WEBVTT Kind: captions Language: en 00:00:00.080 --> 00:00:05.200 So, hi everyone. My name is Jeff Grann. I work  at the non-profit organization Credential Engine   00:00:05.200 --> 00:00:08.080 who's dedicated to advancing  credential transparency. 00:00:11.520 --> 00:00:16.000 I'll just open with saying that the term  ‘credentials’ seems like a single thing but it's   00:00:16.000 --> 00:00:21.680 actually many different types of things. And for  us, a credential refers to all the many different   00:00:21.680 --> 00:00:28.160 ways that people signal their suitability. That  includes traditional diplomas and degrees but also   00:00:28.160 --> 00:00:35.760 certificates, licenses, certifications, badges and  more. And we've done our research in that area and   00:00:35.760 --> 00:00:44.320 identified over 738,000 credentials being offered  in the US market alone. So, it's an overwhelming   00:00:44.320 --> 00:00:51.040 number of options for the American people to make  sense of. And what we do is we help the public   00:00:51.040 --> 00:00:58.000 understand those credentials using linked open  data strategies and semantic web technologies.   00:00:58.000 --> 00:01:02.800 And the way it works is that our organization  Credential Engine has led the development over the   00:01:02.800 --> 00:01:08.800 last three years of an openly licensed credential  transparency description language schema   00:01:09.760 --> 00:01:17.360 to fully describe credentials in a way that humans  and machines can understand. So, and then on top   00:01:17.360 --> 00:01:22.880 of that, we've built free technical services  to help people use that language on the web. 00:01:24.080 --> 00:01:30.320 And this issue has really come to the fore with  the COVID-19 where people are struggling to   00:01:30.320 --> 00:01:39.360 understand credentials and use them for responding  to both the COVID-19 pandemic specifically   00:01:39.360 --> 00:01:46.720 but then the social societal impacts that have  followed from that, as people lose long paying,   00:01:46.720 --> 00:01:54.000 you know, occupations are no longer viable. So,  a lot of folks are looking to credentials to help   00:01:54.000 --> 00:02:00.640 them weather the impacts of COVID-19. And  our rapid award is an approach of testing   00:02:00.640 --> 00:02:07.600 new partnerships that can rapidly increase public  data about healthcare credentials and healthcare   00:02:07.600 --> 00:02:15.040 competency frameworks using credential engines  registry. So, we think this information, if we can   00:02:15.040 --> 00:02:20.160 make it more publicly available, will help workers  transition into the healthcare sector, and then   00:02:20.160 --> 00:02:28.560 help healthcare workers upskill to develop and  respond to the- fighting the COVID-19 pandemic. 00:02:29.360 --> 00:02:34.560 So, we built this landing page to  help, onboard our partners to publish   00:02:34.560 --> 00:02:39.280 information to the web and I'll paste a  link to that in the chat here to close.   00:02:40.560 --> 00:02:45.600 The way that we've been operating is that we  have a history of partnering with state agencies   00:02:45.600 --> 00:02:51.440 so think of state workforce agencies or  commissions for higher education. These   00:02:51.440 --> 00:02:56.800 are folks who have often some regulatory approval  process for credentials offered in their state,   00:02:57.440 --> 00:03:03.680 and we now have formal partnerships with 19  different states and regions in the country,   00:03:03.680 --> 00:03:08.640 all of whom have been engaged to help  publish healthcare credential information. 00:03:09.680 --> 00:03:13.200 For example, here in New York,  we partnered with a group called   00:03:13.200 --> 00:03:15.280 NYATEP [New York Association of Training  and Employment Professionals] on healthcare   00:03:15.280 --> 00:03:20.480 credentials and they've kicked off this  work as part of our RAPID grant hosted   00:03:20.480 --> 00:03:25.280 Zoom webinars with credential providers  in their state and just recently hired   00:03:25.280 --> 00:03:31.520 a staff member to help facilitate a lot of the  back-end data workflows necessary to make this   00:03:31.520 --> 00:03:36.880 happen at scale. And similar efforts are underway  in Washington and Indiana, in particular. 00:03:38.240 --> 00:03:44.160 But we've also been working with quality assurance  organizations. This is a national accreditor:   00:03:44.160 --> 00:03:51.680 the Distance Education Accrediting Commission.  They accredit 34 healthcare related institutions   00:03:51.680 --> 00:03:59.520 and that impacts or they have a governance  relationship with 690 health care related   00:03:59.520 --> 00:04:06.880 credentials through their members. And we've begun  to map their information workflows so that they   00:04:06.880 --> 00:04:12.000 can begin pilot testing publishing to the registry  this winter with two of their organizations. 00:04:13.200 --> 00:04:16.640 We've also worked at the federal  level. We've had a partnership with   00:04:16.640 --> 00:04:22.400 CareerOneStop. The Department of Labor supports  CareerOneStop- it's a website that is charged   00:04:22.400 --> 00:04:29.200 with assembling data about state occupational  licenses and competency models for the public, and   00:04:30.640 --> 00:04:38.000 we're helping them convert the information that  they currently provide via web pages into linked   00:04:38.000 --> 00:04:41.040 open data strategies using the CTDL [Credential  Transparency Description Language] schema.   00:04:41.040 --> 00:04:46.720 And the competency work has kicked  off and is already, I think,   00:04:46.720 --> 00:04:51.600 complete at this point. And in November  we'll be doing the license finder work,   00:04:51.600 --> 00:04:56.240 which is all the healthcare- well all licenses in  the country but healthcare licenses in particular. 00:04:57.920 --> 00:05:03.520 We've also built this widget so that people  can make credential information available on   00:05:03.520 --> 00:05:06.880 their own websites if they'd like  to. This is just a basic design,   00:05:06.880 --> 00:05:14.640 but it can be fully customized using style sheets  and we now have 2,795 healthcare credentials   00:05:14.640 --> 00:05:20.720 in this widget so people can find out more  information about healthcare careers that way. 00:05:22.240 --> 00:05:28.320 And really my talk- I wanted to just say that  you can help, so please help join this movement.   00:05:29.440 --> 00:05:33.120 If you're affiliated with a credential  issuing organization yourself,   00:05:34.080 --> 00:05:40.720 you can help by sharing my contact information  and the URL with administrators at your campus-   00:05:41.280 --> 00:05:47.120 might be a registrar or a provost- that kind  of level is usually where we intersect with.   00:05:47.680 --> 00:05:52.160 Or you might be involved in different quality  assurance or regulatory organizations maybe   00:05:52.160 --> 00:05:58.880 professional associations, healthcare medical  boards, all of those groups have important   00:05:58.880 --> 00:06:03.040 information for the public about healthcare  credentials and we'd like to make it more   00:06:03.920 --> 00:06:09.680 publicly available via our services. So, I'll  just paste the chat in the link or the link   00:06:10.480 --> 00:06:17.440 in the chat and here's my contact information  email as well. Thank you very much.