The Spamming of Certification with Bobbi Losee Vernon

Luis Malbas  
Hello, everybody, welcome to the training learning and development community. Happy Friday. It's great to see you here, I do see that we have a few folks live in the audience, Kat Cassidy and Cindy is here, of course, Rand Corp Coron George Vilchez. Thanks for joining. And oops, let me turn off my notifications so we don't get bugged by those the entire time. This is a fantastic conversation that we're going to be having today. Now initially, like this is actually response from our guests, Bobby, to talk about. It was actually a showcase. But I think that this one could potentially be like a community discussion, or just its own separate type of TLD cast altogether, because Bobby, you're so generous in coming up with this topic, the spamming of certification. You even created a couple of documents that you sent over to talk about this topic. And I am very excited to go over this stuff. Now I want to tell everybody, Bobby is Senior Director of l&d at Global Skills exchange is actually been a longtime member of this community definitely are out there helping talk with people and helping support T LDC which I am really, really grateful for. And of course, with this one, this is another great resource that I think we're going to be having today despite having this conversation. So let's see, Bobby, I don't know if you want to introduce yourself anymore. If I could just get into any get into some of the questions or anything else you want to say.

Bobbi Losee Vernon  
Thank you for giving us this platform in this forum to learn about new topics to engage with one another. I think I've said it before, and I try to shout it from the mountaintops, how much I appreciate to DC and what it does for me it professionally and personally like, I don't know, I just feel like I get a lot of fulfillment from this. And then I feel like everyone's invested in it. So thank you for making this. Yeah.

Luis Malbas  
No, I enjoyed too. It's, it's interesting. And I just really try to take it from the from the perspective of the people that I'm supporting how it just to make it useful and valuable. And, and I Yeah, you do shout it from the mountaintops regularly and I so appreciate that. But yeah, let's talk about this whole idea of the spamming of certification. What is going on in your head when you when you talk about the spamming of certs. I know I feel

Bobbi Losee Vernon  
like it's a Buzzfeed type of title. But I wanted to get people's attention because certification is becoming the new age trophy for participating and learning events. And there are consequences to that. And I think it's important that l&d professionals understand certification and the different types of credentials that are out there, the consequences of what you're calling your training and your learning products. And in fact, if you take control of that, there are some really exciting things that are happening out there that if you do it right, you can be part of such a pivotal change of what's happening in the workforce development, and the talent pipeline spaces. And so that's what I'm excited to talk about today.

Luis Malbas  
Wow, that's great. Excellent. So this particular topic, it's important to you, you wanted to discuss it. Can you give me a little more background on on why Sure.

Bobbi Losee Vernon  
I sometimes feel like there's not a lot of people out there like me, and maybe a lot of people in l&d feel that way, because we all wear so many different hats, and our career doesn't have a distinct career pathway. And we all kind of weave our way through different responsibilities. Now, my background has been primarily in a membership association. And as a part of my journey there, not only did I start out in in lnd, in terms of training and typical instructional design work, that morphed into the responsibilities of launching a high stakes global certification program in the investment industry. That opened my eyes to the credentialing industry and what that means. And as a part of that, I was able to bring in l&d instructional design into the assessment space. Normally it's LNB has assessments and this is an assessment world that is bringing lnd into it, which is a completely different beast. Wow. Then I was able to launch a global assessment based certificate program or an ABC which is different from a certification in which is different For a normal certificate program, and there were some curriculum development efforts that went into that there were some assessment efforts that went into that. And all of this is wrapped up by what's a field called psychometrics, which is its own beast. And that is basically the analysis of assessments and how well they perform in the in the item analysis. And so it's been a trajectory that is one that is not normally out there. And there's not a lot of instructional designers, I think, who are specifically working in the credentialing and or the certification space. And so this is why it's so passionate for me. And again, it comes back to I think, a lot of the critical and pivotal change that needs to happen when it comes to demonstrating skills and skill based hiring and smart resumes that lands in the lab of lnd. And we can totally take charge of this. But we have to make sure that we're using the types of credentials appropriately and speaking to what they're actually assessing for.

Luis Malbas  
Yeah. Why why do you think that is that there aren't any instructional designers working in that space?

