Alum Jason Swanson, Director of Strategic Foresight at KnowledgeWorks, invites our futurist community to explore four scenarios on the future of credentials: Certifying skills and Knowledge – Four Scenarios on the Future of Credentials. A baseline future, “All Roads Lead to Rome,” imagines a future in which degrees awarded by the K-12 and post-secondary sectors still serve as the dominant form of credentials. But there are many roads toward gaining those credentials, such as diverse forms of school and educational assessments. An alternative future, “The Dam Breaks,” explores a future in which the employment sector accepts new forms of credentials, such as micro-credentials, on a standalone basis. This leads to major shifts in both the K-12 and post-secondary sectors and to new relationships between the academic and working worlds. A second alternative future, “Every Experience a Credential,” considers what credentials might look like if new technologies enabled every experience to be tracked and cataloged as a form of credential for both students and employees. A wild card scenario, “My Mind Mapped,” imagines a future in which breakthroughs in both the mapping and tracking of brain functions have created a new type of credential reflecting students’ cognitive abilities and social and emotional skills.
Jason invites you to explore your own reactions on these scenarios by asking yourself:
How did you find yourself responding? Which elements made you feel hopeful? Which elements made you feel worried or fearful? Was there a scenario whose future seemed more likely? One whose future you preferred? Being mindful of your responses, what 
does your ideal future look like? As you develop your vision for the future, what strategies could you use to create your ideal approach to credentialing? Where might you be able to leverage some of the key drivers included in this paper to move credentialing toward your ideal approach?
Get into the discussion
Jason Swanson
Swanson also wants to encourage the community to participate on the debate by building an scenario and commenting below about the strategic possibilities. Here are some questions for reflection:
- How might stakeholders foster meaningful linkages among the education and employment sectors?
- How might employers change their hiring practices to include relevant credentials other than those currently in the mainstream?
- How might we begin to explore new ways of assessing learning in order to ensure that current and future forms of credentials have appropriate meaning and value?
- How might credentials diversify to reflect changes in employer needs?
- How might education stakeholders track and credential informal learning?
- What emerging forms of technology might help create new forms of credentials?
- How might stakeholders extend the use of alternative credentials such as certificates and micro-credentials?
About the Author
Jason Swanson is the Director of Strategic Foresight at KnowledgeWorks, where he helps lead the organization’s research into the future of learning. Jason holds a BA in Public Policy from West Chester University and a MA in Foresight from the University of Houston and is an Emerging Fellow with the Association of Professional Futurists. Watch for Jason’s work in strategic foresight and follow him on Twitter.
