Co-Creating the Future: A College of Engineering Micro-Credential on Professional Ethics

This paper describes the development process for a micro-credential in professional ethics for undergraduate students at the College of Engineering (COE) at State University (SU) [ANONYMOUS PSEUDONYM], a large, public, research-intensive institution located in the northeast United States. Micro-credentials have been contemplated as a potential response to changes being seen in undergraduate engineering students coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic [ANONYMOUS CITATION(S)] and have previously demonstrated value in the literature (Wheelahan & Moodie, 2021). SU's COE has invested significant resources into the development of new and pioneering micro-credentials for undergraduate engineering students. The instant micro-credential in professional ethics was built under a co-creation model, with the development team including a current SU COE faculty member, a current SU COE undergraduate student, and a SU COE alumnus who presently works in industry. The development team functioned together to build out the micro-credential so that the final product would be credible and demonstrate value-added for each of the constituent stakeholder audiences represented on the team. Advantages, challenges, and lessons learned from the co-creation approach for the micro-credential are discussed herein to facilitate wider-spread adoption of this innovative curricular development approach.