Bobbi Losee Vernon  
So typically, everyone thinks about certification as just the testing component, which is, in some ways correct. So historically, and even according to the Institute for credentialing excellence, there is a firewall that should be maintained between the assessment pieces of a program and the education and the training. So normal certification means the training people do not talk to the assessment people, and the certification program cannot put out and say you must take our curriculum to prepare for the test. It's it's such a nuance, but what a certification does, is it the way I think about it is if you're in a car, a certification is testing for what's in the rearview mirror. It's based on your knowledge, years of knowledge, skills and abilities. That is what it's testing you on. And basically, it's saying, Here's a threshold for a minimum of minimally qualified candidate, that minimally qualified candidate or and qc is someone who, who based on that experience, should be able to come take this exam, and pass the exam without any studying whatsoever. It's basically validating that you meet a minimum threshold of competency. And the the reason there aren't a lot of training people is because there's that firewall. But the difference now is there's more credit types of credentials that are popping up. But what's happening is a lot of programs that are being created are all being called certification. And they're not certification. They're potentially a certificate program, or an assessment based certificate program, which I can talk the difference with that too. Right. Right. Well,

Luis Malbas  
let's start with the one difference between certification and certified. Hmm.

Bobbi Losee Vernon  
Yeah, so I'm going to bring up some definitions here on my screen. So if you see me because I don't want to misspeak, right. So let's, let's first talk about what a credential is. That's where it starts, right. So a lot of people think that a credential is just the thing that you receive, for completing whatever activity or educational event it may be. Obviously, there's a range of credentials. So it's really an umbrella term of a certification can be a type of credential. And a certification is where you get letters after your name. Then you have an assessment based certificate program or a certificate program, the type of credential is the certificate you receive. You also have micro credentials, which are smaller bodies of knowledge that you're testing for. And so the thing about certification again, is it is more purely about testing for that competency and meeting that minimal qualified threshold. And so if you're certified in something, it typically is associated with certification. And what is happening is a lot of programs where you simply attend and you let someone talk to you at for an hour, you go to a lunch and learn event. Sometimes people are saying they're now certified in whatever that topic is. And that's not the case, being certified in something means there is an assessment, but the assessment has psychometric rigor. And that means that there is a lot of work that goes into ensuring that you're testing for the learning outcomes that you've defined what level of minimum competencies across the topic areas. And what does not qualify as an assessment as a normal knowledge check, or end of course module or something like that. And so that's where some of the differences coming in is. Some people are putting out a course, it has a little knowledge check, and they say, you have to get nine out of 10 questions, right to pass the course. That is not at an appropriate psychometric rigor to be qualified as certified in something. It simply means you've completed the course.

Luis Malbas  
Yeah, I just asked in the audience, what kinds of certifications you folks have. And, and Joe said that she had a Certificate of Education, basically my teacher training from years ago, and has certificates that are pieces of paper slash digital, and did not test it on, you know, as, as you're mentioning, Bobby. And see, Alan is saying that he was sort of he was a certified grants writer and was an apple Foundation's trainer. Hmm, yeah, yeah.

Bobbi Losee Vernon  
Yeah. And so a lot of it goes into actually looking at the programs in determining the quality in the process, and the best practices that they're applying in developing those programs. So what happens in the credentialing space is there's often a lot of standards and best practices that can be followed through the course of what's called accreditation. For certification programs, that accrediting body is the NCC A, and they put out there what the distinct criteria and standards are for calling yourself a certification program. Similarly, there are two sets of standards out there for an assessment based certificate program. There's the ice 1100, and the ASTM. And both of those are a little bit different in how they approach an assessment based certificate program. And then perhaps most known to instructional designers will be the ISS get credential or accreditation. And that's where you get accredited as an organization for providing continuing education and training. And those standards are based more on participatory learning, not necessarily the the assessment focused type of learning, if I could very quickly define an assessment based certificate program, because I mentioned it a lot. And I'll call it ABC for short, just ever, because it's a mouthful. So I said a certification program is looking in the rearview mirror is assessing everything that you should be bringing to the table today, an assessment based certificate program or an ABC is forward looking. And so it has to have formal needs analysis. From that you're designing the learning outcome statements and your design doc and applying your instructional design methodologies and principles for the design of the curriculum. You're going to walk people through the curriculum, and then there is a psychometrically sound assessment. So the assessment is almost as rigorous as the certification side of things. Wow. And so again, certification has no education and training, they can put suggested reading lists, you know, but really what they're saying on certification is you can go to YouTube, you can go to the library, you can go to any resource you want to study this content, you it's it's on you to prepare. An ABC program says this is specifically what the need is because it's filling a gap. We're going to give you the curriculum, and then we're going to assess you on those learning outcomes seat statements using a psychometrically rigorous exam.

