Success Stories
ASME Had the Brand and the Reach.
We Helped Build the Strategy.
American Society of Mechanical Engineers
A powerhouse of credentials waiting for one strategy to unite them.
ASME had everything that matters: a nearly 150-year reputation as a trusted standards authority, credentials spanning an engineer’s entire career, and hundreds of digital badges already issued. The pieces were strong. What they needed was a single strategy to make them add up to more than the sum of their parts.
MCM delivered a Credentialing Clarity and Alignment Strategy that unified ASME’s credentials under one taxonomy, governance model, and roadmap — moving the organization from exploration to implementation readiness, and positioning it to lead skills-based recognition in engineering.
The Opportunity in Numbers
Real scale, ready to become shareable evidence.
ASME was already issuing credentials. MCM helped give that momentum a shared taxonomy, metadata framework, and unified strategy that makes credentials clearer, more consistent, and more useful to learners, employers, and verifiers.
Digital badges already in market
Credential types unified under one taxonomy
Verifiable Metadata components mapped
Rigorous Industry-aligned Learning Pathways
Why the metadata matters
The strategy connects ASME’s credentials and earning pathways to richer records — helping key stakeholders signal and understand what was earned, how it was assessed, what evidence supports it, and why it matters.
Deliverable Highlight
One ecosystem under a shared taxonomy.
MCM helped ASME create a practical organizational credential classification system that makes it easier for ASME's global team to determine what kind of recognition is being issued, how strong the signal should be, what outside recognizers (such as employers) need to see, and what evidence is required to support the claim.
Classification logic
Three questions guide the credential type.
Is there an assessment?
Does it support an external certification?
What is being evaluated?
Credential Signal Strength
Credential value becomes stronger as assessment, evidence, and validation increase.
Participation
Recognizes attendance or engagement.
Examples: webinars, events, workshopsKnowledge
Recognizes understanding of concepts.
Examples: quizzes, module testsCompetency
Recognizes applied skill or performance.
Examples: capstones, performance tasksService
Recognizes contribution to ASME.
Examples: committee roles, volunteer serviceInnovation
Recognizes judged engineering work.
Examples: ISHOW, E-FestNomination
Recognizes selected excellence.
Examples: scholarships, design awardsIndustry-Recognized
Recognizes validated industry skill.
Examples: personnel certifications, QROWhy it matters
The taxonomy gives ASME a shared way to classify credentials, explain their value, and match each credential to the right level of evidence, assessment, and metadata.
What we built together
A complete, evidence-based strategy
MCM delivered a unified strategy grounded in prioritization, governance, standards-aligned metadata, and a clear path to external validation.
The work gave ASME a practical path from exploration to implementation — connecting strong existing assets to a clearer, more scalable credential strategy.
Prioritization
Opportunity became focus.
MCM scored ecosystem opportunities across impact and feasibility, helping ASME separate strategic bets from quick wins and supportive efforts.
Standards + Metadata
Built on the specifications the field already trusts.
The framework is encoded to Open Badges 3.0 and the Comprehensive Learner Record Standard from 1EdTech — the same specifications AACRAO has adopted for digital learner records — so ASME's credentials are cryptographically verifiable and interoperable with the broader credentialing ecosystem.
Market Positioning
Built for ASME's scale, not anyone else's.
With more than 72,000 members in over 130 countries, ASME doesn't need to follow someone else's credentialing model. The strategy was built around ASME's own reach, standards authority, and engineer-career arc — designed to scale on its own terms.
Validation Readiness
ASME was positioned for stronger external validation.
The strategy clarified how ASME credentials could be structured for stronger external recognition, including ABET alignment considerations.
The Strategic Shift
From credential activity to unified infrastructure that scales.
ASME already had strong programs, respected credentials, digital badges, and global reach. The strategy gave those assets a shared structure — so recognition could be governed, encoded, validated, and scaled with confidence.
Before
Strong credential activity
- Trusted programs
- Existing digital badges
- Global engineering audience
- Recognized ASME brand
After
Shared credential infrastructure
- Common taxonomy
- Governance model
- Standards-aligned metadata
- Validation pathway
Shared language
A common way to describe credential types, recognition levels, and signal strength across teams.
Shared rules
Governance for how credentials are classified, reviewed, approved, maintained, and explained.
Shared data model
Standards-aligned metadata that makes each credential clearer, more portable, and easier to trust.
Shared validation path
A stronger foundation for external recognition, including ABET alignment considerations.
Why it matters
When credential activity becomes infrastructure, new credentials do not have to be invented from scratch. Teams have a shared way to decide what something is, what it proves, what metadata it needs, and how it can carry value beyond the issuing moment.
What This Unlocks
More value for every audience that touches the credential.
The strategy helps ASME credentials carry clearer meaning beyond the moment they are issued — so learners, employers, internal teams, and partners can each read the credential with greater confidence.
Learners
Turn achievement into a clearer professional story.
Engineers can better understand what they earned, what it represents, and how it fits into a larger career pathway.
Portable evidence
Employers
Make the credential signal easier to interpret.
Employers and verifiers can distinguish participation, knowledge, competency, service, innovation, and industry-recognized credentials without guessing.
Readable signal
ASME teams
Give teams a repeatable way to design and scale.
Program teams have a shared framework for classifying, reviewing, explaining, and maintaining credentials across offerings.
Operational consistency
Partners
Connect ASME credentials to broader skills-based ecosystems.
Alignment with open standards sets the stage for direct and indirect collaboration with state, regional, and national LER initiatives as they shift toward skills-based learning and employment records.
Open standards
Work with MCM
Build credentials that carry value beyond the badge.
Micro-credential Multiverse helps organizations move from disconnected credential activity to durable credential ecosystems — grounded in strategy, governance, standards, evidence, and real market value.
Built for organizations that need to
Align credentials to skills, standards, and stakeholder value.
Create governance and approval processes that can scale.
Define metadata, evidence, and assessment expectations.
Build credential systems that are vendor-neutral and future-ready.