Open Learning and Formal Credentialing in Higher Education: Curriculum Models and Institutional Policies

The discipline of education is a multi-faceted system that must constantly integrate new strategies and procedures to ensure successful learning experiences. Enhancements in education provide learners with greater opportunities for growth and advancement. "Open Learning and Formal Credentialing in Higher Education: Curriculum Models and Institutional Policies" is an authoritative reference source for the latest scholarly research on learner-focused approaches within adult education environments. Featuring expansive coverage on topics relating to open education, lifelong learning, and formal qualifications, this book is a crucial reference source for researchers, educators, policy makers, and educational administrators interested in the relationship between formal credentials and open education. This book features timely, research-based chapters across a variety of relevant topics including, but not limited to, educational resources, lifelong learning achievements, and the benefits of formal qualifications and licensing. After a foreword by Kathleen P. King and a preface by the editors, chapters in this book include: (1) Conceptualising Recognition of Prior Learning Processes in the Age of Open Learning (Elizabeth Ruinard and Judith McNamara); (2) Australian Universities' RPL Policies and Practices: What Knowledge Counts? (Tim Pitman and Lesley Vidovich); (3) Rediscovering the North American Legacy of Self-Initiated Learning in Prior Learning Assessments (Xenia Coulter and Alan Mandell); (4) Innovating Processes to Determine Quality alongside Increased Inclusivity in Higher Education (Nick Kelly, Rory Sie, and Robert Schuwer); (5) Enabling Meaningful Certificates from Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs): A Data-Driven Curriculum E-Map Design Model (Yianna Vovides and Sarah Inman); (6) Smaller by Design: How Good Practice Features from MOOCS can be Adapted to Enhance Core Curricula Delivery (David Lyon, Lynette Steele, and Cath Fraser); (7) Re-Purposing MOOCs and OER for Academic Credit in the UK Using a Flexible Work Based Learning Program at an English University (Jon Talbot); (8) Developing a Transdisciplinary Work-Based Learning Curriculum: A Model for Recognising Learning from Work (Darryll Bravenboer and Barbara Workman); (9) eRPL and ePR in Higher Education Contexts (Roslyn Cameron and Linda Pfeiffer); (10) Considerations of Self in Recognising Prior Learning and Credentialing (Lloyd Hawkeye Robertson and Dianne Conrad); (11) Toward an Open Empowered Learning Model of Pedagogy in Higher Education (Robyn Smyth, Carina Bossu, and Adrian Stagg); (12) Open-Sourced Personal, Networked Learning and Higher Education Credentials (Merilyn Childs and Regine Wagner); (13) Quality Assessment and Certification in Open Scholarly Publishing and Inspiration for MOOC Credentialing (Xiang Ren); and (14) Equity and Access as Keys for Opening Open Learning: The Case for Virtually Facilitated Work- Based Learning (Luke Van Der Laan and Liz Neary). A section about the contributors and an index are included.