Luis Malbas  
Wow. Okay. And Joe has a great question your psychometrically sound? What can you expand on that? What does it mean?

Bobbi Losee Vernon  
Sure. So the field of psychometrics is usually one that is filled with PhDs. So when when I say psychometrics, I just need people to know I am not a psychometric expert, don't have a PhD. I am a certified credentialing professional, which does cover the foundations of psychometrics. So I work with psychometrics on it on an or psychometricians on a daily basis. But basically what they're doing is they're they're doing like a job task analysis and seeing what is it that is required of this role, what is their essential body of knowledge like this is everything that is captured by this role, and then you delineate that into a job task analysis. And that job task analysis is breaking down all of the competencies, knowledge, skills, behaviors and other attributes. That is going to be required to be tested on this assessment and then the second patricians are saying, okay, here is the information for how to create your assessment, the number of items that need to be on there based on the importance of topics and competency levels and proficiency levels. And then people go and take the test. And the psychometrician, then studies, the test, how well did did the test perform? They're basically slicing and dicing their doctors of data of their doctors of assessment data, ooh, that's a great way to think about it. So they're looking at the performance of the assessment, as well as all of the individual items, as well as all of the individual options for each item. And then they're comparing that to the people who took the exam. So is there a question that had some kind of bias in it? Is there a question where everybody under the age of 50 answered that incorrectly? Why is that? Maybe it's a bad question, because it's geared more towards a different generation of the workforce. So they're doing all of those analytics to then be able to say, here is what the passing score should be on this exam for the minimally qualified candidate.

Luis Malbas  
Fascinating. So I kind of went back I did a quick Google thing. psychometrics is the science of measuring mental capacities and processes. Let's see. Joe was saying interesting that IT skills competencies and behavior.

Bobbi Losee Vernon  
Assessments can be a variety of things. Right. And that's the thing is in the l&d world, we do a lot, a lot of knowledge based assessments. Because it's, it's fast, and it's easy, and it's usually cheap, right? When we build a course we put an assessment out there, we think it's good to go. But assessments can be performative. They can be subjective, you can have all different types of rubrics associated with that, when you bring in rubrics, now you gotta train the people who were supposed to interpret the rubrics to grade the exams, it can be essay based. You know, it just really runs the gamut. And segmentations are looking at all of that. Now, usually, on the certification side, there are stakes involved. And those stakes are important because employers are using that to make hiring decisions. For using that as a promotional opportunity. If you want to move into management, you have to have this certification. And the thing about a psychometrician is they make sure that the assessment work that you're doing and what you're testing for, is legally defensible, which is key, like that underpins everything, right, because you don't want to get sued, because you're exhibiting bias or something in your hiring practice. And the reason I say that that is important is because if you're calling a general training program, a certification and you're seeing people are certified, it's really impacting the stakes and people's interpretation of the stakes of the types of programs that are out there. Which is why it's so important to know what type of credential you're building and how you talk about it. Because again, I said in the beginning, there are consequences and implications on this. And that's just one of them. It's watering down the value in the meaning of certification. And it's also misappropriating or having people create false narratives about what certain credentials or certifications actually mean, and what people are capable of doing.

Luis Malbas  
Right, right. Cindy is saying I get daily email spam to complete this or that certification, I can see how people new to the field can get confused and overwhelmed by all the certification programs that are out there. And that's actually where I thought, yeah, the gist of this conversation was going to go when you're when you call it, you know, the spanning of certification. Yeah.

