Academic and military educators shared best practices on innovative and collaborative ways to improve educational experiences for soldiers preparing to join various industry ranks at Army University's first educational symposium in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, on December 2-3, 2015. Over 200 attended the event, which included a session on Adopting Nationally Recognized Standards, co-presented by Vijay Krishna, Ed.D., director of personnel credentialing accreditation programs at the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), and Lisa Lutz, ANSI Personnel Certification Accreditation Committee (PCAC) member, with Kent Ervin, chief of policy and governance division at Army University, and Chris Reynolds, Ph.D., dean of academic outreach and program development at American Public University.
The session on adopting nationally recognized standards was structured for experts to share strategies for identifying standards and developing the processes and partnerships that enable soldiers and Army civilians to be awarded appropriate credit for military academic and credentialing education and experience at accredited universities, colleges, and vocational schools.
Dr. Krishna addressed the use of national standards and accreditation under ASTM 2659, Standard Practice for Certificate Programs, and ISO/IEC 17024, Conformity assessment - General requirements for bodies operating certification of persons, to assess the quality of credentialing programs. He noted that in today's environment of new and emerging security threats, private-sector standards and conformity assessment have become hugely important strategic tools for increasing defense preparedness and national security. Even more, in tune with these trends, the last decade has seen the creation of standards related to the training, education, assessment, and credentialing of people.
The session covered the ways in which credentials can contribute to personal and professional career development and enhance the potential for promotion for service members on active duty.
The symposium—which also included sessions on Creating an Innovative Learning Environment, Producing Relevant Curriculum, and Developing World Class Faculty—was intended to introduce the Army University to civilian academic institutions and start an exchange of ideas between military professional educators and civilian academic institutions on cutting-edge learning sciences, professional education, and mutually beneficial program opportunities.
ANSI has a strong history of supporting military service members and veterans through efforts to leverage the credibility and quality of certifications with accreditation programs and other efforts. The ANSI-affiliated organization Workcred helps ensure the credentialing system is relevant and helps employers, workers, and educators and governments use it more effectively. The Credential Transparency Initiative (CTI) - a partnership among Workcred, the George Washington University's Institute of Public Policy, and Southern Illinois University Carbondale's Center for Workforce Development - is driven by a collaborative of stakeholders who also share in the vision of a more coherent and transparent credentialing marketplace.
About the ANSI Accreditation Program
The ANSI Accreditation Program for Personnel Certification Bodies is designed to provide assurance that accredited personnel certifiers has a valid assessment process that measures an individual's competencies and demonstration that s/he has the knowledge and skills necessary for practice. The standard requires that the certification be developed and operated in an overall quality framework with emphasis on continuous improvement. An independent third party accreditation provides industry confidence in the legitimacy of a certification program. ANSI also carries out important work through the ANSI Certificate Accreditation Program (ANSI-CAP), which accredits organizations that issue education and training assessment-based certificates based on the requirements of an American National Standard. By demonstrating compliance to this standard, accredited certificate programs give employers confidence that certificate-holding workers have acquired relevant knowledge and skills, producing a more qualified workforce.
To learn more about ANSI's accreditation activities, visit www.ansi.org/accreditation.
For more on the event, see Army University's website.