This Week in Digital Learning News: WGU Ohio, OER in Hawaii, Digital Credentialing

Several articles on digital learning issues appeared on Inside Higher Ed this week. Among them:

• Western Governors University has established its eighth state affiliate, in Ohio. WGU Ohio was authorized by the Ohio Department of Higher Education; the state approval means that students in Ohio will be eligible for grants to study online with WGU, which WGU hopes will raise the university’s profile locally.
• Hawaii legislators last month backtracked on a bill that would have forced faculty members in the University of Hawaii system to use open educational resources -- freely accessible and openly licensed teaching materials. The legislation, proposed as a way to reduce high textbook and other costs for students, was reportedly inspired by the early success of existing OER initiatives in the university system, which are collectively saving students hundreds of thousands of dollars a semester.
• Major employers will be invited to have their internal training programs evaluated for academic creditworthiness under a new digital credentialing system led by the American Council on Education. The initiative will see ACE team up with the digital credential provider Credly to help people put a value on skills they have learned outside college courses.