Allegheny Lab for Innovation & Creativity

A micro-credential is a digital badge that contains information regarding competencies gained through classes and internships and is linked back 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 the trajectory of a student’s future.

In the fall of 2023, Allegheny officially launched our our micro-credential ecosystem in conjunction with our issuing partner, Credly.

Email Professor Byron Rich for more information.

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For Faculty: Micro-credential Development Form

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Micro-credentials

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 for Content Creation

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 for Software Development with Python

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 for Programming with Web Technologies

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

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 for Data Analysis with Python and R

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