MOOCs, Flipping and Badges Show High Potential for Future Professional Association Adoption Despite Current Low Rates, Finds New Tagoras White Paper

CARRBORO, N.C., May 14, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- A new white paper released by Tagoras, a consulting firm specializing in the global market for lifelong learning, provides insights into trade and professional association participation in three major learning trends: massive open online courses, or MOOCs, flipped classrooms, and microcredentialing.  

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Sponsored by Digital Ignite, developers of the Crowd Wisdom™ social learning platform, the white paper draws on data collected in a survey conducted by Tagoras in late 2013. Out of 157 organizations that responded to a question about new learning approaches in that survey, only 9.3 percent indicated that they have implemented digital badging – one of the best known forms of microcredentialing – while fewer than 7 percent said they have implemented MOOCs or flipped learning.

"We're clearly in the early adopter phase," said Tagoras managing director for publications, Celisa Steele, "but there are also compelling reasons why these approaches align well with association business models as well as business models for continuing education and professional development in general. We expect to see flipped learning and digital badges, in particular, gain significant traction in coming years."

Tamer Ali, CEO of Digital Ignite, the company that sponsored the report, suggests that associations actually have an advantage in the often hype-filled world of these new learning approaches. "Your organization represents and can likely call an existing audience its customers already," Ali argues, "whereas the providers offering advanced learnings described in this [white] paper are typically spending millions of (venture capital-fueled) dollars in marketing."

In addition to recommendations for when associations may want to consider MOOCs, flipped learning, or microcredentials, the report also offers examples of organizations like the Society for Technical Communication and the CFP Board that have taken, or plan to take the leap with these new approaches.

The full complimentary white paper (no payment or e-mail address required) can be downloaded at:

http://www.tagoras.com/2014/05/13/flipped-learning-microcredentials-moocs/

Contact:  
Jeff Cobb 
919-201-7460

About Tagoras
Tagoras provides expert strategy, marketing, and technology guidance to organizations in the business of continuing education and professional development. Its consulting clients have included the American Institute of Public Accountants, the American Physical Therapy Association, the Healthcare Financial Management Association, the National Institute of Governmental Purchasing, the Society of Critical Care Medicine, and Castle Worldwide. Its research publications include Association Learning Management Systems, Association Learning + Technology, and Association Virtual Events. For more information, visit http://www.tagoras.com.  

About Digital Ignite 
Digital Ignite's Crowd Wisdom™ is a social learning platform specifically built for externally-focused education in professional education, such as mission-based, non-profits and for-profit programs: education publishers, corporate certification programs, and sales/channel education.  The platform offers the scalability and performance of Software-as-a-Service (delivered via the cloud) yet also provides clients a high level of customization to support the unique requirements of each learning audience to promote, sell, and track learning units. For more information, visit http://www.digitalignite.com. 

SOURCE Tagoras