tools to extract data from the NLx Research Hub corpus and published research with job ad data, will also reflect on the limitations and opportunities associated with such research.

Recording Available Here: Opportunities and Limitations in Using Job Postings as Research Data to Inform Policy

This conversation with Holly Zanville from Learn & Work Ecosystem Library and Wendy Sedlak from Lumina Foundation, shared on how initiatives can continue to influence the field long after funding ends.

Marking the 10th anniversary of Connecting Credentials and the fifth of the Learn & Work Ecosystem Library, this session explored conditions and decisions that help an initiative extend impact, how formative evaluation supports progress, and how open-access archives and AI tools preserve institutional memory.

Attendees discovered what it means for great ideas to beget lasting change and the changing role of researchers in an AI-powered learn-and-work ecosystem.

Recording available at this link.

Read the discussion paper: NCRN webinar Dec 2025_FINAL Discussion Paper_Holly Zanville.

Researchers Rooney Columbus from E&E Analytics and Ama Takyi-Laryea from Pew Charitable Trusts discussed trends affecting non-degree credential (NDC) attainment. Ama Takyi-Laryea from Pew shared findings from a recent analysis of National Training, Education, and Workforce Survey (NTEWS) data on trends in attainment and cost, exploring how students are paying for NDCs. Rooney Columbus shared an original descriptive analysis using Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) data that challenges perceptions of recent growth in NDC attainment. Participants explored factors that may be driving patterns of attainment and cost and discuss opportunities for further research using public datasets such as the SIPP and NTEWS.

Watch the recording here.

Led by experts Jinann Bitar from The Education Trust and Harry Holzer from Georgetown University, this discussion focused on short-term credentials and implications for Workforce Pell. They explored trends, outcomes and what is essential to know now.

Watch the recording here.

Led by Jason Jabbari from Washington University in St. Louis’ Brown School of Social Work and Social Policy. Dr. Jabbari presented findings from a large-scale project that examines the ways in which earnings premiums are affected by educational attainment, student debt, and labor markets. His team’s work combines advanced difference-in-difference models with large scale employment, earnings and student debt data from a credit bureau, educational attainment data from nine MSAs, and local labor market data. First, they examine how earnings premiums vary across credential and degree types over time. Second, they demonstrate how these premiums are affected by student debt, demonstrating a novel ROI indicator. Finally, they examine mobility patterns and the cost of skills mismatches in local economies. 

Watch the recording here.

Each year, millions of community college students enroll in short-term, job-focused, noncredit programs, sometimes called continuing education programs. The number of these programs is likely to increase dramatically in the next few years due to the recent expansion of Pell Grant eligibility to include short-term workforce training programs. Yet, rigorous evidence on the payoff of these programs to students is scarce. In this conversation, Dr. Peter Bahr, Vice President and Managing Research Director of the Strada Institute for the Future of Work, discussed his recent research on the employment outcomes and earnings gains of students in noncredit occupational training, including nuanced findings about the types of training that yield the strongest labor market returns.

Watch the recording here.

View the slides here.

Hear from two of the nation’s most important voices in discussions about the nation’s education data systems: Mark Schneider, American Enterprise Institute (AEI) Senior Fellow and former Director of IES and Commissioner of NCES, and Mamie Voight, President and CEO of the Institute for Higher Education Policy (IHEP). They share their views about the achievements and shortcomings of the federal government’s role in building and disseminating data on postsecondary, adult, and career education. And they lay out their vision of “where we gofrom here” — what data systems we need to meet the needs of learners, educators, and policymakers.

Click here to watch the recording.

The University of Texas System’s Texas Credentials for the Future is focused with providing its learners with no-cost access to industry credentials to improve the career readiness of its learners. This presentation lead by Kelvin Bentley, Program Manager for Texas Credential for the Future from The University of Texas System will provide details about the various data gathering strategies used to evaluate the impact of this initiative.

The Richmond Fed launched the Survey of Community College Outcomes (SCCO) as a pilot in 2021 to collect data on the unique role community colleges play in the higher education and workforce ecosystem, including offerings occurring via non-credit programs.

The webinar, led by Stephanie J. Norris, Senior Research Analyst & Associate Director of the Community College Initiative at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond shared findings on enrollment and outcomes data from 121 community colleges across five states including quantitative data collection efforts with intensive on-the-ground engagement with leaders at community colleges, as well as higher education system leadership. The webinar included lessons about non-credit enrollment at community colleges and the ongoing challenges of quantifying and tracking this growing student segment.

