Participant Consent

About this study
You are invited to participate in The Currency of Credentials: A National Study of Quality, Relevance, and Emerging Practice in Online Certification Programs. 

This study is conducted by Sovereign+, LLC and led by Dr. Elisa Janson Jones, a CITI-certified researcher. It is designed for professionals who design, manage, or administer credential programs — and for individuals who have pursued them. Both perspectives are central to this research.

What the study examines
The study explores four areas: how well credential programs reflect current labor market needs; how competence is assessed and measured; how AI is used in credentialing work; and what outcomes credential programs produce for learners, employers, and the workforce more broadly. Findings will be published as a white paper and made available to participants and the credentialing community.

What participation involves
Depending on your background, the survey takes approximately 12–18 minutes. Some questions ask about program data that may be sensitive — such as pass rates or completion figures — and those items are clearly marked as optional. At the end of the survey, you may optionally complete a brief written follow-up questionnaire (approximately 15 minutes) with open-ended questions about your experiences. The follow-up is separate and entirely your choice.

Your rights
Participation is voluntary. You may skip any question or stop the survey at any time before submitting — without penalty and without explanation. Once submitted, individual responses cannot be withdrawn, as they are immediately anonymized and merged with the dataset.

Privacy and confidentiality
Your responses are stored securely and accessed only by the Sovereign+, LLC research team. All findings are reported in aggregate. No individual, organization, or program will be named in any publication or presentation without your explicit written permission. If you choose to share your name, email address, or organization at the end of the survey, that information is stored separately from your responses and used only to send you a summary of findings or an invitation to the optional follow-up — never linked back to your answers in any analysis or report.

Risks and benefits
There are no anticipated risks associated with participation. You may encounter questions about internal program practices or personal professional experiences; you are free to skip any item you prefer not to answer. While there is no direct compensation for participating, your input will contribute to one of the first cross-sector, two-sided studies of credential program quality in the United States. A summary of findings will be available to all respondents who request it.

Questions about this study
To reach the research team, contact Sovereign+, LLC at: support@sovereign.plus