Allegheny Lab for Innovation & Creativity

A micro-credential is a digital badge containing information regarding competencies gained through classes and internships linked to Allegheny College. You use them on platforms like LinkedIn and Indeed to get noticed by employers. They help you game the algorithms that play an enormous role in hiring practices. These stackable credentials offer additional impact to our students’ Allegheny experience by grouping courses across our curriculum into a third entity in addition to our major and minor that best show employers the skill sets they built while pursuing their Allegheny liberal arts education.

Because micro-credentials make the skills and competencies students acquire through coursework and internships visible to prospective employers, they have the power to elevate and transform a student’s future trajectory.

Contact Byron Rich, Assistant Provost for Academic Innovation, for more information.

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Micro-credentials Available for Academic Year 2023-2024

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Content Creation (12 credits)

Content Creation will develop students’ skills in producing images, video, and sound-based content and instructing them on effective deployment through web development and/or contemporary marketing practices.

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Competencies gained:

• Develop proficiency in camera use.
• Develop proficiency in video production, sound editing, web development and design tool fundamentals.
• Identify contemporary marketing practices.

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Software Development with Python (12 credits)

Software Development with Python introduces the knowledge and skills that students need to engineer, release, and maintain software implemented in the Python programming language. Students who complete this micro-credential will have the demonstrated ability to make high-quality contributions to both the source code and technical documentation in software projects stored in GitHub repositories.

Sign Up Form

Competencies gained:

• Use the object-oriented programming paradigm in Python
• Perform automated software testing with Pytest
• Setup continuous integration and delivery with GitHub Actions
• Create technical documentation using MkDocs
• Use Poetry to release and maintain software on PyPI

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Programming with Web Technologies (12 Credits)

Programming with Web Technologies teaches students how to develop accessible, aesthetically pleasing, and well-organized websites and web applications. In addition to attaining the knowledge and skills needed to benchmark, maintain, and enhance websites, students who complete this micro-credential will be able to design the user experiences and interfaces for compelling and dynamic web projects.

Sign Up Form

Competencies gained:

• Structure web content using semantic and accessible HTML and CSS
• Develop web applications using Javascript and Typescript
• Perform automated testing with Cypress and Playwright
• Deploy interactive web applications implemented with React
• Use static site generators JAMStack and publish to Netlify or Vercel

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Data Analysis with Python and R (12 Credits)

Data Analysis with Python and R introduces the knowledge and skills that students need to effectively make decisions using varied data sources. Students who complete this micro-credential will have the ability to use the Python and R programming languages to create data visualizations, perform statistical analyses, and train machine learning models that yield actionable insights and support decision-making.

Sign Up Form

Competencies gained:

• Perform exploratory data analysis and visualization with Pandas, Plotly, and Bokeh
• Use Scikit-learn to train, validate, and apply machine learning models
• Automatically model and mine text documents using Tidy Text and spaCy
• Deploy visual data analytics dashboards using Streamlit and Heroku
• Use commercial data analysis platforms such as Google Analytics and Tableau

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Micro-credentials Available for Academic Year 2024-2025

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Content Creation (12 credits)

Content Creation will develop students’ skills in producing images, video, and sound-based content and instructing them on effective deployment through web development and/or contemporary marketing practices.

Sign Up Form

Competencies gained:

• Develop proficiency in camera use
• Develop proficiency in video production, sound editing, web development and design tool fundamentals
• Identify contemporary marketing practices

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Software Development with Python (12 credits)

Software Development with Python introduces the knowledge and skills that students need to engineer, release, and maintain software implemented in the Python programming language. Students who complete this micro-credential will have the demonstrated ability to make high-quality contributions to both the source code and technical documentation in software projects stored in GitHub repositories.

Sign Up Form

Competencies gained:

• Use the object-oriented programming paradigm in Python
• Perform automated software testing with Pytest
• Setup continuous integration and delivery with GitHub Actions
• Create technical documentation using MkDocs
• Use Poetry to release and maintain software on PyPI

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Programming with Web Technologies (12 Credits)

Programming with Web Technologies teaches students how to develop accessible, aesthetically pleasing, and well-organized websites and web applications. In addition to attaining the knowledge and skills needed to benchmark, maintain, and enhance websites, students who complete this micro-credential will be able to design the user experiences and interfaces for compelling and dynamic web projects.

Sign Up Form

Competencies gained:

• Structure web content using semantic and accessible HTML and CSS
• Develop web applications using Javascript and Typescript
• Perform automated testing with Cypress and Playwright
• Deploy interactive web applications implemented with React
• Use static site generators JAMStack and publish to Netlify or Vercel

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Data Analysis with Python and R (12 Credits)

Data Analysis with Python and R introduces the knowledge and skills that students need to effectively make decisions using varied data sources. Students who complete this micro-credential will have the ability to use the Python and R programming languages to create data visualizations, perform statistical analyses, and train machine learning models that yield actionable insights and support decision-making.

Sign Up Form

Competencies gained:

• Perform exploratory data analysis and visualization with Pandas, Plotly, and Bokeh
• Use Scikit-learn to train, validate, and apply machine learning models
• Automatically model and mine text documents using Tidy Text and spaCy
• Deploy visual data analytics dashboards using Streamlit and Heroku
• Use commercial data analysis platforms such as Google Analytics and Tableau

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2D Design (12 Credits)

2D Design equips students with the foundational knowledge to produce a portfolio of works in 2D, whether digitally or in traditional media such as drawing and painting. Students who earn this microcredential will be able to effectively utilize the tools and techniques of varying 2D media toward the production of a body of work.