Click here to watch the recording.

The NCRN invited members to share their individual research projects or team/institutional projects and reports. Researchers connected with the rest of the NCRN network for an open discussion about emerging research in the field of noncredit education and collaborated with fellow researchers.

Click here to watch the recording.

How can your organization foster equitable access to skill development and economic mobility, all while adapting to ever-evolving learning and workforce trends? The Pathways and Credentials team at Digital Promise, Ashley Miller, Dr. Bria Carter, and Britney Jacobs, held an interactive session that went into the challenges and opportunities surrounding non-degree credentialing programs and initiatives. The presentation explored the perspectives of non-degree credentialing program leaders, learners, and industry experts to identify strategies for creating equitable, accessible, and learner-centered programs and products.

Click here to watch the recording.

Click here to view the slides.

Click here to watch the recording.

Read their paper here: Bringing Richer, Verifiable Candidate Data Into HR Systems: An Ecosystem Roadmap.

Public and private providers of education and training have begun offering badges, certificates and certifications of all types. As a result, it is hard to understand the strength of our nation’s most valuable asset – it’s people. Recognizing this problem the National Postsecondary Education Cooperative (NPEC), a research and development entity for the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), asked me to help make sense of what was happening. After a few months digging deep into the history of data collection, reading data collection forms, finding surveys of federal agencies, reading reports and talking to experts much was learned. The result was a paper – “Aligning Certificates, Diplomas, Degrees, and Emerging Forms of Credentials: Macro, Micro, and Maintenance Credentials” – that shares what I found and makes six recommendations. It envisions a path forward, where the various types of credentials—certificates, degrees, diplomas, and emerging credentials—acknowledged and supported across federal agencies are aligned.

Click here to watch the recording.

Click here to view the slides.

During Summer 2024, University of Minnesota’s Occupational Licensing Law Research Project, in collaboration with West Virginia University’s Knee Regulatory Research Center, will begin publishing a novel historical dataset on the legal and administrative requirements necessary to obtain licensure in a variety of occupations across all 50 states and the District of Columbia. This dataset codifies the various requirements necessary to obtain and maintain licensure (including training, experience, third-party credentials, exams, and continuing education), using state-level statutes and regulations from 1991 to 2020. While existing resources contain data on whether occupations are licensed or use survey data to provide some variables on current requirements for licensure, this is the first dataset to systematically collect historical legal data on licensure requirements in a rigorous manner. This presentation will discuss the structure of the data, the process through which it was collected, initial summary statistics, and future plans for the information on occupational licensing in the United States.

Click here to view the slides.

Mark D’Amico and Michelle Van Noy presented on research to support the development of state noncredit data though the state noncredit data project. They will also share the project’s data taxonomy based on early states involved in the project and will discuss next steps in the development of the taxonomy.

Dr. Holly Zanville and Matthew Valdez shared developments in the wiki model, digital Learn & Work Ecosystem Library including search capacity; relational maps; AI-enabled options for exploring connections within the growing collection; and opportunities for NCRN participation through new Research Center and RFP (Request for Participation): Community of Learners/Library Partnership

New technology is creating new opportunities for how we study the relationship between credentials and skills. Today’s research has the potential to enable a new generation of data tools that could help employers identify untapped sources of talent, aid higher education institutions in designing high-quality credentials, and empower individuals to make better-informed career decisions.

For too long, our system of higher education has been defined by scarcity: scarcity in enrollment, scarcity in instruction, and scarcity in credentials. In addition to failing students professionally, this system has exacerbated social injustice and socioeconomic stratification across the globe. In this special “book talk” webinar, Michael Smith of Carnegie Mellon University argued that the only way to create a financially and morally sustainable higher education system is for higher education to embrace digital technologies for enrolling and instructing, and credentialing students; and for employers to more fully embrace online credentials, micro-credentials, and certificates in their hiring processes.

Matthew Linton and Enyu Zhou of the Council of Graduate Schools presented an exploration of the landscape of post-baccalaureate non-degree credentials and highlighted key remaining research questions. Research conducted by CGS aimed why these programs are being developed, who is enrolling in them, whether they compete with or complement existing degrees, what skills and competencies are most in demand, and how these programs meet employer need. The presenters argued that better understanding this blended credential ecosystem is the first step in assessing program value for students and employers as well as creating best practices to guide program creation and assessment.

