HLC’s Credential Lab is an innovation hub that supports institutions and learners in navigating the complex and growing ecosystem of alternative postsecondary credentials. Our work is focused in two areas: designing a quality assurance system for credential content providers, and supporting institutions and providers to ensure quality learning experiences and outcomes.

The Challenges We’re Addressing

Learners need high-quality credentials that build skills, stack toward degrees, support mobility and provide on-ramps and off-ramps to further education and employment.

Colleges and universities need support and guidance in engaging in high quality external partnerships and transforming their institutional offerings to meet the needs of the 21st century learn-and-work ecosystem.  

Employers, industries, and workforce development organizations need reliable information about credentials and education and training providers. 

While there are an increasing number of alternative credentials and content providers emerging, there is also an overwhelming need to assure quality and to improve transparency for learners and employers.  

Two Solutions 

The Credential Lab is working with multiple teams of diverse and experienced stakeholders to design, test, and offer the following two solutions:

Quality Assurance: A voluntary quality assurance framework and process that will serve to review and endorse short-term credential content providers that demonstrate meeting certain standards. Providers may be organizations or companies that create and/or deliver content or skills training that connects learners to labor market needs, either independently or in partnership with colleges and universities or employers.

Innovation Center: Resources and programming for colleges, universities, and other educational providers to develop high-quality alternative credential programs and to foster effective partnerships among higher education institutions, providers, states, employers, and industries.

Leadership Advisory Board 

The Leadership Advisory Board contributes to the development of the Credential Lab mission, helps ensure alignment and service to the field, and shares feedback on and suggestions for specific services and offerings developed. The Leadership Advisory Board members help HLC impact the development of the field of quality assurance for external credential providers and ensure relevancy and leadership across the credential ecosystem.  

Members

• Daniel Abebe - Vice Provost for Academic Affairs and Governance, University of Chicago; HLC Board Member  
• Jo Blondin – President, Clark State College; HLC Board Chair 
• Naomi Boyer – Senior Vice President of Digital Transformation, Education Design Lab 
• Scott Cheney – CEO, Credential Engine 
• Kristi Clouse – Senior Managing Director of Talent, JobsOhio 
• Don Elliman – Chancellor, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus; HLC Board Member 
• Rufus Glasper – President and CEO, League for Innovation in the Community College 
• Jake Hirsch-Allen – North America Workforce Development and Higher Education System Lead, LinkedIn 
• Morgean Hirt – Director of Credentialing, Association for Talent Development
• Justin Lonon – Chancellor, Dallas College 
• Sukhwant Jhaj – Vice Provost for Academic Innovation and Student Achievement, Arizona State University
• Mautra Staley Jones – President, Oklahoma City Community College 
• Laura Pedrick – Executive Director, UWM Online, University of Wisconsin Milwaukee 
• Chris Rasmussen – Senior Director of Academic Pathways and Innovation, Colorado Department of Higher Education 
• Kevin Reilly – President Emeritus and Regent Professor, University of Wisconsin System; Senior Fellow, Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges
• Geoffrey Roche – Director, Workforce Development, Education & Workforce Solutions, Siemens Healthineers 
• Matt Sigelman – President, The Burning Glass Institute 
• Roy Swift – Executive Director, Workcred 
• Sarah Szurpicki – Director of the Office of Sixty by 30, Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity  
• Holly Zanville – Co-Lead, Credential As You Go; Research Professor and Co-Director of the Program on Skills, Credentials & Workforce Policy, George Washington University 

Quality Assurance Design Team

HLC also has established the initial design team that is creating standards and processes for assuring the quality of credential content providers.

Why HLC?

With almost 1,000 member institutions, HLC has a reputation as an arbiter of higher education quality at scale. In addition to our network and partnerships, HLC has the strategic vision along with the track record of attention to responsible innovation in postsecondary education.

Read more about the history and development of the Credential Lab

Meet HLC’s Credential Lab team

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Creation of HLC’s Credential Lab 

In 2017, HLC, with funding from Lumina Foundation, developed a “think tank” named Partners for Transformation. The Partners for Transformation consisted of 20 thought leaders from across the country. This group represented a cross-section of institutional leaders, national experts and individuals from outside traditional higher education.  The think tank explored a broad range of topics identifying three areas of focus: 

1. Revolution of Post-Secondary Education:  The Unbundling 
2. Student-focused Accrediting Agencies 
3. Relationship to the Triad and Beyond 

The recommendations resulted in a publication, Innovation: Beyond the Horizon and the Future of Higher Education, that was published in April 2019. From the recommendations, HLC defined three topics for future work: 

1. Learner Dynamics – Learner Intent, Learner Outcomes and Learner Record 
2. Innovation Space - Collaboration with a Community of Practice and the Implementation of Innovative Practices 
3. Collaboration Across (and Beyond) the Triad 

Beginning in 2019, HLC’s EVOLVE strategic plan started a multi-phased initiative designed to explore the changing landscape of accreditation and quality assurance.   

In 2020, a new group, called the Stakeholders’ Roundtable, was convened to examine the gaps between the needs in the workforce and higher education. 

