As technology improves and more people attend college, U.S. Department of Education and the Carnegie Institute are working to restructure the credit-based system that has been the standard for higher education.

The Department of Education sent letters in March to universities nationwide informing them that financial aid could now be offered to students enrolled in competency programs. Schools must be able to provide detailed guidelines to the department outlining how their programs work, and so far three universities have been approved: Southern New Hampshire, Northern Arizona and Capella Universities.

“Instead of using credit hours or clock hours as a measure of student learning, instructional programs may use direct assessment of student learning, or recognize the direct assessment by others of student learning,” the department said in a letter. “Examples of direct measures include projects, papers, examinations, presentations, performances, and portfolios.”

Competency-based learning, also called personalized learning, is a system that allows students to be evaluated by individual skills rather than receiving credit hours for their work. It is a self-paced system that in some circumstances allows students to skip learning modules if they can prove skill competence.

The credit hour has been the standard for measuring achievements in high school and collegiate learning since 1906. The Carnegie Institute established credits, known as the Carnegie Unit, solely to determine eligibility for faculty pensions. According to the institution’s website, the Carnegie Unit is defined by one hour of student-teacher time and two hours of outside work in a 15 week semester. Since the advancement of technology over the past decade has made learning more resourceful and effective, the same institute creating the time-based system wants to restructure it, calling for a more competency-based structure.

The new regulations open doors for public universities such as SIU, which might consider restructuring its credit-based programs to meet students’ needs in a changing higher education market, according to the letter sent by the Board of Education.

The dean of the College of Agricultural Sciences, Mickey A. Latour, has been working to bring an open access online program to SIU. Latour, who managed all open-campus programs at Purdue University, said it is a way to offer classes to people worldwide who might not necessarily be seeking a degree, but might want to learn a specific skill.

“If you take the courses and the options that we have here, how can you make them more available worldwide? That’s the reason for this,” Latour said. “This would be popular when you think about places like India and China where they can’t necessarily just pick up and move here; but they could study a lot of things and then try to credential it.”

The program, called “Access SIU,” would cost approximately the same as a class taken on campus, though class format may vary depending on the class or institution. A class may be available for the standard 15 weeks, or more timely options could be available to meet the needs of the student.

Students have the option of testing out of certain skillsets if they are already knowledgeable of the subject.

Latour said the program is a good way to attract new students to the university and allows their credit to automatically transfer since they used an SIU based curriculum, though they could test out at other universities if they wanted.

“Not only does this bring in new students, it brings in a new revenue source too, and it’s consistent with what we’re doing,” he said. “I think the beauty of this is you can greatly expand your footprint worldwide.”

However, Richard Bortz, a specialist in competency-based learning and a professor at SIU’s school of Workforce Education Development, argues that programs such as those in the College of Liberal Arts already use personalized learning methods.

“Scholars do things. That’s competency-based,” he said. “If you teach someone how to write a paper, that’s competency-based. You’re teaching them how to apply that knowledge.”

Bortz said adopting more competency programs could only enhance the educational experience.

“I think the whole of competency-based is a benefit because not only are you providing your students with knowledge, but you’re giving them opportunity to perform and to apply that knowledge,” he said. “If you critique it, then when your kids leave you, I think they’re better.”

A performance-based curriculum developer, Bortz described the process as psychomotor, using the brain and connecting it with muscles, nerves, bones and joints to complete a task.

“Performance doesn’t have to be to repair an automobile engine. Performance might be to write a dissertation,” Bortz said.

Northern Arizona University Marketing Manager Adam Wade said competency-based programs might vary between curriculums and universities. Students enrolled in NAU’s extended campus personalized-learning courses pay a flat rate of $2,500 per a six-month period. Students can take an unlimited number of credit hours and work at their own pace, which is a system meant to ease stress for working adults wanting to take credit hours, he said.

“It definitely has received a lot of positive reaction,” Wade said.

For instance, if a student takes a Humanities 101 course, he or she might have eight different competencies to take to get credit for the course. If the student can prove competency for one of the learning activities, he said, the student can move on to the next step, essentially cutting down the time and money for study.

NAU’s competency system is offered only online at this time with 17 students enrolled, but Wade said the university expects to add more than 100 additional students soon.

The University of Wisconsin appears to be next on board with adopting competency learning, which could sway other major universities to follow behind them if their “Flexible Option” plan is approved later this year, Wade said.