Bobbi Losee Vernon  
So let me throw a question out to the audience. How many credentials do you think exists in the United States?

Luis Malbas  
That's a good question.

Bobbi Losee Vernon  
Give me a number. Joe says a billion Yeah, billion in the world. Yeah, I yeah. Any other guesses? I'll go ahead and throw the answer. There are over 1 million credentials in the United States alone. Provided by over 59,000 credentialing providers. How do you make sense of that? As a learner, how do you make sense of that as an employer to know where the value actually is? Right? I got this data from credential engine. And at the end, I can throw some links. Well, no, I'll just throw it in the chat right now, credential engine is a great place to go. They have what's called the credential finder, I think credential finder. So you can look up all different types of credentials and things in there. In fact, they just launched a new pathway tool, where these credentialing providers can go in there and start mapping pathways of learning for certain types of credentials. And that's really interesting, because there's also this thing called Open skills network, which I'll put that link in here, too. Sorry, this is where it starts to get heavy. So this is where I would love to do a whole like workshop or something around this, because it is so important. The credential engine has the listing of all these credentials that are out there. And you can start building pathways for for certain credentials. But we're talking about the stakes and the value proposition of these credentials that we're building, right. And what the open skills network is trying to do is create a skills library, where they are standardizing skills and the associated learning outcome statements, so that we're all speaking a common language. So if you're working on a program that has to do with communication, for example, you can go to Open skills network to that library and see what information they have in there about communication. Yeah, and so it's nice when I'm not saying all of this is all put together, you know, it's not yet like a really seamless process. It's it's happening right now. And I think it's important to l&d because in the conversations I'm having with these organizations, they are looking at it from a new hire perspective. And from a higher ed perspective, so they're thinking about HR needing to find people to fill gaps in their workforce. And they're thinking about it from the chaotic state of higher ed. Right, let's be real, it's a little chaotic right now. Have a bachelor's degree, what does it mean, the value of these workforce development programs, what does it mean, right? Because they're just trying to get content out there and structure. And then there's another organization that's called credential as you go, I'll put a link to them. And they're part of this as well, from the higher ed perspective, where you take some classes towards your associate degree, but you don't finish well guess what, you don't get credit for anything. Right on your resume. You can't say you got a degree. And what credentialing as you go, that initiative is saying, Well, no, you participated in classes, you did things, you need to get credit for that and be able to talk about the skills that you learned. So that's where this open skills library is coming into play in higher ed, so that people can start to claim credit for the knowledge, skills and abilities they've acquired without actually earning the credential. And the perspective I've been bringing to the conversation is just because you get someone hired in an organization, or you get someone out the door of a higher ed program with a credential or a partial credential. What about all the people who are working in their job today? Where's the number one place that most people are getting their education at their employer, right. And so that's where I think this is so pivotal for l&d to really start wrapping its hands around, because all of us here are creating great programs, great content. And, you know, I hate to say it a credibly bad, just not necessarily good enough. And I can even share an example of what that looks like if you want to see the culmination of the differences of credentialing as you go the skills library, and putting all of these pieces together for people to really start making sense of credentials, what they mean, the stakes involved, what you're testing for, and then ultimately, what that means for the learners. On the end.

Luis Malbas  
Yeah, no, I'd like to see that came as a question though. How does that map to the trades if they're going by higher ed

Bobbi Losee Vernon  
So when I say higher ed, I am speaking to not just traditional higher ed, but also a lot of workforce development programs that are happening either in trade schools, and or like in the community college setting. I'm in Virginia, Virginia has a wonderful economic development program, both through the state and through the chambers of commerce, where they are partnering with employers, but most importantly, through community colleges to start creating these pipelines of education. And so that's where the trade piece comes in. There's there's a community colleges are being relied on a lot for that.

Luis Malbas  
Okay. Yeah, yeah, I can see how that works.

