Building Montana's Credential Registry: Collaboration and Timing

For years, Great Falls College has been doing important work with non-credit Validated Skills Trainings - from Basic Floor Installation to CNA to CDL courses that serve Montana's workforce needs. But like many institutions, they faced a challenge: how do you make this work visible, comparable, and connected to the larger educational system?

In January 2025, Great Falls College joined a pilot project led by Accelerate Montana to start building a solution. As a nonprofit and recent recipient of a SkillsFWD grant, AccelerateMT recognized that Montana lacked the critical data systems other states were using to power their shift to skills-based learning and employment ecosystems. Five institutions - Great Falls College, UM Bitterroot, Helena College, Missoula Colleges, and UM Western - accepted AccelerateMT's invitation to establish the Montana Credential Registry, the 30th in the nation. Later joined by Flathead Valley Community College, Salish Kootenai College, Montana State University's Academic Technology Office, and City College at MSU Billings, these partners formed a forward-looking collaboration that bet on the value of open data before any mandate existed.

Why a Credential Registry Matters

Unlike some other countries, the United States lacks a unified system for making skills and credentials standardized, transparent, and comparable across institutions. Credential Engine is a national organization filling that gap by developing an open data language that enables job seekers, students, and employers to search for and compare credentials across providers. It is Credential Engine's linked data and infrastructure that supports each of the statewide credential registries. This open linked data language is inclusive and expansive enough to capture the value of Montana's non-credit Validated Skills Trainings and also to translate Blackfeet Living Principles into workforce skills, a project featured in November's WBLC newsletter.

Building with Open Data

AccelerateMT operated as a "data concierge," providing no-charge support to help colleges format their existing program information according to Credential Engine's detailed specifications. The team sourced information from college websites and materials provided by the institutions, looked up standardized codes, and navigated the technical requirements alongside college staff. This was demanding and completely optional work, carried out in anticipation of the future value rather than in response to immediate demand. AccelerateMT’s DIY approach was guided models from other states’ registries and by the value of linked open data published by each training provider to help learners compare and evaluate their options.

Strategic Timing Pays Off

In April 2025, AccelerateMT presented about linked open data and the Montana Credential Registry to the WBLC spring meeting in Lewistown. The following month, HB252, the STARS Act, passed the legislature with strong bipartisan support and was signed by Governor Gianforte. The STARS Act established Future Ready Payments for high school students who earn industry-recognized credentials or participate in work-based learning experiences.

Critically, the bill required the Montana Department of Labor & Industry to "adopt in rule a list of industry-recognized credentials". DLI also chose to work with Credential Engine as their data system for hosting this mandated list of industry-recognized credentials. This decision, made just six months after the Montana Credential Registry pilot began, validated the approach early partners had taken and offered an aligned data infrastructure from educational providers through to state agencies.

For Great Falls College specifically, this new policy meant their detailed documentation work now served two useful purposes. Many of the programs they had carefully published to the Credential Registry - programs like EMT and CDL - are searchable as both non-credit Validated Skills Trainings and dual enrollment programs leading to industry-recognized credentials that now qualify for STARS Act funding.

Looking Forward

The Montana Credential Registry continues to grow, and as the policy landscape shifted, the value of this early collaboration is now evident. We're grateful to the colleges who saw the value in credential registry infrastructure early enough to start building it with us - publishing their programs not because they had to, but because they understood where Montana needed to go. What started as a bet on the value of open data has become foundational infrastructure as Montana starts building its own credentialing ecosystem. To learn more about our credential transparency work, contact us at elizabeth.dove@acceleratemt.com