Register for CAPLA’s Fall RPL Event.

The overarching theme or objective of the 3-webinar series is to give participants concrete strategies that they can use in their practice to initiate and/or grow their PLAR/RPL service provision. The webinars will explore how technology can be used to facilitate RPL services..

The webinars consist of 1 hour of presentations and then 25-minute break-out rooms to dive deeper into the subject matter with presenters.

Webinar 1: November 12: Technology Assisted RPL Practice.
Webinar 2: November 19: Using Technology to Identify Future Skills & Competencies.
Webinar 3: November 26: Artificial Intelligence in RPL.

As in other years, you can register for one session or all three. And since all our sessions are on Zoom, video recordings can be sent to you if one of the dates becomes problematic. All recordings and resources will be sent to participants.

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Webinar 1

Technology Assisted RPL Practice

Tuesday, November 12, 2024  |  12:00 noon – 1:30 pm (Eastern)

This session explores the use of technology throughout the RPL process, from initial contact to assessment

1: RPL Done Differently Can Save The Economy (honestly)

Presenter: Matt Foran, Founder & CEO, KnowMeQ

Our economy is being pulled by multiple, competing tensions that prove ‘business is not as usual’ any more. Aging demographics, declining birth rates, very small ‘traditional’ postsecondary population sit on one side of the tension lead, while AI’s pull to disrupt hundreds of millions of jobs rests on another. A third, existential threat felt by postsecondary institutions whose own future has never been more uncertain.

These tensions are real. They are persistent. And they are not going away (they may get uglier if we don’t do something bold). This workshop will lift you from your seat to become the change you want to see and arm you with new tools, strategies and perspectives that put you and your institution in the driver’s seat – to use your newly chiseled RPL Superpowers to make a financial impact for your college – and most importantly, to get hundreds or thousands of workers on to prosperous careers after earning meaningful credits quickly via RPL.

Join Matt Foran, former Access Department Administrator, Professor and Skills Researcher from George Brown College, currently Founder and CEO of KnowMeQ and Archie CPL for an active discussion that will demonstrate the power and efficiency of Archie’s AI engine and how in-tandem with your tenacity, will forge tremendous new paths for college, student, and community growth.

2: NBCC’s innovative online Evaluated Courses Master List (ECML)

Presenter: Melina Crosby, Recognition of Prior Learning Consultant – Registrar’s Office, New Brunswick Community College

Join Melina Crosby, Recognition of Prior Learning Consultant at New Brunswick Community College, as she chat’s about NBCC’s innovative online Evaluated Courses Master List (ECML), and learn about its origins, purpose, and the impact it has on assessing prior formal learning. Learn how the ECML is streamlining NBCC’s RPL evaluation process, opening doors for learners, and empowering NBCC students to turn their prior learning experiences into academic credit.

3: Using Moodle (LMS) for RPL Assessments and Gap Filling

Presenter: Suzanne Wassef, SME/RPL Assessor, Champlain College-Saint Lambert, Montreal

Suzanne will share how Moodle (or any Learning Management System) can be used to identify the knowledge, skills and abilities being assessed; provide self-study learning materials for review/gap filling before evaluation; provide practice preparation activities with developmental feedback; and online assessment tools. The use of formative and summative assessment tools will be presented to facilitate student success.

About the speakers

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Webinar 2

Using Technology to Identify Future Skills & Competencies

Tuesday, November 19, 2024  |  12:00 noon – 2:00 pm (Eastern)

This session explores the use of technology to facilitate the translation of people’s knowledge, skills and abilities towards meeting their objectives

1: Using Labour Market Information to Develop a Skilled Workforce

Presenter: Michael Burt, Vice-President, Economics and Education, Conference Board of Canada

Canada’s labour market continues to evolve. Employers are becoming more creative in how they find and develop people, technology continues to disrupt how people work, and workers need to continuously evolve their skills sets if they are to succeed. Better labour market information (LMI) can help leaders and individuals make better informed decisions about the skills they should be investing in. In this session we will discuss how we are using LMI to better understand how people develop skills, and also to inform decision making from PSI program investments, to microcredential course selections, to career pathing.

2: Nowcasting with Vicinity Jobs Data for Agile Skills Development

Presenters: Austin Hracs, Senior Vice President of Research and Partnerships, Vicinity Jobs Inc

Explore the Vicinity Jobs Trends Navigator for Educators, a powerful tool developed over the past year in collaboration with 15 Canadian Universities. This tool is designed to support program development and continuing education by providing a “nowcasting” capability—delivering the most recent labour market information to understand what skills are currently needed, rather than forecasting future demand. By leveraging high-frequency job posting data alongside traditional sources like Statistics Canada, the Trends Navigator helps educators identify skills gaps, respond to emerging trends, and ensure program relevance. Learn how this tool offers actionable insights to support curriculum development, strategic planning, and effective program delivery.

3: Creating Home Care workforce infrastructure in Michigan (TBC)

Presenters: Melissa Goldberg, Director – Competencies & Credentials, Corporation for a Skilled Workforce

Working in partnership to use LMI and stakeholder engagement to gather detailed input about the required competencies for various DCW roles and the value of DCW certification, then develop a delivery solution. (full description to follow)

4: Digital Essential Skills Self-Assessment Platform

Presenter: Claire Quirion, Digital Nova Scotia

This session will focus on discussing Digital Nova Scotia’s projects that have been done in partnership with RPL. The first is the Digital Essential Skills self-assessment platform, a free tool that allows Nova Scotian job seekers and employees to compare their current digital competency levels to the recommended levels for 24 in-demand job roles across 13 industry sectors.

About the speakers

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Webinar 3

Artificial Intelligence in RPL

Tuesday, November 26, 2024  |  12:00 noon – 1:30 pm (Eastern)

This session explores the positive and negative implications of using AI.

1: Exploring AI for Recognition

Presenter: Anne-Marie Scott, Consultant in Educational Leadership

This presentation will give an overview of the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the recognition space as a rapidly growing and evolving area. It will highlight the need for exploration, identify interesting use cases, and outline the various pros, cons, and potential opportunities that this technology presents us with.

2: What are the individual returns on RPL and does de-humanising the process put them at risk?

Presenter: Deb Carr, Professional Freelancer – Vocational Education Consultant

What does learner-centric really mean for learners and how much do you care when it comes to recognising them?

There’s not a lot of data out there on the *actual* individual returns for the supposedly learner-centred practice of RPL. The very little data we have is usually economic and short-term: allowed admission, shortened training/education, better remuneration, got a job, got a better job), and often reported as a functional funding requirement. Certainly no national data collection gathers the individual benefits of this key lifelong learning instrument.

But there are pockets of research and candidate testimonies that hint at benefits that extend beyond the acquisition of a credential or a job, to more transformative outcomes. Strengthened confidence, self-esteem and social integration are often claimed, particularly for non-traditional learners and those who have missed out or dropped out of formal education and training for various reasons.

Technologies such as AI can help scale RPL, but there is a distinct possibility that it can also dehumanise and desocialise the recognition process, thereby losing the benefits that come from human contact, due to designing human contact out of the process in the interests of efficiency and scale: think baby and bathwater.

3: GenAI for Purposeful Career Exploration

Presenter: JP Michel, SparkPath, Founder

Explore how generative AI can transform career exploration by unlocking new insights for students, job seekers, and career professionals. Discover why helping students look beyond job titles can help them better navigate their career journeys. Attendees will learn practical tools and techniques they can leverage right away to add more purpose and meaning to their work.

About the speakers

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