WF-22 — Micro-credential Design, Approval and Issuance

The micro-credential component of KPI 2.5 tops out at a 50% attainment rate. An embedded micro-credential taken by every graduate therefore scores 100 on that component with room to spare, and the surplus is wasted rather than banked. That single fact, combined with the reading that health professions education is not tied to a mandatory practice licence, makes this the highest return-per-effort curriculum change available anywhere in this pilot after the mandatory practicum. It also has a second, larger prize attached: IoL micro-credentials taken by students on MBRU's other programmes raise the institutional attainment rate for the whole university, on a KPI carrying 5.0% of the institutional score. The constraint that governs everything is that only credentials on the MoHESR pre-approved list, or approved by the Ministry, count. An internally invented certificate counts for nothing, however good it is.

1. Purpose

To ensure that IoL designs, obtains approval for, delivers and issues micro-credentials and short qualifications that are recognised by the Ministry, that every learner who is entitled to one obtains it and has it recorded on an academic record that can be produced on demand, and that the resulting attainment is counted accurately for the cohort and at the level to which it belongs.

2. Scope

Scope statement. This process manages micro-credentials and short qualifications from the identification of a credential need, through design, Ministry approval, curriculum embedding or open offer, learner enrolment, assessment, attainment determination and certificate issuance, to the recording of attainment in the HEDB datasets and the assembly of both components of KPI 2.5.

Applies to. Micro-credentials and short qualifications designed by IoL for its own learners on PGDipHPE and MScHPE (Channel C1); micro-credentials offered by IoL to students on MBRU's other programmes and to external participants (Channel C2); short courses adopted from the MoHESR pre-approved list; and the licence component of KPI 2.5 as it applies to IoL's programmes, including the classification of those programmes as tied or not tied to a mandatory professional licence.

Does not apply to. The delivery lifecycle of non-credit CPD/CME activity generally, which is WF-21; this workflow receives candidates from it. Credit-bearing courses within the accredited programmes, which are WF-03 and WF-09. Graduate licensure tracking as an alumni outcome, which is WF-25; this workflow defines what the licence component needs and WF-25 collects it. Certificates of attendance, which are not attainments and are never counted here.

Applicable requirements. OBEF guide v11.5 KPI 2.5; HEDB MicroStudents and Micro-Graduates datasets and the HEDB lookup MICROCREDENTIALS; CHEDS Students - Graduates.xlsx and Graduate Licensure.xlsx; CHEDS Master API specification 18 February 2026, fields OBF2.5.N, OBF2.5.D, OBF2.5.R, OBF2.5M; MoHESR micro-credential approval requirements and the pre-approved short-course list; CAA requirements where a credential is embedded in an accredited programme; MBRU academic records policy [IoL to confirm].

The formula that governs everything below, stated precisely because the detail decides the design.

50% x calibrated score of:
       Eligible graduates from the cohort that graduated THREE ACADEMIC YEARS BEFORE the
       reporting period who had obtained a mandatory professional licence by reporting time
       ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
       Total eligible graduates in that same cohort

+ 50% x calibrated score of:
       Graduates of the REPORTING-YEAR cohort who obtained at least one short qualification
       during their studies
       ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
       Total graduates in that same cohort

Each component is converted to a 0 to 100 score against its own threshold row, and only then are the two averaged. Averaging the raw ratios before calibration produces a different and wrong answer, because the two rows have different top anchors. The two components use different cohorts by design: the licence component looks back three academic years, the micro-credential component looks at the current reporting year. Reading the licence component against the current cohort is the most common error on this KPI.

The thresholds, which are the reason this workflow exists.

What qualifies as a short qualification. Short courses that are either on a pre-approved MoHESR list and meet its criteria, or micro-credentials approved by the Ministry after being developed by a MoHESR-licensed HEI. Internally invented certificates do not count.

What "obtaining" means. Successfully passing all requirements and receiving the certificate. An attempt does not count. For multi-level credentials, every intermediate level the student achieves is counted. Universities may also count graduates who obtained a micro-credential optionally during their studies, even outside the formal curriculum, which is a materially wider numerator than an embedded credential alone.

3. Trigger, boundary and endpoint

4. SIPOC

5. Accountability

Process owner. IoL Director of Programmes, or the role able to take an embedding decision to curriculum governance and to commit IoL to the Ministry approval process and its lead time.

Escalation.

6. Process steps

1. Identify the credential need and both target cohorts. Two distinct markets, and the design serves them differently. Cohort one: IoL's own learners, where an embedded credential drives the programme level KPI 2.5 for PGDipHPE and MScHPE. Cohort two: students on MBRU's other programmes, where an IoL credential taken optionally raises the institutional rate for the whole university. [CAPTURE] need statement, target cohorts, intended level and volume. Serves 2.5 at both levels.

