Savannah Technical College has partnered with the Georgia Policy Labs (GPL) to conduct an implementation evaluation of its “The Future is Now: Scaling Statewide Credentials through a Consortium Approach” (The Future is Now) project. The Future is Now project is being conducted by a consortium of technical colleges, the Technical College System of Georgia (TCSG), and other partners. Over the four years of this project, the consortium will engage with employers and workforce partners to create a system of awarding micro-credentials along specific occupational clusters in the areas of manufacturing, health care, and information technology as a means to provide accelerated pathways to learning, support for entry-level and incumbent worker upskilling, and to address emerging employer training needs quickly and nimbly. The key strategies for the project are to build out career pathways; establish a micro-credential system; enhance and improve distance, technology-enabled, and self-paced instruction; and leverage TCSG’s distance-learning platform.

GPL and Savannah Technical College have developed a formal, detailed implementation evaluation plan with five principal objectives:

• comprehensively document the implementation, operation, and developmental evolution of the Future is Now micro-credentials consortium project;
• carefully assess the fidelity of the implementation of the project to its specified design, especially the implementation of the four main strategies of the project;
• evaluate the project’s success in achieving its intended near- and intermediate-term outcomes;
• identify elements of the project and implementation that contribute to or hinder the project’s success; and
• report findings that will assist with sustaining the project and transporting its successful and effective elements to micro-credential projects in other contexts.