The Talent Continuum is an important expert advisory council for 1EdTech's digital credentials and related standards. It's leading innovators in industry and academia coming together with a mission to ensure a seamless, interoperable user experience in an opportunity ecosystem, removing silos between learning organizations and the workforce.
Read on to learn more about the Talent Continuum. If you'd like to recommend your organization for membership, please contact Mark Leuba, 1EdTech Consortium Vice President of Product Management.
Pioneers of new models for education and talent development view lifelong learning as a continuum, a virtuous cycle spanning formal education, informal learning and workplace learning. Our members envision an opportunity ecosystem where demonstrated learning and skills acquired in one domain are recognized and valued in the others. Achieving this vision requires collaboration across educators and employers around a shared set of competencies that are needed to do the job—and verifiable digital credentials provide proof of these achievements.
In this envisioned ecosystem, the latest education research can inform tomorrow’s workplace strategies, while rapidly changing industry practices seamlessly emerge as requirements for academic curricula. We believe learning providers and employers are partners in talent development, working side by side, organizing a capabilities marketplace in which learners and earners attain their personal and professional development goals and accrue digital credentials representing verifiable skills—in a machine readable and human readable form.
1EdTech is the most important governing body for digital credentials and related standards. It's also an ideal place to influence future development, stay ahead of the curve on innovation and network with innovative leaders
David Leaser, Senior Program Executive, Innovation and Growth Initiatives, IBM
Digital credentials are the central focal point for the Talent Continuum, including Open Badges which are small data files containing assertions of achievement in an open-standards format that is verifiably authentic. Tens of millions of digital badges have been issued to earners worldwide containing machine-readable information about the holder’s demonstrated achievements, specific criteria required to earn the credential, links to applicable industry standards and even evidence of the earner’s work. Electronic verification is provided by the badge issuer’s web server to provide assurance of authenticity.
1EdTech has introduced a Comprehensive Learner Record (CLR) incorporating Open Badges as well as additional records of learning and achievement which may be issued by an education provider and captured in the CLR. Industry standards for knowledge, skills and achievements can be directly referenced in these digital credentials using a web link to the authoritative source.
Bridging education silos requires reliable, verifiable data delivered in digital credentials.
Interoperability is the key to achieving scale and growth in the opportunity ecosystem
A common data structure and a few simple yet well established norms is all that’s needed to establish universal adoption and exponential value for all stakeholders.
Using technology to help supply meet demand, the Talent Continuum will design and operate projects to demonstrate the value of digital credentials to find, filter and rank prospective employees. Talent acquisition and management software will connect employers with candidates via modern web technologies, blending traditional methods of hiring, online applications, and resumes with standards-based digital credentials containing predictable, actionable information.
With thousands of job applicants, keywords are insufficient to find and filter high quality talent efficiently. Standards-based methods such as CASE (Competency and Academic Standards Exchange) link job skill requirements with competency descriptions, providing a higher performance search, regardless of inevitable terminology differences that exist between educators and employers—providing a defacto digital lingua franca for skills.
Rich analytics beyond what is possible today
In addition to high-quality content aligned to industry standards inside each digital credential, the ability to track actual usage and activity related to the credentials will be possible on the web, answering such questions as which certifications are generating interest and what which programs are producing highly qualified candidates.
Open Standards for Opportunity
The members of the Talent Continuum firmly believe the tools exist today to reinvent hiring, advancement and talent development processes through partnership, open standards and sharing of best practices to maximize the value of digital credentials in lifelong learning—in an opportunity ecosystem.
Participating Talent Continuum Organizations