2. Search the MoHESR pre-approved list before designing anything. If a pre-approved short course meets the need, adopting it is faster, cheaper and carries no approval risk. Designing a new credential is the fallback, not the default. [CAPTURE] the search, its date, and the adopt-or-design decision. Serves 2.5. Decision point. Adopt from the list, or design and seek Ministry approval. The two routes have very different lead times, and the embedding decision in step 5 depends on which one is taken.

3. Design the credential, its levels and its assessment. Learning outcomes, level, volume, the assessment that determines attainment, and, where the credential is multi-level, the definition of each intermediate level. [CAPTURE] design specification, level structure, assessment specification, the attainment threshold. Serves 2.5. Design multi-level deliberately, because the counting rule rewards it. For multi-level credentials, every intermediate level the student achieves is counted. A credential structured as three stackable levels therefore produces three countable attainments per learner who completes all three, where a single monolithic credential produces one. State the caveat with the opportunity: the levels must be real, separately assessed and separately certificated, and inventing nominal levels to multiply a count is on the wrong side of the line the charter draws. Design levels because stackable credentials serve practising professionals who study in fragments, and take the counting benefit as a consequence.

4. Submit for Ministry approval, and track it as a dependency with a lead time. A credential developed by a MoHESR-licensed HEI counts once the Ministry has approved it, and not before. [CAPTURE] submission date, Ministry reference, approval date, validity, the HEDB MICROCREDENTIALS lookup value it maps to. Serves 2.5, and it is the gate on everything downstream. This step is the hard constraint on the whole workflow. [IoL to confirm the current MoHESR micro-credential approval route and its typical lead time.] Until an approval reference exists, no attainment on this credential can be counted, and any curriculum embedding that assumes otherwise will produce graduates whose credential does not qualify.

5. Decide embedding or open offer, and take the embedding decision to curriculum governance. [CAPTURE] the decision, the governing body, the date, and the study plan reference where embedded. Serves 2.5 at programme level (embedding) and institution level (open offer).

   Route	Cohort reached	Effect
   Embedded in the PGDipHPE and MScHPE study plans	Every IoL graduate	Programme-level attainment rate approaches 100%, which scores 100 on a row that tops out at 50%
   Open offer to MBRU students on other programmes	Students across the university	Raises the institutional attainment rate. IoL's largest possible indirect contribution to MBRU's score
   Open offer to external participants	Practising professionals outside MBRU	No KPI 2.5 effect, since they are not MBRU graduates. May support KPI 3.4 through WF-21 and WF-24

   Note what the third row means, because it is easy to misread. External participants do not appear in any KPI 2.5 denominator or numerator, so a commercially successful external credential contributes nothing to this KPI. That is not an argument against offering it; it is an argument against counting it.

6. Enrol and register learners on the credential, at enrolment rather than at completion. [CAPTURE] learner identifier, credential identifier, Program Code where the learner is on an accredited programme, enrolment date, level enrolled. Serves the HEDB MicroStudents dataset. Registering at enrolment rather than at completion is what makes the attempt-versus-attainment distinction visible in the data rather than a matter of interpretation later.

7. Assess and determine attainment. The learner has obtained the credential when they have successfully passed all requirements and received the certificate, and not before. [CAPTURE] assessment outcome, attainment decision, date, level attained. Serves 2.5 numerator. Exception route. A learner who attempts and does not pass is recorded as an attempt. Attempts remain in the enrolment record and never enter the numerator. Deleting them is a data-integrity failure, not a tidy-up, and retaining them is what allows a completion rate to be reported honestly.

8. Issue the certificate and record the attainment on the academic record. The certificate carries a verifiable identifier, the credential title, its Ministry reference, the level attained and the date. The attainment is recorded on the learner's transcript or academic record, not only in a certificate register. [CAPTURE] certificate identifier, transcript entry, date. Serves 2.5 and its Appendix B evidence requirement directly. Appendix B permits the Ministry to demand transcripts or academic records proving students passed or obtained micro-credentials. A certificate register alone does not satisfy that. The transcript entry is the evidence, and it must exist for optionally obtained credentials too, which is the case most likely to be missed.

9. Register the attainment in the HEDB datasets. Populate MicroStudents for enrolment and Micro-Graduates for attainment, mapping the credential to its MICROCREDENTIALS lookup value. [CAPTURE] the dataset rows. Serves 2.5. Decision point. If the credential has no MICROCREDENTIALS lookup value, it is not a recognised credential and the attainment cannot be submitted. Discovering that at extract time is too late; confirm the mapping at step 4.

10. Capture optionally obtained credentials, including those obtained outside the formal curriculum. Ask every graduating cohort, at graduation clearance through WF-10, whether they obtained any short qualification or micro-credential during their studies, and collect the evidence. [CAPTURE] credential, issuer, date, evidence, and the check that it is on the approved list or Ministry-approved. Serves 2.5 numerator. This is a legitimate and materially wider numerator that costs one question at graduation. Learners who are practising health professionals collect credentials continuously, and the guide expressly allows counting those obtained optionally and outside the formal curriculum.

