Building the Future Learner Record: Insights from U.S. Higher Education

Across the United States, a quiet transformation is reshaping how learner data is captured, validated, and shared. Institutions are implementing open standards to build Learning and Employment Records (LERs) that serve educational and workforce goals—making learner achievements visible, portable, and aligned with opportunity.

This session will share what’s working in U.S. higher education—from open badge implementations to comprehensive learner records and credential wallets. These efforts are rooted in interoperability, equity, and a broader strategy to modernize the connection between education and employment.

We’ll examine how universities and colleges are:

- Using open standards to capture learning wherever it happens—inside and outside the classroom.

- Empowering students with secure, portable records that travel across systems and borders.

- Collaborating with employers, workforce boards, and edtech providers to bring coherence to credential ecosystems.

While drawn from U.S. institutions, these examples offer ideas, not prescriptions—a global conversation about what’s possible when open standards are applied with intent.

Top Three Takeaways:

1) See what’s working: Get a clear view of how open standards are used in the U.S. to support student success and workforce alignment.

2) Design for interoperability: Learn how institutions build LERs that integrate skills, credentials, and employment outcomes.

3) Inform your next move: Gather practical insights to inform national, regional, or institutional strategies in Europe.

This session is for anyone shaping education systems to share solutions and imagine what’s next when technology, policy, and purpose align.

Transcript

1. Building the Future Learner Record: Insights from U.S. Higher Education Eric Stoller eric@territorium.com
2. Introducing Territorium Territorium is a global education technology company that connects learners to careers using verified skills. Territorium enables educators and organizations to test, measure, and record learning and skills wherever they happen. Territorium’s LifeJourney credentialing ecosystem features a Learning and Employment Record (LER), a Comprehensive Learner Record (CLR) of achievements with built-in badging, an interoperable credential wallet and skills-based career pathways. Certified by 1EdTech and supporting over 13 million users worldwide, Territorium partners with education service providers, foundations, education ministries, K-12 systems, post-secondary institutions, and workforce providers.
3. Why does this matter • Trusted Verification – LERs, CLRs, and badges give employers and institutions confidence that skills and achievements are authentic and current. • True Portability – Learner records travel across campuses, borders, and platforms without loss of meaning or data. • Richer Skill Visibility – Verified, skill-level data goes beyond course titles to show real capabilities gained inside and outside the “classroom.” • Future-Ready Ecosystem – Interoperability ensures today’s records remain usable as technologies, jobs, and policies evolve.
4. • MSU focuses on both faculty and learner education related to credentialing • MSU president’s goal = reinventing the transcript • Broad participation in credential creation and design across campus • Single Sign On (SSO) + integration with Canvas (LMS)
5. • ASU focuses on skills that learners demonstrate via their on- campus employment, identified as Work Integrated Learning (WIL) • Learners demonstrate National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) Competencies and use LifeJourney to upload evidence of their skills for supervisors to review and award • ASU’s implementation of LifeJourney includes a direct connection to
6. • UMGC focuses their credentialing efforts at the academic program level. The work with Territorium began with the Transformational Leadership Program which recognizes skills of the program’s veteran-only enrollment • Learners demonstrate TLP skills across signature assignments embedded in 5 courses • Next, UMGC identifies skills within their new MBA program for both specialization and program-level achievement • UMGC takes a skills-forward approach in its credentialing future and sees this as a competitive necessity
7. • Territorium is the first and only U.S. provider able to issue the 1EdTech TrustEd Credential. Built on the OB3 standard, the 1EdTech TrustEd credential offers more robust metadata to bolster validity • Wichita State University is the first to issue a TrustEd credential and does so through its SPERO business program • WSU is expanding credentialing into its experiential learning program, a broad-based certification of completion that recognizes requirements of graduation, primarily focused on durable skills • Up next for WSU is credentialing the fieldwork completed within Criminal Justice Institute
8. • NWFSC mapped skills and credentials for all 70+ career pathway programs. • They issue end-of-program credentials for these pathways. Using CIP-to-SOC* coding embedded in LifeJourney, NWFSC learners can discover related career and learning opportunities that are aligned to real time job openings ( ) • NWFSC also credentials its first-year student College Success Program • A semester-long experience orients students to higher education • Durable skills microcredentials awarded based on signature assignments within the course *CIP (Classification of Instructional Programs): U.S. Department of Education codes that classify college and university academic programs by field of study. SOC (Standard Occupational Classification): U.S. Department of Labor codes that classify occupations and job types.
10. Learners • Interoperable credential wallet • Send/share/post/submit • Web and app enabled • Learning & Employment Record • Career pathway guidance • Real-time job opportunities Institutions • Open Badges 3.0, CLR 2.0, Stackable, TrustEd credentials • Single Sign-On • Learning Management System (LMS) integration (1EdTech LTI) • SmartResume integration • Data analytics by user, cohort, program, pathway, campus • Support, support, support . . .
11. Eric Stoller eric@territorium.com