2018 Badge Summit Preview | Interview with Anne Reed
A conversation with University of Buffalo’s Director of Micro-Credentials and Digital Badges
One of the reasons I was excited to connect with Anne Reed for this interview is her job title: Director of Micro-Credentials and Digital Badges. How cool is that?!?!
Anne is leading efforts at University of Buffalo to take Digital Badge Credentials institution-wide. She’ll be sharing this work at the 2018 Badge Summit.
You might have the coolest job title of anyone attending Badge Summit. What’s the background of how that came about and how has it been received by colleagues on campus?
Thank you! It is a great position, one that allows me to start something new on campus, and to serve students in a way that we haven’t done before.The position was formed as a result of more than a year of work by a committee here on campus that was exploring the use of micro-credentials and digital badges in higher education and how we might use them to offer more flexible, customized learning pathways. Much of my work to-date has been informing the campus about digital badges, what they are and how they can be both motivational tools and dynamic credentials. This message has been well-received and we are moving forward with eleven programs this upcoming fall, and twenty more the following spring semester. I was both surprised and delighted by the amount of interest in digital badges, as well as the fact that this interest spans so many areas of the university. We intend to offer a variety of types of programs, including academic, co-curricular, and continuing/professional education.
Going university-wide with your launch is super inspiring and also frightening to folks like me who favor starting small. What do you see as the special conditions in place at University of Buffalo that allowed you to go so big right out of the gate?
We really are taking a big leap by offering a wide variety of digital badge programs right out of the gate. Fortunately, the provost’s office is backing this initiative. My office is under the purview of the Vice Provost for Educational Affairs, so with the support of that academic leadership we are able to get buy-in from faculty, which has been instrumental. I’m really lucky to do this work on a campus that is receptive to innovation. I realize that most institutions do not take this “top-down” approach but even with the support of UB’s leadership the effort still has a grassroots’ quality in that I am an office of one and I am trying to educate a campus of over 6,000 faculty and staff, trying to convince them that digital badges will benefit our students, even though we have no hard evidence to support this claim! Our first digital badges are very much a pilot and I look forward to learning how badges are perceived and what specific benefits are identified by the earners, so that we can maximize these benefits to continue to develop and offer strong programs.
When communicating with such a diverse group of stake-holders within the same institution, from academics and continuing education to co-curricular leaders, what strategies have you found helpful to the messaging and buy-in?
I try to keep the message as simple as possible. The faculty and staff here on campus help students to gain a breath of knowledge, experience, and skills. Digital badges can enable our students to better articulate those skills in this increasingly competitive job market. The message has to be about helping the students to meet their academic and professional goals –this is something that we are all interested in, the students are the common ground.
What are YOU looking forward to about the 2018 Badge Summit?
I look forward to just learning as much as I possibly can in one day, and bringing what I learn back to my campus to continue the work.
Join us in Chicago on June 23rd for the 2018 Badge Summit! Click over to the official website for registration and additional information.
And fuel your excitement for the conference with other preview interviews:
