The University Network of Postgraduate Studies and Lifelong Learning (RUEPEP) aims to promote contact between Spanish universities on the specific subject of postgraduate studies and continuing education, both from the academic point of view and its specialized management.
This week, the University of Cantabria hosted a RUEPEP technical conference on micro-credentials, which brought together 150 managers, 50 in person and 100 via videoconference, from Spanish higher education institutions to share experiences.
The debate in the university context regarding micro-credentials has intensified since the publication of Royal Decree 822/2021 of September 28, 2021, which establishes the organization of university education and the procedure for quality assurance, and which states that “universities may offer their own courses of less than 15 ECTS credits that may or may not require a previous university degree, in the form of micro-credentials or micro-modules, which allow the certification of learning outcomes linked to short-term training activities”.
“In this context, the main objective of this technical conference is to learn more in depth about the characteristics of these micro-credentials; to share successful experiences of universities; to analyze whether we can have common objectives among all universities for their design and what is being done elsewhere,” says Cristina Sanz, president of RUEPEP.
María José González, Vice-Rector for University Degrees and Distance Learning at the University of Cantabria, explains that as a result of these regulations, “the universities are rethinking, in particular, how to offer this type of training, which is why we have promoted meetings like this one, and also in the CRUE Spanish Universities environment, to address a common format, a homogeneity in the design of these micro-credentials”.
Among the experiences that have been presented, Carlos Delgado Kloos from the Carlos III University of Madrid has presented the CertiDigital project, and Lluis Alfons Ariño from the Rovira i Virgili University has presented the Europass platform as a key infrastructure of the project.