Bobbi Losee Vernon  
Okay, so let me let me see if I can share my screen really fast. And what I'm going to share is not to pick on the credit the provider behind my credit, bad. So I love my currently bad, and I'm very proud of it. Let's see, I want to share though, okay. Can you see it up? Here it comes. Okay. So this is my credibly badge that you see here for my certified credentialing professional. This is a certification meaning I had to meet eligibility requirements, I had to have so many years of experience. I had a long suggested reading list of things that you could potentially read, to prepare for the exam. I did very little studying very little reading went in and took the exam. Luckily, I passed. But you can see here it provides this paragraph of information. And you can see it's also associated with some skills and you can see psychometrics is on here. And again, I wouldn't say I'm skilled in psychometrics, I would say I have a working foundational knowledge in psychometrics. But if I if you go if you're an employer, like I'm an I'm applying for a job and you're in and you see that I have this bad people, oh, she knows psychometrics, what does that mean? They click on this, and this is all they get, they get a definition of psychometrics, it doesn't necessarily demonstrate what I'm what I know are in skilled in what I'm able to do. So it's not really painting the true story of what I'm capable of doing as a result of getting this certification. So the next example I'm going to show you with shared to me through a community of practice working group that I'm involved in through the open skills network, where we are working with the Institute for credentialing excellence, who has provided me with this badge, we are going to map the skills of this credential to the open skills network, Open Library, the skills library, we're going to publish the information to that credential engine. And the idea is to eventually wind up with something like this. Now, this example, my screen is okay, this example comes out of Australia. So Australia is blazing speeds ahead on a lot of the stuff that's happening here. And so this this badge is through credential it. And I should mention, this is the credibly badge is a badge. This badge is what's called a digital badge like a digital credential. And you can see why you're getting this information about Alexandria that she has been awarded a credential in teamwork, and then look at how they have the skills laid out here. So in team development, you get an understanding of what that means. You can see what the skill definition is, because that's mapping to what that skill actually means in a skills library. And then you can see based on her testing performance that she's proficient and what her score is in that rate. So take my the Credly badge that I shared with you, I probably scored pretty lowly on the psychometrics piece, because I'm not a psychometrician. Right. But you wouldn't know that by looking at my Credly badge. But if you look at something like this, that really starts to paint the whole picture. And this is the way that I think l&d should start thinking about how we approach the design of not just the learning but the assessment experience, but actually being able to tell the story of what people are now capable of knowing or doing as a result of the training that you've created. So I see that this is an example of a digital credential because her work Alexander's work is attached to this batch. So now you can see proof of what it is that she did not only just the test results and stuff, but now you can see the collateral. So think of it as like a portfolio becomes a working portfolio. And then at the bottom here, you can see that Australia has different skills, classification frameworks that they're working with. So that can go back to the earlier point about trades, right? If there's different trade associations that have skill frameworks, we can be mapping to that as well. But you can see here that this paints a whole different picture of what Alexandria is capable of doing, versus what I'm capable of doing here. And so that's what I wanted to be able to share. Now, I don't have the answer for how to put all of these pieces together for lnd. Like, it's one of those things, where do you even start? So I did mention that I'm a part of that community of practice that's doing that skills mapping exercise, and that's so I can start to understand because I wouldn't be able to advocate for this or be able to better speak to it for l&d professionals, and be able to just set up some sort of roadmap for people to start getting their feet wet as well, because I have to tell you, it's overwhelming. It's a lot.

Luis Malbas  
Fascinating. No, that's this is this is great stuff. Um, wow. Okay, so let me let me throw this question at you that Joe listed in the QA, how do you think certification can should will won't work with regards to open badges and being able to move that data around to different employers? Okay,

Bobbi Losee Vernon  
so there is a lot of work happening on the back end, I love this question. You can talk excited. There's a lot of work happening on the back end to being able to create open learning and employment records, so that people will have their own digital wallet of what it is that they're doing. So instead of going to credibly or wherever else, right and LinkedIn, and here and there and everywhere, and here's a PDF of my certificates from the past, there's going to be a way and they're working on it right now. There's, there's short samples of it that are out there, where all of this stuff is going to become digitized. And it's all working towards two things. One is the HR platforms have to adapt to be able to read this information, that work is underway. The other exciting work that is underway is your personal details. So I've mentioned the learning and employment record the LE AR, the other piece of that is the smart resume, you will no longer have to have a paper based resume. Because if you think about all of this stuff being digitized, when you go to apply for a job, it should be able to read your digital wallet, and it will say you meet the minimum threshold for application or your super shining star. We're going to interview you tomorrow. So the smart resume is there. The other thing that is happening is going back to the higher ed piece where there's a consortium of 400 colleges and universities that are rethinking transcripts. So that transcripts start to look more like what you saw of that Alexandria example from Australia. Because they're having issues where a Bachelors of Science in Computer Information Systems is not the same across schools. Yeah. So they don't even know how to level set what it is that those candidates those applicants are capable of doing as a result of having a degree. So start looking for movement in that space to regarding transcripts,

Luis Malbas  
that is a lot of change.

