projects

Learning Mobility

The Learning Mobility Collaborative represents a coordinated, multi-stakeholder initiative that aligns systems to empower learners to document, validate, and transfer their learning across education and workforce ecosystems. It brings together educational institutions, workforce entities, and government agencies to develop shared infrastructure and frameworks that enable institutions to ease transitions for learners throughout their educational and career journeys. The collaborative focuses on creating coordinated human and technical systems where all learning is recognized, validated, and portable—regardless of where or how it was acquired.

Overview

The first State Collaborative for Learner Mobility launched in the fall of 2024 with support from Strada Education Foundation, Education Design Lab and AACRAO in Arizona with the goal to create a sustainable statewide infrastructure that makes credentials more portable, skills more visible, and transitions more seamless for learners. This multi-institution initiative focused on developing shared frameworks and identifying core standards for credential recognition across state education and workforce systems. It seeks to bring together public universities, community colleges, and state agencies to improve how credentials and learning experiences are documented, shared, and validated across institutions. This webpage offers an outline of the objectives, methods, and process for innovation that can guide similar efforts across the country.

The Goal

At its core, the Learning Mobility Collaborative aims to empower learners, particularly those facing the highest barriers to education and employment, to attain incremental credentials that recognize and validate their learning and skills, while enabling them to leverage their own data to unlock opportunities as they progress through postsecondary education into the workforce. By focusing on creating a shared technical infrastructure and aligned policies, a collaborative approach will enable seamless transitions between institutions, ensure skills are recognized regardless of where they were acquired, and provide personalized pathways that meet learners where they are. This learner-centered approach gives individuals greater agency over their educational journeys, helping them make informed decisions about their learning investments and career opportunities.

Learning Mobility Framework

The Learning Mobility Framework was developed through collaboration with Arizona’s 13 public higher education institutions, the Arizona Board of Regents, the Arizona Community College Coordinating Council (AC4), key nonprofit and industry partners, the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers (AACRAO), the Education Design Lab, and Strada Education Foundation. This evolving framework is designed to highlight opportunities for building infrastructure and policies that support learners at critical transition points in their education and career journeys. Specifically, it serves as:

A starting point for collaborative efforts
A tool for inventorying and assessing strengths, gaps, and opportunities
An iterative resource to support stakeholder needs and collaborative outputs

View the Learning Mobility Framework Overview

Design Process

Guided by The Lab’s design approach, our Learning Mobility State Process employs human-centered design to create seamless educational and career pathways across postsecondary institutions and into the workforce. This collaborative approach begins by deeply understanding learner experiences at key transition points, followed by ideation sessions that bring together diverse stakeholders to conceptualize solutions. Through structured prototyping and implementation phases, we develop interoperable systems that make skills more visible, credentials more portable, and transitions more navigable—all while maintaining institutional autonomy. The result is a coherent ecosystem where learners exercise greater agency over their educational journey and institutions benefit from aligned frameworks that serve both academic and workforce needs. For a breakdown of our methodology and tools, download our Design Process Guide to discover how this approach can transform learning mobility in your state.

View the Design Process Guide

A diagram explaining the design process for learner mobility - the four major categories are: understand, ideate, prototype, iterate

Learners of Focus

A crucial part of working toward an effective solution in the Lab’s design process is to center the people closest to the problem. The Learning Mobility Collaborative leverages personas to explore the experiences of (l)earners navigating transitions through the learn and work ecosystem. Personas provide structure that grounds the work in the barriers, goals, and contexts of real people and drives the Collaborative toward the goal of creating a sustainable statewide framework that makes credentials more portable, skills more visible, and transitions more seamless for learners.

Arizona Learning Mobility Collaborative

The Arizona Learning Mobility Collaborative unites the state’s public higher education institutions in a groundbreaking effort to transform how learning is documented, validated, and shared across institutional boundaries. Bringing together the Arizona Board of Regents, three public universities, ten community college districts, and the Community College Coordinating Council, this initiative empowers learners—particularly those facing significant barriers—to attain incremental credentials that validate their skills and leverage their own educational data to unlock opportunities throughout their journeys. Building on existing momentum from innovations happening across the state, the Collaborative establishes shared technical infrastructure, aligned policies, and innovative credentialing approaches that create seamless transitions, ensure skills recognition regardless of where they were acquired, and provide personalized pathways that meet learners where they are—ultimately positioning Arizona as a national model for an integrated, learner-centered education-to-employment ecosystem. Download the full report to explore how this collaborative process is creating a more accessible, coordinated pathway for all Arizonans to succeed in a skills-driven economy.

View the Arizona State Process Guide

West Virginia Learning Mobility Collaborative

The West Virginia Learning Mobility Collaborative (WV CALM) unites 21 of the state’s public colleges and universities to break down the silos that force learners to start over each time they move between schools, programs, or jobs. Led by the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission with guidance from Education Design Lab, and in collaboration with AACRAO and the Strada Education Foundation, this two-year effort aims to help every West Virginian get recognized for what they know and turn that recognition into credentials that open doors to better jobs. Building on the state’s micro-credential initiative, Credential WV, the Collaborative aligns the technical systems, policies, and standards that keep learning portable and skills visible wherever a career leads. Download the full report for a closer look at how this effort is helping West Virginians move more easily from learning to meaningful work.

View the West Virginia State Process Guide

Partners

AACRAO is the legitimate, longstanding source of information and advice on how to create and maintain trusted information systems and student records. The same policies and practices that have served well for over a century can be applied and modernized for the evolved learner information and data that digital credentials will deliver. We need to create a broad consensus on foundation principles and then build resources that empower institutions, vendors, and organizations to work in a shared understanding.

Strada Education Foundation is a national social impact organization dedicated to improving pathways between education and employment. They focus on supporting innovative solutions that enhance learner mobility, particularly for underrepresented populations navigating transitions between educational institutions and the workforce. Strada provides strategic support to facilitate the development of shared standards, frameworks, and data systems that enable seamless credential recognition across institutions. Their interest in learning mobility centers on creating more efficient pathways for learners to document, validate, and leverage their skills and knowledge as they move between educational experiences and career opportunities. Check out their State Opportunity Index to learn more about how they are measuring the impact of education on opportunity.

1EdTech is a non-profit, global, member-driven consortium dedicated to advancing educational innovation through open standards and ecosystem leadership. With more than 25 years of impact, we unite K–12, higher education, corporate learning, government agencies, non-profits, and edtech providers to create a seamless, interoperable technology environment that benefits learners worldwide. Our digital credentialing standards, including Open Badges, the CLR Standard, and CASE, empower institutions to recognize and share achievements in a secure, skills-based, and learner-controlled way. This alignment of policy, practice, and infrastructure supports a future-ready, learner-centered ecosystem that enables individuals to pursue their goals efficiently across tools, systems, and life stages.”