This work led to the publication of Evolving: Accreditation and the Credential Landscape in April 2022, in which the Stakeholders’ Roundtable offered specific recommendations for addressing the changing landscape of higher ed, as well as expectations of institutional transparency related to credentials and learner competencies.  

HLC funded a feasibility study to determine if and how HLC could participate in the fast-growing credential space. HLC gathered input from its member institutions in spring 2023 that validated a strong and growing alternative credential market, potential strategic rationales for HLC’s participation, value propositions for HLC members as well as external content providers.  

On September 18, 2023, HLC announced the launch of its Credential Lab as an initiative to provide a member benefit outside of the accreditation relationship.  

Additional Resources

Several external reports and studies also informed this initiative, including but not limited to:

• Credential Engine’s 2022 Report: Counting U.S. Secondary and Postsecondary Credentials Report
• The developing collection of research and resources from Credential As You Go
• Alternative Credentials: Considerations, Guidance, and Best Practices (2022) from AACRAO 

HLC’s Credential Lab Team

Barbara Gellman-Danley, HLC President
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Barbara Gellman-Danley assumed the presidency of HLC in July 2014.  

Previously, Dr. Gellman-Danley was the president of University of Rio Grande/Rio Grande Community College. She previously served as Vice Chancellor of the Ohio Board of Regents, president at Antioch University McGregor, vice president at Monroe Community College, and vice chancellor at the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education. She also held positions at the Oklahoma Educational Television Authority (OETA) and Cox Cable Communications in Oklahoma City. 

Dr. Gellman-Danley currently serves as Chair of the Credential Engine Board and the National Council for State Authorization Reciprocity Agreements (NC-SARA) Executive Committee. Dr. Gellman-Danley holds a B.S. from Syracuse University, a M.L.S. from Simmons College, a M.B.A. from Oklahoma City University, and a Ph.D. in Communication from the University of Oklahoma. She also completed post-graduate work at New York University, Cornell University, Harvard University, the University of Chicago, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 

In April 2019, Dr. Gellman-Danley was awarded Honorary Membership in Phi Theta Kappa due to her lifelong commitment to students, a recognition given less than 40 times in 100 years. 

Dr. Gellman-Danley is a Professional Certified Coach (PCC), a Certified Executive Coach and a Certified Life Coach. She also holds certifications in AGILE and Lean Six Sigma. 

Melanie Booth, Executive Director, HLC Credential Lab 
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Melanie Booth joined HLC to serve as Executive Director of HLC’s Credential Lab in 2023. Prior to joining HLC, she served as Vice President of Educational Programs & Engagement with the National Council for State Authorization Reciprocity Agreements (NC-SARA); Founding Executive Director of The Quality Assurance Commons for Higher and Postsecondary Education; and Vice President of Educational Programs with WASC Senior College and University Commission (WSCUC).  

Her college and university leadership experience includes serving as an academic dean, director of academic and student services departments, and a faculty member at various postsecondary institutions. Dr. Booth has also been an independent consultant working in the intersections of higher education; employability and work-based learning; experiential and community-engaged learning; prior learning assessment and competency-based education; alternative credentials and skills-based learning; and distance education.  

Dr. Booth holds an Ed.D. in Higher Educational Leadership and Change from Fielding Graduate University, a master’s degree in English, Rhetoric and Writing from San Diego State University, and a bachelor’s degree in English, Teacher Preparation from Humboldt State University.

Karen J. Solomon, Vice President and Chief Transformation Officer  
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Karen J. Solomon joined HLC in 2003. Since 2016, she has been leading HLC’s future-focused grant initiatives on innovation, student success, equity, quality awareness and alternative credentials. She is also liaison to a portfolio of member institutions and Director of the Standard Pathway.   

Dr. Solomon presently serves on the Council for the Advancement of Standards in Higher Education (CAS), the Credential As You Go (CAYG) National Advisory Board and the Learn and Work Ecosystem Library Advisory Board.

Previously, Dr. Solomon was the founding Executive Director of Illinois Campus Compact and held leadership roles focused on enrollment management, student affairs and educational research at ACT, Inc and higher education institutions.  She holds an Ed.D. in Adult and Continuing Education from Northern Illinois University.

Eva Sitek, Director of Business Development and Procurement  
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Eva Sitek joined HLC in November of 2011 as Director of Meetings and Events. In 2020 she was named Director of Business Development and Procurement overseeing the expansion of HLC’s geographic region. 

Prior to joining HLC Ms. Sitek was Director of the International Annual Convention at Lions Clubs International and the Federated Group. Her work included managing local and global planning teams throughout Asia, Europe, South and North America. Ms. Sitek previously served as business development manager at Arthur Andersen and a sales and marketing manager at Midway Airlines.  

Ms. Sitek holds a B.A. from University of Illinois-Chicago. Ms. Sitek received leadership training from Cornell University and is a Certified Meeting Planner and SCRUM Master. Her professional development in project management, business development and consulting were honed during her tenure at Arthur Andersen.