11. Establish and maintain the programme-to-mandatory-licence classification register. For each IoL programme, record whether it is tied to a mandatory professional licence, with the reasoning, the date and a second signature from Quality and IQA. [CAPTURE] classification per Program Code, rationale, date, signatories. Serves 2.5 licence component eligibility. This register does not exist in CHEDS and must be maintained internally. It is the input that determines which graduates are in the licence component's denominator at all.

12. Supply the licence component from the correct cohort. For programmes classified as tied to a mandatory licence, take the cohort that graduated three academic years before the reporting period, and count those who had obtained the licence by reporting time, drawing on WF-25. [CAPTURE] cohort identification, licence awards with dates and numbers, expanded across every achieved level for multi-level licences. Serves 2.5.

13. Calibrate each component separately, then blend 50/50, and state the mechanism. Convert the licence ratio against 0 / 30 / 60 / 90 / 100 and the short-qualification ratio against 0 / 10 / 20 / 40 / 50, each to a 0 to 100 score, and only then average them. [CAPTURE] both ratios, both calibrated scores, the blended result, and the mechanism text for OBF2.5M. Serves 2.5. Record in the mechanism field: the cohorts used for each component, the mandatory-licence classification applied, and the reading taken on the not-tied-to-a-licence provision in section 9.

7. OBEF data generated

Capture rule. Four things must be recorded at the time. The Ministry approval reference and its MICROCREDENTIALS mapping, because a credential without one is unsubmittable and the discovery must not happen at extract. The distinction between an attempt and an attainment, because it is a fact about an assessment decision on a date, and afterwards it is only a certificate that either exists or does not. The transcript entry, because Appendix B asks for the academic record and a certificate register is not one. The optionally obtained credential, because nobody will remember to mention it after graduation and the graduate will have left.

Reproducibility test. A second analyst can reproduce the micro-credential component from Micro-Graduates joined to Students - Graduates.xlsx on the reporting-year cohort, and the licence component from Graduate Licensure.xlsx joined to the same table on the cohort three years prior, filtered by the mandatory-licence classification register. The test fails today at two points: the classification register does not exist in CHEDS and must be created, and the optionally obtained credentials are not collected anywhere [IoL to confirm]. The calibration step is reproducible only if the mechanism field states which cohorts and which classification were used, which is why step 13 treats the mechanism text as an output rather than a formality.

8. Max-score design

Model both readings, because the difference is 2.5 points and IoL does not get to choose.

Reading B is the pessimistic case and is worth modelling precisely because it is the one nobody plans for. Under B, embedding a micro-credential is still worth 2.5 points and is still the second-highest value curriculum change in the pilot. Under A or C it is worth 5.0. Ask MoHESR which reading applies, record the answer in OBF2.5M, and hold it constant across years, because a change of reading between years produces an incoherent three-year average.

What this workflow must do to reach the target.

1. Get one approved micro-credential embedded in both study plans. One is enough. The row tops out at 50% and an embedded credential produces close to 100%.
2. Confirm approval before embedding. A credential embedded before its Ministry approval reference exists produces graduates whose attainment cannot be counted, and the cohort cannot be rerun.
3. Ask the optional-credential question at graduation clearance. It costs one field on the clearance form and it widens the numerator with credentials learners obtained on their own.
4. Record attainment on the transcript, not only on a certificate, because that is the Appendix B evidence.
5. Never count an attempt. The distinction is worth stating as a control rather than an assumption, because a system that records enrolment and completion in the same field will produce the error silently.
6. Classify each programme against the mandatory-licence test, with a second signature, and put the reading question to MoHESR.
7. Calibrate before blending. Averaging the raw ratios is arithmetically different and wrong, and it is an easy error to make in a spreadsheet built quickly.
8. Offer IoL credentials to students on MBRU's other programmes, which is the largest institutional contribution IoL can make to any KPI.

[REDESIGN] actions.

Sequencing note. R3 and R6 are the enablers and should start now. R1 is the point-bearing action and its lead time is dominated by whichever of design-plus-approval or adoption is chosen, which is why R3 matters more than its own point value suggests. R2 has no curriculum dependency at all and is the largest number on the page, which makes it the most under-weighted action in the pilot: it does not need curriculum governance for any programme other than IoL's own, because it works by students choosing the credential rather than by any programme requiring it.

9. Indirect strategy where data cannot be collected

Category 3 and Category 4 both apply, and the Category 3 case here is unusual: it is not an absence that triggers redistribution, but an absence that may transfer the whole weight of a KPI onto its other half.

