The hs.credit platform is designed for 11th and 12th-grade students in the USA who want to distinguish themselves in post-secondary applications:

- students who opted out of testing in lower grades or do not do well on timed tests and want to show colleges what they are capable of.

- Students in existing performance-based settings who seek third-party evaluation for transcript credibility.

- Students engaged in intensive after-school activities like robotics, looking for credit for their out-of-school work.

- Students who want something better than an AP Exam score but who don’t even have AP courses in their school.

- Those who understand that they will face a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world that can't be simplified into an answer key.

- Digital natives who can collaborate with AI to produce an academic documentary or an interview-style podcast to express themselves and share their learning journey.

Our platform is designed for students who see themselves as creators rather than consumers of learning. It's meant for those who want to actively engage with the complex world around them instead of merely reading about others who do; students who aim to become thought leaders rather than being monetized as followers.

Our all-volunteer team is currently building the platform. Beta testing with our initial users will begin this year (2024), aiming for a full public release in mid-2025. Register now to participate in the Fall 2024 beta testing program! Visit our homepage and click REGISTER.

No. Use of the hs.credit app is free for all 11th and 12th grade students and teachers. We are a 510(c)3 with a focus on improving educational outcomes. We provide our service at no cost to welcome all students, regardless of their zip code, to develop their own gold standard transcript. Previous to hs.credit, such transcripts were only available to students at elite schools that determined graduation based on a portfolio of student work.

The hs.credit design team is not opposed to all forms of academic testing. We believe testing is suitable for evaluating knowledge or informational learning. In fact, the STAKE phase of our three-stage credit model necessitates a test of student content knowledge to initiate a project. We see tests as beneficial at the start of the learning process.

However, we don't advocate for using tests to assess the final stages of learning where students practice academic skills in real-world scenarios. To evaluate this effectively, it is crucial to assess the work a student produces after multiple cycles of feedback and revision. This approach is often referred to as performance-based assessment.

Performance-based assessment is the only high stakes assessment worthy of consideration since standardized tests require an answer key and thus omit all learning that does not have a simple correct answer. The most important learning requires critical thinking exactly because there is no simple answer, demanding students make nuanced arguments an hold multiple perspectives.

In fact, high stakes standardized testing, especially AP Exams, can be detrimental. They train students to depend on an authority to tell them how to think to get the “right answer.” A three-hour exam used to assess 12 years of learning in a given subject cannot produce a high resolution view of any student.

As a data company, we agree with those who argue against just getting rid of standardized tests. Founded and advised by career public school administrators, we understand that schools need a way to measure outcomes.

Our main expense is the human resources needed for evaluating student work for credits.

We have three credit experts to review each student's submission, once approved by the educator working with the student. This costs $100 per credit, with $75 going directly to veteran project-based educators as experts.

Initially, we are raising funds as a 501(c)3 nonprofit to cover the cost of the first 500 credit evaluations. We also have a limited number of credit experts who volunteer their services because they support our mission and want to contribute to the platform's growth.

Once we gain a substantial user base, we will sell credit metadata to universities, government agencies, and others who benefit from high resolution college and career readiness data.

Our data will be valuable to these institutions who currently rely on AP Exams and the SAT/ACT. To put the value of such data in perspective, AP Exams alone generate over $500 million per year for The College Board. Having an AP score of 4 on a transcript isn't as valuable as a transcript of validated credits, with student's work available at the scan of a QR code.

The data stored permanently on hs.credit is that which is found on a high school transcript or school portfolio system. Students have control over their data. They have the option to release their transcript to specific universities or institutions free of charge and they can opt in to receive email offers from universities or post-secondary programs who express interest in their work.

When dealing with aggregate credit metadata, we rely on a committee of experienced educators to decide the format for selling specific data reports. This committee is charged with striking a balance between earning enough revenue to cover the grading of all incoming student work and addressing privacy concerns. We place trust in a decentralized community of veteran educators as experts, with student participation over school districts and politicians.

Any student work published to a credit stream on hs.credit has been evaluated first by the students’ teacher and then by three paid credit experts. Just like any AP Exam, student work on hs.credit is evaluated by three credit experts who do not know the student personally.

That being said, not every credit will be created equal. We are a platform where organizations come to publish their credit rubric with training for their community of credit experts. Students, school administrators and families need only look at a credit stream of previously approved student work to see the type of work that represents that credit. Furthermore, anyone is free to review the rubric used by the credit experts to determine which work to publish and what to send back.

