A new digital platform rolled out this year showcases the full breadth of knowledge of Northern Michigan University students, offering a more precise individual accounting of the skills they've honed through educational and work experience.
“It's a way for students to keep track of not just what they've learned, but also what they can do,” said Stephanie Zadroga-Langlois, director of Continuing Education and Workforce Development.
Called a Learning and Employment Record, this digital portfolio provides a one-stop-shop to house work history, school credits, certifications, digital badges and skills, whether those skills were obtained through formal education or job experience.
This final aspect is key, said Brad Hamel, Global Campus executive director, as many currently in the workforce have a multitude of skills to offer, but no way to showcase them efficiently.
“Nontraditional learners and adult learners are bringing skills and competencies throughout their lifetime,” Hamel said. “They're earning credentials from their employer, through non-credit educational opportunities and they might have several degrees from different schools. This then, is a platform for them to put that all together in one place and display their skills.”
NMU contracts with Smart Resume to run its platform, called MySkills@NMU, which Hamel said acts as an “NMU-branded backpack” that can keep everything in one, easy-to-use space. That means instead of using a resume with a bulleted list of work history and graduation dates, users will be able to highlight every facet of their educational and work experience, showcasing skills, certificates and other credentials that encompass their entire knowledge base.
“Even if you print a transcript, all it says is the name of the classes you took,” Zadroga-Langlois said. “That's where the digital LER comes into play. The LER is a way to collect your certificates, digital badges – what you learned. It'll tell you everything that you are now competent in because of the courses you took.”
In 2024, NMU was named as one of 25 institutions across the country to the first cohort of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers Learning and Employment Record Accelerator, a national initiative focused on advancing accessible, interoperable LER systems funded in part by by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and a new grant from the Walmart Foundation.
Each participating institution had its own goals in implementing an LER, and Hamel said after NMU's initial acceptance, it became clear NMU was already further along in the process than the rest of the group.
“It was supposed to be an exploratory grant,” Hamel. “Most institutions were looking at how they could implement an LER within their school and we already had the idea, were already engaged with Smart Resume and we had the Evergreen approach already under construction here at Northern.”
Evergreen is NMU's lifelong learning initiative, officially launched in September, which seeks to provide relevant learning opportunities for all stages of life.
“We were already accelerated in the accelerator, and we were launching our LER during the accelerator process,” Hamel said. “Those dollars helped us facilitate that, where other schools were exploring options.”
In addition to housing everything in one place, MySkills@NMU will provide digital proof to employers that the badges, certificates, degrees and microcredentials they are being sent by jobseekers are real. Employers are able to click on the item they're interested in, and MySkills@NMU will verify that the person did, in fact, earn it.
In a letter thanking university staff for their work implementing an LER, Governor Gretchen Whitmer said she was “truly grateful for the contributions [NMU] has made to our state.”
“Your work implementing Learning and Employment Records (LERs) allows students to take full advantage of learning and leadership opportunities, to strengthen their employability outside of the classroom,” she wrote. “I would also like to express my appreciation for your dedication to creating stronger and more well-rounded educational opportunities for your students.
Hamel said he was pleased to receive recognition from the state, citing the work that went into rolling out MySkills@NMU and the benefits it will provide to its users.
“We are honored to be recognized as a leader in the LER space, which includes recognizing skills across a lifetime and applying that towards a learner's educational opportunities and tying that to NMU,” Hamel said.