Category 3, the activity genuinely does not exist: the licence component. Health professions education is not itself tied to a mandatory practice licence. There is no licence a person must hold in order to work as a health professions educator, and PGDipHPE and MScHPE do not lead to one. The guide states that for programmes not tied to mandatory licences, and for institutions offering none, short qualifications and professional certificates are counted at 100%.

The natural reading is that the micro-credential component carries the full weight of the KPI for such programmes. That is an inference, and this workflow flags it as an inference rather than asserting it as settled. The guide's wording at this point is terse, and at least three readings survive it, set out as readings A, B and C in section 8. The KPI register records the same inference with the same flag, which means the pilot has not resolved it and should not pretend to have done so.

What to do about it, concretely. Put the question to MoHESR in writing. Record the answer in OBF2.5M. Until the answer arrives, plan against reading B, the pessimistic case, because a plan built on B still justifies R1 at +2.5 points and does not fall apart if A or C turns out to be right. Planning against A and discovering B is the failure that costs a cycle.

A trap specific to IoL's learner population, worth naming before somebody falls into it. IoL's learners are practising health professionals, and most of them already hold a DHA, DoH or MoHAP practice licence, obtained years before they enrolled and entirely unconnected to the HPE programme. Those licences are not KPI 2.5 attainments. The licence component counts graduates of programmes tied to a mandatory licence who obtained that licence, and the tie is between the programme and the licence, not between the person and a licence they happened to hold. Counting pre-existing clinical licences as HPE programme outcomes would produce a spectacular licence component and would be indefensible on the first question asked.

Category 4, the activity exists but is invisible: optionally obtained credentials. IoL's learners are mid-career professionals who collect certifications continuously, in clinical specialties, in education, in leadership, in research methods. The guide expressly permits counting micro-credentials obtained optionally, outside the formal curriculum, during the period of study. Some proportion of every IoL cohort has almost certainly already obtained a qualifying short qualification and nobody has ever asked. The response is a question at graduation clearance with evidence capture and an approved-list check, and it is action R5. It is capture, not tactics, and it is close to free.

Category 2 does not apply. KPI 2.5 is Track A and computed from records rather than a survey, so there is no small-population threshold and no Appendix C grouping question. IoL's cohorts are small, which affects the volatility of the ratio rather than its admissibility: with a cohort of twenty, one graduate is five percentage points. That is an argument for embedding rather than relying on optional attainment, because an embedded credential produces a stable rate and an optional one produces a rate that swings.

Category 1 does not apply. MBRU submits this KPI itself.

Category 5, performance genuinely low, only becomes a real reading after R1 and R5 have run for a year. An attainment rate of zero before either exists measures the absence of a credential offer, not the performance of the programmes.

Boundary check. This workflow must never:

• count an internally issued certificate that is neither on the MoHESR pre-approved list nor approved by the Ministry, however rigorous the assessment behind it and whatever other body has accredited it;
• count an attempt as an attainment, since obtaining means passing all requirements and receiving the certificate;
• count a certificate of attendance, a participation record or a CPD attendance certificate as a short qualification;
• count a credential that has no MICROCREDENTIALS lookup value;
• count a pre-existing clinical practice licence held by a learner before enrolment as a KPI 2.5 licence attainment;
• classify a programme as tied to a mandatory licence in order to bring its graduates' existing licences into the numerator;
• count external participants who are not MBRU graduates in either component;
• invent nominal levels in a multi-level credential in order to multiply the attainment count, where the levels are not separately taught, separately assessed and separately certificated;
• use the reporting-year cohort for the licence component or the three-years-prior cohort for the micro-credential component, since the two use different cohorts by design;
• average the two raw ratios before each has been calibrated against its own threshold row;
• change the reading of the not-tied-to-a-licence provision between years without recording the change and its effect on the three-year series;
• record an attainment on a transcript that the assessment record does not support.

10. Service standards

11. Records and evidence

Appendix B readiness. The Ministry may demand transcripts or academic records proving that students passed or obtained micro-credentials, and contact data for graduates confirming professional licences. Today, IoL could most likely produce transcripts within 15 working days for anything recorded on the student record system. It could not produce transcript evidence for optionally obtained credentials, nor a programme-to-mandatory-licence classification register, because neither currently exists [IoL to confirm]. Both gaps are closed by R5, R6 and R7, and all three are administrative rather than curricular.

12. Risks and controls

13. Performance measures

The last outcome measure deserves a note. Once the attainment rate passes 50%, further increases score nothing. That is not an argument for stopping at 50%: cohorts are small, rates are volatile, and an embedded credential produces close to 100% at no extra cost. It is an argument against spending anything further to push an optional credential from 60% to 90% uptake, when the same effort spent on R2, offering the credential to students on MBRU's other programmes, moves a number that is nowhere near its ceiling.

14. Change control