Bobbi Losee Vernon  
It's a lot. And the thing is it's happening so fast, is it it is happening so fast. And there are there are a lot of people and just smaller think tanks and organizations who are working in this. But the beauty of it is is they're all kind of working together. So like I mentioned, the skills library, that's a specific function, but they're working with the credential engine, that's a specific function. And there's several like, players in higher ed, who are trying to work on this. There are some people on the HR side who are thinking about this. There are people in the DNI space who we're working on this because this is going to help certain populations of the workforce who don't have the advantage that some of us may have. And so that's they have a seat at the table. And so yeah, it's all starting to come together. But the thing is, is I don't think people are thinking about internal l&d and the training and upskilling that we do for our employers.

Luis Malbas  
Yeah, yeah. No, oh, yeah. And oh, And Kim has a great question here. Are you working on this just for l&d? Or is your focus wider for multiple professions?

Bobbi Losee Vernon  
Um, can I say both? So, for me, the personal interest is for l&d Because it's, it's my bread and butter, right? It's where it's my joy in life. This is where I work. And I know the crazy talent. That's, that's sorry, I probably shouldn't say Chrissy that's in print, gonna call myself out and learning. There is some incredible talent in l&d, who is capable of doing a lot. And I think we're the quiet leaders in this space. And we don't always get a seat at the table. So I'm trying to push for that both personally and professionally. In my role, I work for a consultancy, that does a lot of workforce development across a lot of industries, from manufacturing trades, to cybersecurity, to mission critical to things with the Department of Defense, to big name software companies. So, you know, the health, the public health space, so we're all over the place. So as I'm thinking about things, I'm thinking about how I can architect learning solutions that are mindful of where this is going and start building mindfulness into the design of their learning solution. So that, you know, if it becomes a skills mapping exercise, I'm gonna go ahead and get that done for you. The the credential pathway and putting that in the credential engine, I'm going to do that for you. And that gives them a leg up for as these things start to really take effect. They're ahead of the game. So I'm looking at it across all different types of genres, but personally motivated for us.

Luis Malbas  
Yeah, yeah, no, that's fascinating. So is there anyone in l&d that you know, of that is having these kinds of conversations or looking at this? The way that that you are?

Bobbi Losee Vernon  
I have not found anyone like myself in any of the meetings that communities of practice or anything?

Luis Malbas  
Yeah. Yeah. Wow, that's fascinating. I felt like a loan shark. Yeah, no, because this is important. And I can tell you just historically, having been, you know, in the space for a long time, I know that organizations that I've been part of in the past, and even currently, like, you know, for instance, work for somebody that offers a ton of content. And, you know, people are constantly asking for completion certification certificates, or, you know, or even like, do we offer any type of credentialing just because we offer so much content and programming and different things like that. And, you know, we won't even touch it. And, and even other l&d organizations that I've worked for in the past, that's always been potentially, like, a really, really huge conversation to have, as far as, you know, throwing content out there giving it to people and folks wanting some proof showing that they've, you know, participated in it or have gained this knowledge, but we can't even we never ever took the plunge and tried to do anything with that in.

Bobbi Losee Vernon  
There is great for everybody involved in now more than ever, employers need to recognize the value of Skilling and upskilling their employees, right. And there's no better way to do that than through something like this. Because what they're saying as your time is valuable, when we ask you to take time away from your work and attend to certain training or maybe even internal certification race. You can have an internal certification program with some kind of rigor that's completely possible. And employers are having more and more of a role in their employees future in terms of how they're being skilled and upskilled. And or re skilled. And so the value is, is there for employers, and most importantly, the value is there for the employees.

