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Digital badges can provide condensed competency-based knowledge enabling individuals a chance to explore specialized careers in clinical research. A digital badge can be an efficient pathway to introduce clinical research job roles and educate a larger diverse workforce for clinical research coordinator positions at AMCs. The New Jersey Alliance for Clinical and Translational Science (NJ ACTS) developed a digital badge with potential to broaden exposure to training opportunities for CRCs and improve their prospects for a career at Rutgers. This paper describes the development of a digital badge introducing individuals to the clinical research profession, especially for those who aspire to become a CRC. The badge was designed to include five domains (Scientific Concepts and Research Design, Ethical and Participant Safety Considerations, Clinical Study Operations and Site Management, and Data Management and Informatics). Participants assessed the badge for accuracy and presentation level. The results demonstrated that the competencies were met, and content was appropriate for someone with limited knowledge of clinical research. Survey results along with the Difficulty Index and Discrimination Index calculated for quiz questions supported the badge rank as foundational. Research is ongoing to evaluate the value of the badge to job acquisition, performance, and career growth.

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Clinical Research Professionals (CRPs) are essential members of the Clinical and Translational Research Workforce. Many academic medical institutions struggle to recruit and retain these vital team members. One strategy to increase job satisfaction and promote the retention of CRPs is through educational initiatives that provide training and professional development. The South Carolina Clinical and Translational Research (SCTR) Institute Workforce Development (WD) team at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) developed several trainings as part of our larger educational portfolio for CRPs. In 2022 WD implemented a digital badge micro-credential for SCTR's Core Clinical Research Training (CCRT) course in collaboration with institution-wide education and technology offices. Beginning in January 2023, individuals were able to earn the CCRT Certified Digital Badge upon successful completion of the CCRT course.

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The purpose and rise of formal academic programs in gerontology at colleges and universities has been well documented over the last fifty years. What has been less well-documented is the rise of alternative pathways to gerontology training and gerontological competence, including micro-credentialing. Micro-credentials (MCs) are intended to provide quick-to-complete, competency-based education around specific topics to demonstrate relevant skills to employers. Little is known about the prevalence of micro-credentialing related to gerontology. To address this gap, we conducted an environmental scan of existing aging-related micro-credentialing opportunities. We identified 89 MCs with an explicit aging focus, applied strict inclusion criteria (narrowing the sample to 54 MCs included in the analysis), and examined the characteristics of the MCs' scope and nature. Most MCs focused on aging-related health/disease conditions, highlighting the decline mentality underlies such training. Future efforts should entail analysis of the competencies addressed by MCs as it is critical to ensure alignment between gerontological MCs and established gerontological competencies and standards and to differentiate MCs from formal academic programs.

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Cultural safety training is a resource that healthcare institutions and staff can rely on to end anti-Indigenous racism in their organisations and to shift service providers' attitudes, beliefs, and knowledge of Indigenous people. The aim of this study was to understand the initial knowledge and interest about Indigenous Peoples that a southern Ontario public health unit's (PHU) staff hold. A cultural safety micro-credential project was developed in consultation with the PHU. An online survey was administered from January to March 2021 to those who were starting the micro-credential during this timeframe (n = 31). Thirty-one staff responded. A majority of the participants indicated that they had some knowledge of Indigenous Peoples and that this knowledge was relevant to their work. The number of interactions with Indigenous Peoples varied by role. Common themes for the open-ended responses included culture, relationships, and supports/services. Many of the open-ended responses highlighted feelings of not knowing enough and wanting to learn more about Indigenous Peoples. These results indicate a shift in attitudes, behaviours, and knowledge of Indigenous Peoples among the PHU staff. Cultural safety training can serve to address knowledge gaps and contribute to creating the systemic change needed to end anti-Indigenous racism in healthcare institutions.

