Terms related to the Comprehensive Learner Record

AACRAO: The American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers is a nonprofit, professional association of more than 11,000 higher education professionals and 2,600 institutions. Its mission is to provide professional development, guidelines and voluntary standards to be used by higher education officials regarding the best practices in records management, admissions, enrollment management, administrative information technology and student services.

Academic or traditional transcript: An official document that records a student’s academic progress.

Badges: Communicate skills and achievements by providing visual symbols of accomplishments embedded with verifiable data and evidence that can be shared across the web.

Canvas: Mizzou’s learning management system (LMS).

Certificate: a program of study that requires completion of a minimum of 12 credits. It can be part of a degree program or may be completed in addition to a degree program. Officially approved certificates are listed on transcripts (Mizzou Glossary).

Co-curricular: Activities, programs and learning experiences outside the classroom that complement, in some way, what students are learning in the classroom (edglossary.org).

Comprehensive learner record (CLR): A CLR captures students’ curricular and co-curricular learning experiences, assists them in identifying what skills, knowledge or abilities they have acquired and learned during their higher education career, assists in integrating learning across experiences, and empowers/enables their ability to communicate during and after their time as a student.

Comprehensive student record: “An all-inclusive account of in-school performance delivered in a way that’s directly relatable to recruiters searching for skilled hires” (Parchment). MU has elected to use the term comprehensive learner record to emphasize the journey of learning.

Credential: A documented award by a responsible and authorized body that has determined that an individual has achieved specific learning outcomes relative to a given standard. Credential in this context is an umbrella term that includes degrees, diplomas, licenses, certificates, badges and professional/industry certifications.

Curriculum mapping: The process of diagramming a curriculum to identify and address academic gaps, redundancies and misalignments for the purposes of improving the overall coherence of a course of study and, by extension, its effectiveness (edglossary.org).

Engage: Engage is a platform that empowers students to connect to campus, discover opportunities and take charge of their own co-curricular involvement at Mizzou, while also providing user-friendly organization management and communication tools. In Engage, every student is able to document their co-curricular experiences and develop a portfolio of their learning outside the classroom including organization memberships, event participation, leadership positions and community service.

ePortfolio: A compilation of academic work and other forms of educational evidence (edglossary.org).

Experiential learning: Generally defined as learning by doing and reflecting on the learning experience.

Learning domains: Categories of learning.

Learning framework: Learning frameworks are tools that specify learning outcomes or competencies that define, classify, and recognize education, learner, military, and industry expectations at increasing levels of difficulty. Such frameworks provide connection points for aligning learning opportunities, awarding credentials, translating learning, and determining equivalencies and transfer of learning across sectors (National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment).

Learning outcomes: Statements that describe what learners should know, understand and be able and ready to do on completion of a learning process, whether formal or informal, classroom based or workplace based.

Lumina Foundation: An independent, private foundation committed to increasing the proportion of Americans with high-quality degrees, certificates and other credentials to 60 percent by 2025. Lumina’s outcomes-based approach focuses on helping to design and build an accessible, responsive and accountable higher education system.

NASPA: The National Association of Student Personnel Administrators is the leading association for the advancement, health and sustainability of the student affairs profession. Their work provides high quality professional development, advocacy and research for 15,000 members in all 50 states, 25 countries and eight U.S. territories.

Pathways in Engage: Progressive levels of education and training that help learners achieve valuable credentials and skills that lead to educational and career advancement.

Student learning assessment: The gathering and use of evidence of student learning in decision making and in strengthening institutional performance and accountability (Kuh, Ikenberry, Jankowski, Reese Cain, Ewell, Hutchings, & Kinzie, 2015).

Student learning outcomes: Specific and measurable statements of what students will be able to know, think or do (behavior and skills) as a result of participating in a class, activity or program.