Credentialing

Integration Facilitates Sharing of Credentials Across State Lines

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 05/20/20

Two learning credential companies are working together to help states set up reciprocity agreements in credential recognition. Merit and Credential Engine said the tools they're making available to customers will help workers make sense of shared credentials across borders.

Merit produces a verified identity platform that helps organizations standardize and centralize digital records for professional licenses and qualifications.

Credential Engine makes software and resources to facilitate credential and competency transparency and interoperability, including Credential Transparency Description Language (CTDL), a common language to describe credential information. The company also runs the Credential Registry, an online library that collects, maintains and connects information on all types of credentials; and the Credential Finder, which allows people to explore competencies, learning outcomes and occupations where they're used.

Under the new agreement, Merit's customers can incorporate CTDL to enable credential comparisons across state lines. According to the two companies, this is important as states build more reciprocity agreements, to help workers with certain credentials in one state transfer them to an equivalent certification in another state.

"We need to improve the professional licensing processes that the 40 million credentialed workers in the United States rely on, as well as the entire post-secondary and industry credentialing infrastructure," said Hannah Burke, Merit's vice president of government solutions, in a statement. "By partnering with Credential Engine, we're helping states take steps towards reciprocity, as well as helping people discover the full value of the credentials they've earned and where those skills can take them."