MicroHE - Supporting learning excellence, OEPass Open education passport

**[[https://microcredentials.eu/|MicroHE]]** aims to provide the most comprehensive policy analysis yet conducted of the impact of modularisation, unbundling and micro-credentialing in European Higher Education, and will address the challenges described above by: • **gathering the state of the art in micro-credentialing in European Higher Education today**, by organizing the first European survey on micro-credentials in HE, surveying at least 70 institutions across the continent, with the aim of understanding the current level of provision, the types of micro-credentials offered and future trends in provision of micro-credentials • **forecasting the impacts of continued modularisation of Higher Education on HE Institutions by** using forward-scanning techniques, specifically through the use of DELPHI methodology • **examining the adequacy of European recognition instruments** for micro-credentials, in particular ECTS, the diploma supplement and qualification frameworks • **proposing a ‘credit supplement’** to give detailed information about micro-credentials in a way compatible with ECTS, the diploma supplement and qualification frameworks • **proposing a meta-data standard and developing an online clearinghouse** to facilitate recognition, transfer and portability of micro-credentials in Europe. **[[https://oepass.eu/|OEPASS]]**: open education passport the recognition and transfer of individual credits through ects was created for an era of physical mobility, and is optimised accordingly. eu recognition instruments, such as the diploma supplement and the eqf, support the award of qualifications in the areas of formal learning, and are supported by recognition procedures for non-formal and informal learning. while these tools can be used to support open education and virtual mobility, a number of caveats exist to their use, including that: • little to no guidance exists on how to document virtual mobility / open education experiences for the purposes of credit transfer; • procedures for recognition of prior learning or of non-formal/informal learning do not scale to the massive numbers of students enrolling in open education programmes such as moocs; • there is no european approach to recognising, transferring or scaling open education modules. these problems are so pronounced, that many open educational providers are creating parallel systems of credentials that are not even described in terms of ects – leading to a situation where millions of students per year are enrolling in open courses offered by universities which do not necessarily award valid or recognised forms of credit. oepass intends to address these issues by creating a standard format for describing open education and virtual mobility experiences in terms of ects which: • addresses common criticisms (lack of trust) of open education, in particular with respect to student assessment and identity; • is scalable to hundreds or thousands of students through automatic issuing and verification of certificates; • can capture a wide range of non-formal and formal open education experiences.