Micro-credentials: Your Guide for Getting Started

Welcome

At UL, we facilitate and promote flexible learning through the design and delivery of bespoke professional programmes and courses. As well as multiple Masters programme routes, UL also offers smaller, micro-learning opportunities in the form of micro-credentials. These are shorter, skills-focused, accredited and stackable learning experiences offered in part-time and hybrid modalities to complement the work commitment of our professional learners.

MicroCreds.ie Launch July 2023

Benefits of developing a micro-credential:

Attract new markets

Convert existing, high value, teaching and learning content into shorter “taster experiences” to attract and widen access for new learner groups.

Emerging Skills

Explore and develop new offerings in emerging often niche areas.

Hybrid Content Delivery

Enhance existing content with technology and media that can be repurposed for use in other areas.

Learning Design Framework

Be confidence that the MicroCreds Learning Design framework incorporates best-practice teaching approaches to online, inclusive and adult learning.

Self-Learning

Promote self-determined learning in your learners by adopting micro-credentials’ highly automated design and asynchronous delivery.

Avail of supports

Avail of supports and resources to assist you in the development, marketing, and/or delivery of your micro-credential.

Data-driven decisions

Generate data banks to assess learner journeys and experiences to validate courses.

Best Practice

Confidence that the MicroCreds Learning Design framework incorporates best-practice approaches to online, inclusive and adult learning.

Supporting you to develop micro-credentials

The MicroCreds team is here to help you design, deliver and evaluate your micro-credential.

These supports include

Instructional Designer time (access to UL’s MicroCreds Learning Design framework)
Marketing time and digital marketing campaigns
Market Insights
Business Development connections

Helping to ensure your micro-credential facilitates inclusive education, embraces innovative teaching approaches, addresses evolving needs for learners, ultimately help you to promote life-long learning.

How to create a MicroCred?

Interested? If you got this far, we hope you are.

Whether it’s an existing module you want to offer to a wider audience or, you have an idea for a new valuable offering. We want to hear from you!

Contact a member of the MicroCreds Team

At UL, we aspire to prepare and support all our graduates with attributes to be industry ready. Our professional learners, tell us that micro-credentials enable them to upskill and reskill on their journeys of professional and personal development.

“A micro-credential is the record of the learning outcomes that a learner has acquired following a small volume of learning. These learning outcomes have been assessed against transparent and clearly defined standards.

Courses leading to micro-credentials are designed to provide the learner with specific knowledge, skills and competences that respond to societal, personal, cultural or labour market needs.

Micro-credentials are owned by the learner, can be shared and are portable. They may be standalone or combined into larger credentials. They are underpinned by quality assurance following agreed standards in the relevant sector or area of activity.”

EU Council Recommendation on a European Approach to Micro-Credentials, June 2022

Ireland at the fore-front of embracing micro-learning

Globally, trends are moving towards these forms of micro-learning. Nationally, the MicroCreds project is leading efforts by establishing a national framework to promote adoption of micro-credentials. Coordinated by the IUA, University of Limerick together with six other IUA universities are piloting and evaluating this framework as well as developing a pipeline of micro-credentials for the open market. For more information on the MicroCreds project please follow this link