Luis Malbas  
Fascinating. Cindy is asking, wasn't the training a pat down D working on something like this? Or was it just defining competencies? I'm not sure I think Cindy, you're right, that maybe they were working on something, but I don't think I think that taking something like that on it's actually probably a lot more than you realize. I know even I wouldn't even know where to start with that. So I'm not sure but I could probably find out for you though, Cindy. That's an interesting question. Wow. So like, what would you do? What would you suggest for people I know that you're kind of laying down the groundwork, you've defined all these things for us, but what are some things that you're doing to continue to explore this, this kind of cept

Bobbi Losee Vernon  
so one of the things I'm looking at now is there as a talent development Management Academy through the US Chamber of Commerce. So I'm trying to understand the big picture at the government level, what some of these frameworks and models are that they have, because that's starting to flow down into employment sectors, specific industries, especially where they're predicting meet their workforce gaps. So I'm just trying to pursue those things. Because what's happening is, you know, there's all this big picture thinking, there's new regulations about what it means to produce or create a program that that is for gainful employment. And that's the word gainful employment. What does that mean? What is it that that the organization or the school can say, and market about that type of program, especially if they're getting funding or grants to create these programs. So I'm starting to look at these big picture things that are happening on the federal stage, because a lot of the people that we work with are so far removed from that, and there's a lot of gaps. And so big picture, I'm kind of down here. And so my goal is to close that gap a little bit more and become more of a subject matter expert in it. And then to being able to lead the charge for people in l&d for learning and development professionals for hey, here's some things to keep in mind. Here's how you do it. Because this is not something that is easy to just walk into, right? And I did, it's been hard. But I appreciate it. Because I want I want I want it to be hard, you know, I want to learn it. And it's funny, because we all know when you work with people who are subject matter experts, it's really hard to get them to step outside of their own knowledge to help somebody get in tune with what is happening. And so I hope to be able to fill that gap for people.

Luis Malbas  
Nice, nice. Let's see Joe was saying here, I think within l&d, I see UK companies looking at this and working on it. But the trouble is that you always then get different companies doing different things, even if they're trying to follow X API or XML protocols and stuff.

Bobbi Losee Vernon  
And so that's why foundationally things like this skills library is really important. It's being able to standardize the way we talk about different types of skills or competencies. Yeah, even still the standardization of language and really understanding the types of credentials, what truly is a certification versus an ABC program versus a regular certificate program. Please do not call a certificate program, a certification, please do not tell people who completed your certificate program that they are certified.

Luis Malbas  
Right? Yeah, there

Bobbi Losee Vernon  
are some basic things that that we need to be doing fundamentally, but again, it's it's hard to make sense of it. And it's hard to step into this and say, Where do I even begin?

Luis Malbas  
Super important distinctions. Deborah G is saying it's important because I'm trying to determine what certification to obtain next. And so even at a really basic level, there's that. Oh, here Kim is asking. I was on a TM en webinar yesterday that addressed ISO standards for l&d, does that impact what you're doing, Bobby?

Bobbi Losee Vernon  
Oh, gosh, I was just thinking about this earlier. I love this question, because there are standards upon standards upon standards. Right. Kim, I'm curious if the one you're talking about is the metrics, or the standards for l&d metrics, because that's the new standards that are coming out. So I work with accreditation standards for certification programs for ABC programs. In fact, I chair the Accreditation Council for the Institute for credentialing excellence for accrediting assessment based certificate programs. Right. And then there's ISS for continuing education and training. And then there are these other standards that are out there. What I think is interesting, Kim is there are standards for l&d, but then their standards for assessments, and then there's standards for HR and their standards for workforce development. And in my mind, I don't know how to make sense of all of these standards. And what really frustrates me and please, nobody judge me please. All of these standards cost money. And I how do I keep buying all of these standards to make sense of coming up with a true workforce development solution for my clients when it's required me to buy and follow maybe 12 different sets of standards, depending on what's in volved in my solution, and I can't even preview them without paying for them. And I get it the it's a lot of work these organizations need to you know, recoup their costs, so I don't blame them at all. But as someone who is trying to do the right thing, and wants to do the right thing, sometimes following standards makes it really, really hard because it's financially distant or financially disadvantageous, but the word it's not invented advantages financially about I say that, yeah, and even getting accredited is very expensive. So the value proposition in a lot of ways isn't there. And I think that's something that the standards industry should be looking at, is if you want people to follow them, you have to make them accessible.