Credit owners maintain the reputation of their credits by ensuring credit experts only approve work that meets expectations. Any universities or employer receiving a student transcript via hs.credit can click on credits and view the quality of work for themselves.

High school administrators, school districts, and universities can register to endorse specific credits. The hs.credit platform does not comply with local credit requirements of any single state. By checking which credits are approved by their school or district, students can ensure that their hs.credit work will be eligible for local credit award. Students will also be able to earn credits not recognized by their school if, for example, the credit is endorsed by a university.

The hs.credit platform is dedicated to assessing student work. We entrust pedagogues to collaborate with students, without imposing any specific curriculum or requiring that educators share their curricular resources, which are a form of intellectual property.

To understand how this works, consider our three-phase credit award framework: STAKE, PITCH, MINT:

1. In the STAKE phase, the student chooses a credit, acquires some content, and invites an educator to collaborate on a project.

2. During the PITCH phase, the student uploads a task as a pdf, which defines the final product they will create. An educator helps align this task to the chosen credit.

3. The most critical phase on hs.credit is the MINT phase, where a credit is minted. The student uploads their work, and if the educator approves, it is sent to be validated by three credit experts. These experts use a publicly available rubric to determine credit award.

In summary, educators who accept a student's invitation to earn a credit on hs.credit will first evaluate the student's STAKE, define the task in the PITCH phase, and serve as the initial validator for the MINT phase.

Each credit owner has control over the approval of new credit experts assigned to grade incoming work. Each new credit stream identifies an inaugural team of credit experts.

As demand for the credit grows and additional credit experts are needed, the hs.credit platform recommends teachers who have successfully worked with students to earn the credit in question. They have clearly proven themselves familiar with the grading rubric in question.

We believe that performance-based assessments generate higher quality data than high-stakes, timed, standardized tests. These assessments involve student work that undergoes multiple cycles of feedback and revision before receiving approval from a teacher and three paid credit experts. We consider a transcript of such credits as the "gold standard" of academic data.

Our three-stage STAKE, PITCH, MINT credit approval process is key to maintaining this gold standard across all credits on the platform. As discussed in relation to the quality of work approved for publication, we rely on the inter-rater reliability practices of each individual credit. Hence, specific expectations will vary from credit to credit, shaping the reputation of each one. However, even the most straightforward credit to earn on the hs.credit platform represents a gold standard in ways that no AP Exam could.

We anticipate that hs.credit will encourage more student-centered classrooms, which we consider the gold standard. We also believe that the methods we use to measure learning have significant societal implications and can serve as a lever for change. Since "what gets measured, gets done," modifying how we assess classrooms can influence how we educate our young people. Specifically, changing how we measure the culminating years of 11th and 12th grade affects the entire K-12 journey leading up to that point.

You have a tremendous opportunity to help us launch this platform. Your work can become known as having started a revolution that transformed society. We are counting on you and all the value of our platform is built on your shoulders. If you do excellent work, the platform will be one of excellence. If you focus your attention to produce meaningful, nuanced stories, helping explain how academic skills can be used, you will benefit as a creator while leading the way for all those that earn credit on our platform after you. Join our genesis block! Set the academic standard for others to follow.

Our platform is designed to free your practice from any tether to standardized tests. It is time students inspire you rather than you being asked to inspire students who are bored and disengaged. The students must take the first step. Show interest. That is the purpose of the STAKE phase of our three phase credit model. Students must demonstrate to you that they have used their attention to study a topic. They cram for the exam to initiate a credit. Once you have successfully coached students who earn a credit, you enter the pipeline of educators invited to grade student work on the platform for up to $150/hr. Not a bad side hustle to enjoy down the road as a veteran in a credit community.

Our platform aims to be decentralized, starting with the students before proceeding to teachers and beyond. It is not designed for top-down implementation and we discourage any school or district from mandating use of hs.credit.

However, if you're interested in publishing your own credit on our platform, please email owners@hs.credit to apply for a credit owner account. With this account, we can assist you to post credits and set up reliability practices among your credit experts. We bear the cost of the credit experts ($75 per credit paid to them directly)—you select and train them to represent your brand and manage the reputation of your credit stream(s) by selecting which student work is published for credit.

As a credit owner, you can also endorse any credit on the platform. For instance, if you're a school district or high school principal, you can identify which credits you recognize based on local standards. Universities can use their brand to support types of credits sought in their applicant pool, and so on.