About microcredentials and short courses

Background

To be responsive to market opportunities and to ensure our micros and short courses are viable we are focusing on building micros quickly.  The sprint process is set up to be an accelerator of design and development allowing us to get micros and short courses into market in six weeks.

Our success criteria are three pronged. The micro or short course must:

  1. meet the needs of industry,
  2. be attractive and attainable to our participants and
  3. be viable and/or strategic for the university.

If we can’t meet all three of these it is unlikely to be successful or worthwhile. The sprint process is designed to help us get to this answer as quickly as possible and with minimum investment.

Our priorities

In line with the unique nature of this type of short form learning, it is imperative that we are intentional with our investment of time and resources to ensure we are successful in our micro and short course offerings. This includes taking a more strategic view on micro opportunities such as those aligned to faculty priorities and strengths, market scanning for demand, alignment to the government’s Skills Priority List, industry partner needs and our community needs.

Charles Sturt will invest in the following types of micro-credentials to remain aligned to our Education Strategy Vision:

  1. Where there is a strategic imperative as determined by the DVC Academic
  2. Skills focused short form learning for the broader market that aligns to an industry need.
  3. In partnership with industry with a primary intent to revenue sharing
  4. Areas where Charles Sturt has established high impact research recognition, particularly as aligned to the research strategy

In essence, investment in high quality microcredentials and short courses will meet an industry need and deliver skills-based learning. Every microcredential will be informed by market data and analytics. Unless determined to be a strategic imperative by the DVCA, micro-credentials will generate revenue or be cost neutral, and this decision will be decided by the Executive Dean/ ADA prior to development.

More information

Review the Course types and considerations page for more information about microcredentials and short courses. You can also email microcredentials@csu.edu.au