Interoperable Learning Records

American workers, who are engaged in lifelong learning, deserve to have a way to translate their full education, training, and work experience to a record of transferable skills that will open the doors to higher wage occupations and careers. This is one of the fundamental problems President Trump set out to address in the July 17, 2018, Executive Order 13845, establishing the National Council for the American Worker (NCAW). He charged this interagency council with drafting the first-ever national workforce strategy which includes increasing data transparency to support informed decision making among American students and workers. Through this Executive Order, President Trump also established the American Workforce Policy Advisory Board (AWPAB).

Better information on workers’ skills attainment, employers’ skills needs, and educational institutions’ programs to increase skills is an essential element across all of these focus areas. The AWPAB’s Data Transparency working group has identified interoperable learning records (ILRs) as a novel and technically feasible, achievable way to communicate skills between workers, employers, and education and training institutions.