ECCOE – the European Credit Clearinghouse for Opening up Education – comes at a time when there is an increasing drive towards more open, online and flexible higher education. Policy makers at European and national level are responding to the needs of an increasingly diversified student population with calls for a more modular approach to credentials and employers are beginning to focus more and more on the actual competences that graduates are able to demonstrate, to bridge the skills gap. Furthermore, in the current political climate, transnational mobility, whether physical, virtual or a combination of the two, is a powerful vehicle for increasing cross-cultural awareness. For this vision to become reality, there is a great need for a solid, trustworthy system supporting cross-institution recognition of credits at the level of courses or modules. Over and above the technology, such recognition will not take off without appropriate quality mechanisms and the demonstration that the overall process, the ECCOE-System, has been tried and tested with a critical mass of stakeholders. This is precisely what the ECCOE project proposes, in order to achieve its main goal of facilitating the endorsement and appropriation of open, online and flexible higher education. In support of this overarching objective, the project aims to increase trust in technology-enabled credentials among students, higher education institutions (HEIs) and employers. This will be achieved by developing quality criteria for the description of modules, MOOCs and courses; developing and validating a Model Credit Recognition Agreement available in 7 languages (DE, EN, ES, FR, IT, LT, NL); creating an online catalogue of over 60 disciplinary and transversal modules which have passed the selection criteria for cross-institution recognition; developing a system for technology-enabled credentials; laying the ground for wider take-up via the ECCOE-System network and piloting, by producing and disseminating the supporting documentation that institutional stakeholders need. ECCOE's primary target audience includes the three main parties directly concerned by cross-institution credit recognition. Within HEIs, both academic staff, such as programme directors, teachers and faculty deans, and professional staff working in international and legal departments or student administration units. By closely involving these stakeholders in the project processes from the start, the partnership will ensure that all outputs are designed to take into account the reality of work within HEIs. Students themselves, as owners of their credentials, will be able to benefit from being able to validate credits at course or module level to count towards qualifications offered by another university, or even simply to valorise these credits when applying for jobs. In this respect, targeting companies with a view to increasing trust is a further priority of the project. Finally, a secondary audience of researchers, decision makers and policy makers will be targeted with a view to wider dissemination and adoption. In concrete terms, the ECCOE partnership aim to reach 135 high-profile stakeholders through the Multiplier Events, 300 webinar participants and over 5000 interested parties through mailing lists. The project aims for a total of 500 accounts set up on the ECCOE-System with 300-500 individual credentials awarded. The main methodology applied by the ECCOE partnership is that of iterative improvement cycles, mobilising both internal and external expertise through a series of actions: desk research, the production of drafts for peer-review and open consultation, piloting, improvements and final validation. The wider uptake of the ECCOE-System will not only be supported by the involvement of external stakeholders early on in the process, but also by a series of targeted Multiplier Events and dissemination actions through research papers, conferences and social media. The overall impact is expected to be an increase in the endorsement and adoption of technology-enabled credentials. In support of sustainable take-up, ECCOE is committed to the use of open metadata based on ESCO (European Skills, Competences, Qualifications and Occupations), open source codes and Creative Commons licences. The potential longer-term benefits for HEIs include greater efficiency, quality and transparency in offering flexible education for lifelong learning. Students will benefit from increased opportunities in support of transnational mobility as well as improvements in employability, being able to demonstrate competency-based credentials both for degree-level qualifications and for recognition by employers. In wider societal terms, the trust-based ECCOE-System will open up opportunities for citizens to develop intercultural skills and experience through transnational and flexible lifelong learning, more necessary than ever in these Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous (VUCA) times.
The main goal of ECCOE was to facilitate the endorsement and appropriation of open, online and flexible higher education. In support of this overarching objective, the project aimed to increase trust in digital credentials among higher education institutions (HEIs), students, and employers. To this end, ECCOE addressed the main parties directly concerned by recognition. HEIs: academics (programme directors, teachers and faculty deans) and professional staff (in international, legal or student administration units) involved in designing modular learning opportunities and associated credentials. Employers and professional bodies, to raise awareness of the value of micro-credentials in recognising the learning achievements of job applicants and employees. Decision-makers and policy-makers, to help them fully understand the ‘why’ of digital micro-credentialing in order to integrate such approaches into programme design and recognition processes. Students, to help them understand the value of digital micro-credentials as a means to validate credits towards qualifications offered by another university, and to demonstrate their competencies and learning achievements to employers.
ECCOE – the European Credit Clearinghouse for Opening up Education – tackled the issue of digital micro-credentials by developing and implementing a solid, trustworthy system to support the recognition of learning achievements by both higher education institutions and employers. Micro-credentialing took off worldwide during the lifetime of ECCOE (2019-2022) and the project made a considerable contribution to the field by raising awareness, identifying opportunities and barriers for take-up, and by developing, testing and implementing the use of the European Learning Model for improving both the description of modular learning opportunities and the digital credentials which recognise the achievements awarded to learners having completed these learning opportunities. The ECCOE approach was developed in the context of the drive towards more open, online and flexible higher education, in response to the needs of an increasingly diversified student population, and the wider European focus on employability through the development and recognition of competences.