The Changing Nature of Student Records: The Interoperable Learner Record | Connections - EDUCAUSE Review

The interoperable learner record (ILR) is key to creating an infrastructure that will empower learners to pursue and manage their education and their career.

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All Americans deserve a way to translate their full education, training, and work experience to a record of transferable skills that will open the doors to high-wage occupations and careers. The current education-to-workforce ecosystem results in skills being under-matched and/or mismatched for potential employment opportunities, argues Ricardo Torres, President and CEO of the National Student Clearinghouse.

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Consider the learning that happens outside the lines of formal, four-year, for-credit education. Continuing education, competency-based education, and career and technical education programs provide a broad range of educational experiences—many happening on a not-for-credit basis—that are difficult to document on a traditional transcript. Having a record that documents these achievements and aligns with employers' needs will clearly benefit not only community college students but workers and lifelong learners as well.

With a sense of urgency and immediacy, the National Student Clearinghouse is working with the US Department of Commerce's American Workforce Policy Advisory Board, IBM, Western Governors University (WGU), Central New Mexico Community College (CNM), and IQ4 to address these issues. This group will develop a nationwide pilot to demonstrate an efficient, integrated solution and infrastructure that will empower learners to pursue and manage their education and their career...

In September 2019, the American Workforce Policy Advisory Board released a white paper on ILRs, describing the need to translate all education, training, and work experience to a record of transferable skills. To surmount the challenge of a standard platform and language and the definition of education, an ILR requires four characteristics.
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Source: EDUCAUSE Review