Sign Up Form

Competencies gained:

• Identify 2D design techniques that can be applied across multiple mediums.
• Apply 2D design techniques across multiple mediums.
• Incorporate 2D designs into a portfolio.

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3D Design (12 Credits)

3D Design equips students with the foundational knowledge to produce a portfolio of works in 3D 2D, whether in sculpture, ceramics, or emerging media areas such additive manufacturing. Students who earn this microcredential will be able to effectively utilize the tools and techniques of varying 3D media toward the production of a body of work.

Sign Up Form

Competencies gained:

• Identify 3D design techniques that can be applied in multiple mediums.
• Apply 3D design techniques across multiple mediums.
• Incorporate 3D designs into a portfolio.

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AI-Driven Content Creation (12 Credits)

AI-Driven Content creation equips students with contemporary strategies and tools for creating images,video, and text such as prompt engineering and large language model (LLM) model fine-tuning. Students completing this microcredential will be able to generate intentional and consistent results in response to a wide variety of purposes, including artistic and industrial applications.

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Competencies gained:

• Create images, text, audio, and video using industry-standard platforms and models.
• Write successful model prompts using platform-specific best practices to yield consistent, high-quality results.
• Revise model outputs using iterative design practices and AI-informed design tools.

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Art History Fundamentals (12 Credits)

Students who complete the Art History Fundamentals microcredential demonstrate basic fluency in the language of art history and visual analysis. Students understand major movements in Art History, particularly in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and they learn about how artworks reflect, impact, and participate in cultural power dynamics related to race, gender, sexuality, and nationality, among others. Students must take 3 of the 4 listed courses.

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Competencies gained:

• Identify and use terms related to art history and visual analysis.
• Demonstrate an understanding of major movements in art history, with an emphasis on developments in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
• Articulate how artworks and their circulation reflect cultural power dynamics.

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Curatorial Studies (12 Credits)

Students who complete the Curatorial Studies microcredential demonstrate basic fluency in terms, concepts, and major historical events related to the curatorial process, especially as it relates to art museums and galleries. Students build skills toward effectively writing about art to non-specialist publics, and participate in a hands-on curatorial project.

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Competencies gained:

• Demonstrate an understanding of how artworks circulate in the public sphere.
• Demonstrate fluency in basic terms and major historical events related to cultural institutions of display.
• Clearly communicate about visual art to develop skills for effectively writing about visual art to non-specialist publics.

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Data-driven Health Informatics (12 Credits)

Data-driven Health Informatics microcredential provides foundational knowledge and skills in finding, understanding, organizing, visualizing, and extracting information from health-related data. Students who complete this micro-credential will be able to explore publicly available health and genetic data, and use open-source web tools, Python programming, and Stata software package to learn insights from this data.

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Competencies gained:

• Employ database management and software packages to collect, analyze, store, retrieve and run queries on publicly available health data.
• Use industry-standard web-based and computational library-based tools, and bio/health algorithms to process, explore, examine and analyze health and genetic data.
• Demonstrate, articulate and document health information and all the processes by which health data is generated.

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Editing and Publishing (12 credits)

This microcredential emphasizes public-facing writing, editing, and ethical publication. The courses have been selected to offer students opportunities to consider the practical skills of copy-editing, publication production, and marketing, while simultaneously learning to give and receive useful and editorial feedback.

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Competencies gained:

• Apply writing and editing skills in professional and publication contexts.
• Demonstrate editorial skills by providing written and oral feedback on the writing of their peers.
• Analyze the ethical and social implications of editing and document design.

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Filmmaking & Media Production (12 credits)

Filmmaking & Media Production equips students with strategies and techniques to best utilize contemporary tools in the field. Students completing this microcredential will be able to produce
technically advanced films that effectively leverage technique toward expressing an underlying conceptual or narrative objective.

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Competencies gained:

•  Apply standard film and video production techniques and tools.
•  Articulate tools and approaches employed in filmmaking and video production.
•  Develop a video and filmmaking portfolio that represents formal, and technical breadth.

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Foundations of Industrial Design (12 Credits)

Foundations of Industrial Design equips students with the foundational knowledge to produce a portfolio of Industrial Design studies prompted by problems generated through the study of commonplace objects and their use cases. Students who earn this microcredential will be able to effectively utilize the tools and techniques of the field of Industrial Design toward the production of a cohesive portfolio of design objects.

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Competencies gained:

• Identify industrial design techniques.
• Apply industrial design language.
• Incorporate industrial designs into a portfolio.

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Health Anatomy (12 Credits)

The Health Anatomy microcredential involves a three-course series that covers terminology and anatomy & physiology. This series may fulfill admissions requirements for graduate programs in nursing, physician’s assistant, physical therapy, or other allied health professions.

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Competencies gained:

• Connect medical terminology to human anatomical and physiological systems.
• Identify normal and abnormal anatomical features related to human health.

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Product Development in the Internet of Things (12 Credits)

Product Development in the Internet of Things provides students hands-on experience with creating smart devices using the principles of human-computer interaction (HCI), and user-centered design (UCD). Students will develop and prototype physical devices incorporating industry grade software and hardware such as the Raspberry Pi, Teensy, or ESP32 platforms to design reproducible, manufacturable, technical solutions which respond to and/or supplement human needs.

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Competencies gained:

• Describe principles of user-centered design (UCD).
• Apply tools that integrate hardware and software consistent with best practices of human-computer interaction (HCI).
• Write and distribute documentation and hardware schematics with consideration of device reproducibility.

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For Faculty: Micro-credential Development Form