Giving Compass' Take:

• Education Design Lab released a free toolkit for universities to create credentialing systems for soft skills that employers may want their employees to have. 

• How can universities ensure that their programs align with skills employers are looking for? How can universities make sure their students are learning the soft skills that will help them in work and life? 

• Can robots teach soft skills?

If a student masters a subject such as English or Chemistry, then professors give them letter-grades for their transcripts indicating their level of mastery. But students learn much more than that at college, and some higher ed leaders are looking for ways to measure the other, softer skills student pick up while on campus.

But efforts to issue “badges,” or lightweight credentials for things like leadership and resilience, come with plenty of challenges, including convincing employers to take them seriously.

A nonprofit group called the Education Design Lab released a toolkit to help colleges set up badge-offering efforts, which it created in partnership with a dozen colleges and universities. The site gives eight examples of “21st-Century Skills Badges" offered by partners, including critical thinking, oral communication, and intercultural fluency.

For George Mason University, offering a badge on resilience is part of a broader university effort to be a “well-being university,” says Lewis E. Forrest, associate dean of University Life.

Forrest said that even if employers aren’t yet familiar with the badges, the students say they are learning and appreciate the workshop. “That’s really been a lot of the focus—what students are getting out if it,” he adds.

Read the full article about measuring soft skills by Jeffrey R. Young at EdSurge.