Employers are increasingly selecting and developing employees based on skills rather than qualifications. Governments now have a growing focus on skilling, reskilling and upskilling the workforce through skills-based development rather than qualifications as a way of improving productivity. Both these changes are leading to a much stronger…

This article responds to the rise of the micro-credential movement. It evidences the heightened attention politicians, policy-makers and educational leaders are giving to micro-credentials by framing the discussion in several recent high-level policy developments, an exponential growth in the number of academic publications and the increasing…

Evaluating courses' impact on diverse stakeholders can be immensely valuable as a means of identifying ways in which curriculum can better support learners' personal and professional development and achieve wider societal aims. Yet, few empirical evaluation studies exist exploring the impact of microcredentials. This article reports a study…

The dynamics of change in the work environment are becoming more dizzying, given that adopting new technologies generates new knowledge and jobs. This research analyzed a case study of a Mexican university implementing alternative credentials. The method was instrumental case study research, with exploratory and descriptive categories, applying…

There is increasing interest around the use of microcredentials for upskilling, employability, professional development, and reaching a wide range of learners. However, little discussion exists around the use of microcredentials to contribute towards broader qualifications and accreditation. This paper investigates the use of a series of…

The blending learning model, a combination of onsite and online learning modalities formulated by relevant pedagogies, modalities, and technologies, offers learning experiences that involve the different factors shaping each modality, such as time, space, path, and pace, through sequential or parallel designs. In its relatively short history, this…

This paper is based on the authors' experiences and reflections working in educational technology and design support roles in higher education during the COVID-19 pandemic. We retrace our lived experience from the beginning of the pandemic in the spring (from our vantage points in the UK and Canada) and the associated 'pivot online' enacted in…

Academic libraries are among the organizations advocating for open educational resources (OER), often playing a key campus role in education, advocacy, and support of their creation and publication. Publication of OER resonates with the role of the academic library. Because "incongruence in perceptions" (Chtena 2019: 24) can cause…

We educators may have been obsessed with perfection, expertise, polished experiences and performances too much for too long. Where is the human? Ironed out? This provocative opinion paper is a collection of the authors' reflections based on experiences, observations, ideas and readings. We invite educators to consider and explore what may help…

COVID-19, in addition to disrupting the global education system in general, is widening the economic and racial gaps institutions have spent years trying to address. The economic reality is that students who work to support themselves, their families, and purchase educational materials needed to succeed have been disproportionately harmed. This…

The COVID-19 pandemic has raised significant challenges for universities. Digital inclusion "of all learners regardless of their circumstances, learning prerequisites and needs" is a major challenge (Walgenbach, Compes & Lambrich 2019: 9, authors' translation). Starting with accessibility and related concepts such as digital…

This paper positions Open Educational Practices (OEP) as adding significant value to pandemic-era online learning. Much of online learning during COVID was characterised as being low quality, and an emphasis on providing care began to override the impact that reformed pedagogy could have in caring for students. Concepts of Indigenous Knowledge…

The COVID-19 crisis has led to a rapid pivot to online teaching and student engagement across higher education internationally, due to public health 'lockdown' measures. In March 2020 in the UK this move was sudden, and universities were forced to move their provision to digital formats with little preparatory time, and in many cases, inadequate…

Throughout 2020, and into 2021, national governments were forced at different times to impose 'lockdown' on traditional approaches to education to cope with the impact of COVID-19. Higher education institutions (HEI) with face-to-face models scrambled to 'pivot' to distance and online learning. Whilst originally conceived as a temporary measure,…

The COVID-19 pandemic started off a process that would drastically change the ways to teach and learn, deepening and accelerating the relationship between technologies and educational processes, reshaping the Higher Education scenario. The emergency challenged Universidad de la República, the main public university in Uruguay, which in turn…