Building on a recent Talent Finance workgroup co-chaired by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation and the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), this session – led by Jason Tyszko of the Chamber Foundation – explored a new and transformational approach to upskilling and reskilling through the reimagining of employee education benefits. Participants learned about how the Chamber Foundation’s plans to develop and test a new type of employer-backed skills savings account that can enable quick and easy access to skill development opportunities for working learners. In addition, this session explored how this new finance innovation can help scale the issuing and use of LERs.

Sean Gallagher and Ellen Stoddard from Northeastern University’s Center for the Future of Higher Education & Talent Strategy shared findings from several recent studies focused on the digital credentialing landscape and the emergence of the “skillstech” market. Each study explored the evolution of employer practices and the implications of those practices for postsecondary institutions and other learning providers. They shared insights focused on the implications of their research for participants in the ecosystem, as well as their perspectives on opportunities for future research related to employer and institutional adoption of microcredentials and the growth of skills-based hiring.

Michael Prebil and Karen Wetzel of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) presented an overview of the NICE (National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education) Workforce Framework, including use cases and examples of how the framework is being implemented in the field. NCRN members had the opportunity to learn about workforce and credentialing issues affecting all aspects of cybersecurity, including the roles of employers, training providers, and job seekers in enhancing the quality and value of cybersecurity credentials.

This webinar presented  the results of two unique yet complementary survey research projects that explored employers’ perspectives on non-degree credentials. Insights may inform the implementation of policies and practices that promote high-quality credentialing. Mary Wright of the SHRM Foundation and Daniel Stunes of SHRM Research presented the results of a national survey of three employer groups (executives, HR practitioners, and supervisors) that explored their familiarity with and perceptions of non-degree credentials. Sean Gallagher of Northeastern University then described a survey that focused on employers’ readiness to adopt and their use of digital credentials and competency frameworks. Open discussion focused on the potential implications of these surveys and remaining gaps in our understanding of how employers use credentials.

This webinar focused on research completed by Workcred, the Corporation for a Skilled Workforce, and the Program on Skills, Credentials & Workforce Policy at George Washington University to survey the landscape of industry certification programs. Researchers from each organization conducted “deep dive” interviews with certification bodies to learn about their models of quality assurance, how their certification programs approach labor market equity, and how certification compares to other types of credentials. The team presented recommendations on how policymakers and certification organizations can amplify the role of certification in creating a more equitable and prosperous labor market. Read the full presentation.

Opportunity America president Tamar Jacoby presented (PPT) the findings of a recent study on innovative practices in community colleges and their implications for policy. The study covers such practices as nondegree programs, stackable credentials, intensive employer partnerships, crossover from noncredit to credit and more, providing benchmarks higher education leaders can use as they advance innovation on their campuses.

In a separate presentation (approximately 1:00-1:15pm, EST), Tara Lawley of the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education updated (PPT) the NCRN on efforts to add data on noncredit attainment to the Integrated Post-Secondary Education Data System (IPEDS). Since a unique feature of the NCRN’s webinars is coupling timely presentations on research with discussion among researchers and users of research, the NCRN is sharing its discussions here.

The George Washington University and the Center for Regional Economic Competitiveness presented on their joint project to find, evaluate, and use administrative datasets to study non-degree credentials. In this interactive webinar we will solicit feedback on our preliminary list of potential data sources and key definitions we will adopt. We will also present an overview of our proposed approaches to assessing the quality of administrative datasets, and describe our plans for building a repository of credentialing data that benefits the non-degree research community.

NCRN members Paul Gaston and Michelle Van Noy presented takeaways from their new book and practical suggestions especially for postsecondary education administrators, faculty members, and academic advisors.  Michelle is Associate Director, Education and Employment Research Center, School of Management and Labor Relations, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey; and Paul L. Gaston is Trustees Professor Emeritus, Kent State University and Distinguished Fellow, AAC&U.

Jackie Pichette, Director of Policy, Research and Partnerships at the Higher Education Quality Council, Ontario presented research on microcredentialing developments in Ontario.