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Micro-credentials have gained much popularity in recent years, and their popularity has skyrocketed due to emergency remote teaching instigated by the pandemic. It has been defined as a platform that provides credentials based on validated competencies. Nevertheless, in Malaysian HEI, such a concept is still novel and identifying insights on the benefits, challenges, and application are still scarce. Similarly, it was observed that there is a lack of observation on how students' digital learning identity and their perception of professional relevance are influenced by such platform. Henceforth, based on the adapted enriched virtual model approach, a micro-credentials course was implemented to complement the new "normal" classes for a pre-service teacher's instructional design course. A mixed-method triangulation design was used to explore the qualitative findings operationalized by open-ended questions (N = 74) with data obtained from the Digital Learning Identity Survey (DLIS) and Constructivist On-Line Learning Environment Survey (COLLES) (N = 72). The findings indicated that respondents had an overall positive perception of the use of micro-credentials to complement and overcome online learning challenges mainly due to substandard internet connectivity; nevertheless, they are unaware of the value of such credentials in their future profession. Conversely, their new identity as digital learners and experiences with a blended approach of online learning, especially with micro-credentials, was successful in shaping their identity as aspiring educators that embrace technology for teaching and learning.

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Increasingly, among international organizations concerned with unemployment rates and industry demands, there is an emphasis on the need to improve graduates' employability skills and the transparency of mechanisms for their recognition. This research presents the Employability Skills Micro-credentialing (ESMC) methodology, designed under the EPICA Horizon 2020 (H2020) project and tested at three East African universities, and shows how it fosters pedagogical innovation and promotes employability skills integration and visibility. The methodology, supported by a competency-based ePortfolio and a digital micro-credentialing system, was evaluated using a mixed-method design, combining descriptive statistics and qualitative content analysis to capture complementary stakeholder perspectives. The study involved the participation of 13 lecturers, 169 students, and 24 employers. The results indicate that the ESMC methodology is a promising approach for supporting students in their transition from academia to the workplace. The implementation of the methodology and the involvement of employers entails rethinking educational practices and academic curricula to embed employability skills. It enables all actors to broaden their understanding of the relationship between higher education and the business sector and to sustain visibility, transparency, and reliability of the recognition process. These findings indicate that there are favourable conditions in the region for the adoption of the approach, which is a meaningful solution for the stakeholder community to address the skills gap.

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BACKGROUND: As technology advances, the gap between learning and doing continues to close-especially for frontline academic faculty and clinician educators. For busy clinician faculty members, it can be difficult to find time to engage in skills and professional development. Competing interests between clinical care and various forms of academic work (e.g., research, administration, education) all create challenges for traditional group-based and/or didactic faculty development. METHODS: The authors engaged in a synthetic narrative review of literature from several unrelated fields: learning technologies, medical education/health professions education, general/higher education. The aim for this review was to synthesize this pre-existing literature to propose a new conceptual model. RESULTS: The authors propose a new conceptual model, the Just-In-Time Learning Loop, to guide the development of online faculty development for just-in-time delivery. CONCLUSIONS: The Just-In-Time Learning Loop is a new conceptual framework that may be of use to those engaging in online, digital learning design. Faculty developers, especially in emergency medicine, can integrate leading concepts from the technology-enhanced learning field (e.g., microlearning, micro-credentialing, badging) to create new types of learning experiences for their end-users.

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The rise of the digital revolution has disrupted entire industries and job markets, leading individuals to either upgrade or transfer their skills in order to continue within their designated fields or transition to new workplace contexts. Employers expect their employees to apply their knowledge to real-world settings, analyze and solve problems, connect choices to actions, and innovate and create. Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated changes to the educational landscape by forcing online and remote contexts; physical distancing and other preventive measures have necessitated a shift towards increasing the use of disruptive digital technologies- extended reality (e.g., virtual and augmented reality), gaming, and additive manufacturing-in simulation delivery. Yet Canada's economic and demographic data suggests that many new graduates struggle to transition from school to working life. The confluence of these factors has led to a need for both individuals and higher education institutions to upgrade and adapt to new digital techniques and modalities. As these needs grow, simulation-based education (SBE) techniques and technologies-already an integral part of training for some professions, including nursing, medicine, and various other health professions-are increasingly being used in digital contexts. In this editorial, we provide our perspective of the socio-technological movement associated with health-professions education (HPE) within the SBE context and examine the application and implementation of micro-credentialing within this field. We also discuss the various levels of expertise that learners may acquire. From this vantage point, we address how SBE can complement the assessment of competencies that learners must demonstrate to attain micro-credentials and explore micro-credentialing's advantages for, and use in, HPE.