Luis Malbas  
So how about some specifics of things that you're doing in your work now, to start to move in this direction? I know you kind of generally mentioned it, but there's Is there anything specific that you can that you can share with us?

Bobbi Losee Vernon  
In terms of where to get started, I would say fundamentally, go to the open skills Network website, which I think I put in the chat earlier. They have open meetings once a month. And you'll get to hear about different players in the space that are doing little demos and talking about progress that's been made in certain ways. And then they also have communities of practice. So I'm working on the credentialing one, they have another one that's looking at artificial intelligence, in this space, and what that looks like. So if you have an area of interest, where you'd like to learn more, they have a community of practice that could probably help with that. So I would say that is a good place to start, if you just want to, I started out as a very passively engaged person, like mentally I was engaged but passively, I was not participating, right? I don't know what's going on here. And now lo and behold, I'm the point person for this skill mapping exercise, right? It just happen to naturally fall into my place. The credential as you go initiative, if you go to that website, they have a lot of good webinars and stuff. And it just starts to give you a sense of what's happening out there, like how they're working with employers, to start building credentials for people to get credit for how they're embedding certifications, true certifications in higher ed programs. So I would say start there. Okay, great.

Luis Malbas  
And just one last question, any models out there? Globally, you'd said Australia is kind of ahead of the pack. Anyone else that you've seen that might be that might be worth keeping an eye on?

Bobbi Losee Vernon  
Um, so I don't have a direct meme or anything. But I will say the EU is on top of this. So for Joe in the UK, I think they're really well ahead of this too. And it's nice to see the EU stuff coming out because they're doing it on behalf of several countries, obviously. Right. And so when you talk about how to standardize and how to unify, there are some things there. But I apologize, I don't have a direct resource to go on. But some of those key people are involved in the open skills network. So if you go to one of those meetings, you'll start to pick up on this people. Excellent. Yeah. What

Luis Malbas  
do you think? What do you think Bobby? Like five years, this might be mainstream?

Bobbi Losee Vernon  
I would say it has to be Yeah. I honestly think the biggest lag is going to be HR systems. Right? Right. It's like LMSs. They just never. They can never keep up with the ingenuity of the industry. Right, right.

Luis Malbas  
Oh, my gosh, Bobby, fantastic. So much. Great stuff here. I really, really appreciate you sharing all of this. Definitely. Something to think about. And I can't wait to be able to share this recording with everybody. Because I do think that it's an important conversation. And, and yes, again, thank you for bringing it to the forefront.

Bobbi Losee Vernon  
And I do apologize, it's a lot. I put my LinkedIn in there. If anyone wants to have like a coffee chat or anything like that, or if we want to have another open discussion or something about this, I I'd love to be able to do what I can to support that and raise the awareness here.

Luis Malbas  
Totally. If anyone wants to follow up and is interested in TNBC can be in any way support for this conversation. Just let me know happy to throw something together and and keep everybody thinking about this. All right. Well, that's it. Happy Friday, everybody. I hope you have a wonderful weekend. We'll see you next week. I'm sure we've got a couple of broadcasts coming and don't forget the AITC 23 The accessible and inclusive design conference coming up in a couple of weeks. Definitely, I've got everything kind of set up. I just need to get more program information from everybody. And, but it's looking great. And you know, with that one, I just want to, I just want to share that Cindy had sent me a link that that the guild was doing an event on accessible and inclusive design. And I thought this is interesting that even this is our third or fourth year doing it. I'm so glad that it's that conversation is out there now that people are starting to focus on it some of the more major media groups because it's important. Ours is free and and it's fun. So hopefully we'll see in a couple of weeks. And, and that's it. Thanks, everybody. Thanks again, Bobby.

Bobbi Losee Vernon  
Thank you. Thanks for having me. Bye, everyone.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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