AMES, Iowa — Iowa State University is offering a new, shortened version of learning.

It’s roughly a year into the program and popularity is growing on campus. The university is offering micro-credential courses that are geared toward obtaining short learning experiences that focus on career skills as well as soft, transferable skills for both students and career professionals.

The program was officially launched October 2024, but has only been growing. It currently offers around 80 courses and nearly 600 people have already completed a course in the past year. Right now, it is geared more toward Iowa State undergraduate and graduate students.

The university does currently offer some micro-credentials for people already in the workforce who want to add more experience or get expanded opportunities. These credentials are also for people looking for a career change and need new experiences.

All classes are taught by Iowa State University professors and no third party learning systems are used. Tanya Austin, Professional Learning and Micro-Credential Programming Specialist, talked about what started the conversation to start the micro-credentials program.

“These are really complimentary opportunities to build those skills that are rapidly changing,” Austin said. “As you know, institutions are not as agile and can pivot quickly. And so this is a great solution to be able to identify those skill gaps that employers are saying that they need right now and to quickly roll something out to ensure that our learners have the most current skills that industries are looking for.”

Courses can be completed within weeks, and some within a few days. Those that complete the courses are awarded with a badge as an achievement. Austin said that the digital badges have metadata attached to them so employers can directly see what the person did to complete the micro-credential. This allows transparency and keeps the value of the achievement high.

Austin also said that Iowa State is the first university in Iowa to have a centralized approach to this type of learning, but is excited for the program to catch traction at other universities as well.

To learn more about micro-credentials at Iowa State University, click here.