Standards ensure quality and credibility and help to build the microcredentials system in Poland – this is one of the most important premises of the Microcredentials Advisory Group meeting, which took place on September 27, 2024. The members of the Group help the experts working in IBE’s microcredentials project to develop these standards so that they guarantee the highest quality of this certification system in our country.
There is no single global standard for using microcredentials. In countries where they are already in place or being developed, they are designed, delivered and quality-assured in various ways. These differences arise from local contexts – cultural differences, user needs, specific educational systems or public policy objectives. In developing standards for using microcredentials in Poland, we are looking at these solutions in order to be inspired by good practices, learn from mistakes and shape rules that will be tailored to the needs, objectives and conditions under which micro-certificates are to support learners and the labour market in Poland.
It was to this fundamental issue that the last two meetings of the Microcredentials Advisory Group were devoted. The participants of the September 27 meeting listened to presentations by IBE experts on the changes made to the standards for describing microcredentials after consultations with, among others, members of the Group and pilot project participants.
The interim data model of the Odznaka+ application was also presented, whose development was no small challenge.
We were faced with the task of how to fit the microcredentials standard into the Open Badges 2.1 data model and make it available for testing in the Odznaka+ application at this early stage. As originally planned, this was to be accomplished in February 2025. Our microcredentials are around 60% more extensive than Open Badges because they require, among other things, the inclusion of quality assurance elements. We took on the impossible and in just two months developed an interim data model and, most importantly, an MVP (minimum viable product) of the target solution so that publishers and holders alike can already enjoy the convenience of establishing [badge] classes, awarding and viewing microcredentials. This will ensure that the implementation of the actual data model in February 2025 will be indiscernible to our users.
An important part of the meeting was a presentation by one of the pilot participants, Bogusław Dębski from the Polish Information Processing Society, who talked about how the design of microcredentials compliant with the standard being developed at IBE looked in practice, and how the first phase of the pilot project ended. The second phase is now underway, with more than a dozen new entities joining.
Social innovations allow pilots to be conducted to verify that a solution works in practice. We are looking forward to seeing the results of the second phase of the pilot in the project, and we welcome the interest in microcredentials expressed by both private companies and higher education institutions. Several new entities will be able to check which of the tools proposed by IBE for ensuring the reliability and quality of microcredentials in Poland is the best and, what is also important, the most cost-effective. The opinions of system users are crucial to the success of this project.
The following members of the Advisory Group participated in the meeting:
- Bogusław Dębski, Sector Skills Council – Information Technology
- Michał Goszczyński, Ministry of Science and Higher Education
- Justyna John, Ministry of Digital Affairs
- Andrzej Kraśniewski, Conference of Rectors of Academic Schools in Poland
- Małgorzata Lelińska, Lewiatan Confederation
- Agnieszka Majcher-Teleon, Ministry of Family, Labour and Social Policy
- Krzysztof Stradomski, All-Poland Alliance of Trade Unions
- Dominika Tadla, Ministry of Funds and Regional Policy
Dr. Barbara Worek, Sector Skills Council – Development Services