Implementation of skills-based practices into the human capital life cycle has emerged as a more agile means of supporting organizational workforce needs and goals, while increasing career opportunities for a broader range of people (e.g., those without college degrees) and improving organizational diversity.  One critical aspect in the implementation of skills-based practices is to be able to measure and track the skills that employees learn on the job. American Institutes for Research (AIR) researchers will present the results of research, funded through a grant from Walmart, which looked at the landscape of employer skill validation practices and the systems and tools that support them through case study interviews with 10 employers and 5 tool providers.

Speakers include Christina Curnow, Managing Director, American Institutes for Research, and Rob Calderón, Principal I/O Researcher, American Institutes for Research

Presentation from Kyle Albert on the NCRN’s RFP and other upcoming NCRN initiatives, including an update on where we are with respect to planning in-person meetings. Introduction of GWU/NCRN partnership with Workforce Monitor and its publisher, George Lorenzo. Updates on in-progress research and any other updates that would be of interest to NCRN members. All participants were invited to speak and share their work.

This NCRN webinar was held on June 3 at 1 pm ET. U.S. Chamber Foundation VP Jason A. Tyszko presented on his center’s efforts to modernize workforce data and enabling infrastructures, giving special attention to the T3 Network of Networks, Jobs and Employments Data Exchange (JEDx), and an initiative around Learning and Employment Records (LERs).

This NCRN webinar, “Microcredentials: The Race Between Innovation and Public Regulation,” featured Gillian Golden and Thomas Weko of the OECD. Gillian Golden is a policy analyst in the Higher Education Policy Team of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. She currently is the project lead for initiatives related to new data and evidence development. Thomas Weko is a Senior Analyst in Education and Skills Directorate of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), where he leads the work of the Higher Education Policy Team. They described some of their research on the adoption of non-degree credentials and divergences among OECD member countries in public policy towards NDCs.

The NCRN hosted a discussion of the future of the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS). Institute of Education Sciences Director Mark Schneider updated the network about other IES initiatives and answered questions.

Todd Greene joined us to present the Urban Institute’s recently-launched WorkRise initiative, which supports researchers studying the state of the pandemic-era job market and labor market inequality.

Dr. Alexander Camardelle, Director, Workforce Policy explored the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies’s growing research agenda that seeks to understand the relationship between education and training policy and the success of Black workers. You can view his slides here (PPT). Read our report on his presentation here (PDF).

The NCRN hosted a virtual event open to all interested researchers and stakeholders on the pandemic’s impact on the labor market and its implications for the organizations that provide training and credentials. Speakers included Stuart Andreason of the Atlanta Fed’s Center for Workforce and Economic Opportunity, and Iris Palmer, Senior Advisor for Higher Education and Workforce at New America. Stuart presented the latest data on employment trends, and Iris discussed the effectiveness of past government programs to promote the reskilling of displaced workers. This webinar also featured two respondents from the stakeholder community: Steven Partridge, vice president for workforce development at Northern Virginia Community College, and Kenyatta Lovett, assistant commissioner of labor in Tennessee.

At a members-only virtual meeting led by Iris Palmer, Paul Osterman, Holly Zanville and Stuart Andreason, NCRN researchers described the challenges involved in conducting research during the COVID-19 pandemic. Members also discussed the potential policy implications of the pandemic and resulting job losses for job training and non-degree credentials. Paul Osterman’s PowerPoint slides describing preliminary results of a survey on adult job training.

We hosted John Finamore, director of the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics at the National Science Foundation, for an informative discussion of the future of federal data collection on non-degree credentials. John presented the latest updates concerning the National Training, Education and Workforce Survey, a major effort to collect data on the educational attainment (including via non-degree credentials) of the U.S. adult population with a focus on those in the skilled technical workforce. The NTEWS is a very significant opportunity for the non-degree credentials research community to better understand who earns non-degree credentials and how credentials relate to labor market outcomes. While the NTEWS 60-day comment period closed on June 15, 2020, another comment period is anticipated prior to the administration of the survey in 2021.

In this webinar, Sean Gallagher, co-editor of a recently published community college-focused, practitioner-oriented journal volume, “Credentials for a New Era of Work and Learning,” shared insights relevant to non-degree credentials research. Sean analyzed the factors driving community colleges’ interest in non-degree credentials, discussed opportunities associated with non-degree credentials, and identified emerging trends and best practices that community colleges might consider when structuring their credentials.