From the Desk of
Greg DiDonato

Tennessee has, for more than a decade, modeled what disciplined education-to-workforce strategy can look like. The Drive to 55 attainment goal gave the State a shared destination. Tennessee Promise and Tennessee Reconnect opened the front door for high school graduates and adult learners alike, and the State’s 13 community colleges and 27 Tennessee Colleges of Applied Technology have made postsecondary attainment within practical reach of every Tennessean. The Governor’s Investment in Vocational Education has anchored regional partnerships among TCATs, K-12 districts, and employers, expanding dual enrollment, work-based learning, and registered apprenticeship. The joint Supply and Demand Report published by the Tennessee Higher Education Commission, the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development, and the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development represents one of the most thoughtful credential-to-occupation alignment efforts in the country. Few states have built so much, so deliberately, in service of their workers.

This letter is written in admiration of that work, and with a specific proposition: that the next chapter of Tennessee’s education-to-workforce strategy may benefit from a learner-held layer that the State has not yet had occasion to build. EBSCOed is the division of EBSCO Information Services that has spent the last several years constructing that layer — the LER talent marketplace — and offering LER.me to states, learners, educators, and employers at no cost. We write to share what it is, where it complements Tennessee’s investments, where it bridges systems that today operate in parallel, and how it is designed to extend rather than disturb the credential infrastructure Tennessee has already built.

LER.me is an open-standards platform that gives each individual a portable digital wallet containing their verified learning and employment records. The marketplace is built on the IEEE Learning and Employment Record standard, Open Badges 3.0, and Comprehensive Learner Record 2.0 — the same open standards on which Tennessee’s own Comprehensive Learner Record work rests — so the data Tennessee already publishes to the Credential Engine Registry, and the credentials TBR is already issuing through TBR Cred, remain authoritative and continue to operate exactly as they do today. The marketplace exchanges with those systems; it does not replace them. The platform itself is free to learners, to educators, and to employers, with optional subscription services available to states and large institutions that want deeper integration or custom analytics. The foundation is the foundation, and the foundation is free.

Four capabilities are most relevant to Tennessee’s context. The first is free credential issuance: any approved Tennessee institution, apprenticeship sponsor, or employer can issue verifiable credentials into learner-held wallets without licensing fees, supporting institutions of every size and budget on equal footing. The second is an open employer marketplace, in which Tennessee employers post opportunities and discover qualified candidates based on verified skills and credentials, again at no cost. The third is public workforce intelligence — dashboards that aggregate credential issuance and labor demand data as linked open data, available to State agencies for planning, reporting, and informing future revisions of the Supply and Demand Report. The fourth is the contributor framework, which crosswalks issued credentials to occupational standards and to State-defined high-demand categories at the point of issuance, so the demand signal Tennessee has invested years in defining is operationalized at the individual level, automatically.

Tennessee and EBSCOed are, in important respects, already partners. Through the Southeastern Regional Talent Ecosystem Pilot — a multi-state initiative facilitated by the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers and supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation — graduates of TCAT Advanced Manufacturing programs already receive a Comprehensive Learner Record that may be stored in the TBR Cred wallet. The pilot also enables cross-state portability: a TCAT student residing in Alabama can establish a MyEBSCOed wallet and transfer their TCAT credential into it, and Alabama residents holding credentials in MyEBSCOed wallets can transfer those credentials into the TBR Cred environment. This bidirectional interoperability has been validated and is operating today.

There are three lenses through which we have found it useful to discuss this marketplace with state leadership. The first is complement — where the marketplace adds capability Tennessee has not yet had reason to build. Drive to 55, by design, measures and supports attainment at the State level; the marketplace adds the learner-side artifact, a verifiable record each Tennessean carries with them. The GIVE-funded regional partnerships produce work-based learning hours, dual-credit attainments, and industry certifications that today travel in many different forms; the marketplace gives every TCAT, high school, and employer partner a free way to issue those credentials as verifiable Open Badges directly into learner wallets.

The second lens is bridge — where the marketplace connects systems that today operate in parallel. A Tennessean who completes Tennessee Promise, earns a TCAT certificate, completes Apprenticeship TN milestones, and gains employer-issued microcredentials currently has those attainments living in different places. The marketplace allows them to travel together in one learner-owned record — including across the Tennessee–Alabama border through the existing pilot.

The third lens is interoperability — where existing Tennessee platforms occupy adjacent space and where it is essential that the State’s investments be respected. TBR Cred serves the Tennessee Board of Regents institutional population through Tennessee’s own wallet investment, and it should continue to do so. The EBSCOed LER marketplace is designed to operate as a complementary, population-wide layer that serves learners outside the TBR institutional footprint — while remaining fully interoperable with TBR Cred through the shared open standards.

The matrix below applies three perspectives to selected Tennessee initiatives.

Complements	Bridges	Interoperability
Drive to 55 benefits from a learner-held credential record. The LER marketplace provides this at no cost, aggregating degrees, TCAT certificates, industry certifications, and apprenticeship completions in a single portable wallet.	Connects Tennessee Promise and Reconnect outcomes with downstream employment by allowing TBR-issued credentials, Apprenticeship TN milestones, and employer-issued microcredentials to travel together — including across the TN–AL border.	TBR Cred remains the institutional wallet. The LER marketplace serves learners outside the TBR footprint — UT System graduates, independent colleges, K-12, veterans, jobseekers — fully interoperable through Open Badges 3.0 and CLR 2.0.
GIVE partnerships generate work-based learning hours and industry certifications. Free credential issuance lets TCATs, high schools, and employers issue verifiable badges directly into learner wallets.	Carries the Work Ethic Distinction, CTE pathway completion, dual-credit attainment, and Apprenticeship TN milestones in one record. A wallet from high school continues through Promise and into employment.	Regional GIVE portfolio systems can ingest into the marketplace as Open Badges, ensuring regional investments accumulate rather than fragment.
Public workforce intelligence dashboards complement the joint Supply and Demand Report with continuous, near-real-time views of credential issuance and labor demand as linked open data.	Bridges supply-side credential data flowing to Credential Engine Registry with demand-side labor signals from employer postings, enabling continuous alignment analysis at the credential level.	Jobs4TN.gov remains Tennessee’s labor exchange. The marketplace acts as a complementary skills-and-credentials profile layer through standard APIs.
Apprenticeship TN sponsors benefit from portable, verifiable milestone credentials. No-cost issuance via Open Badges 3.0 increases the visible value of apprenticeship completion.	Bridges WIOA eligibility, apprenticeship records, and Workforce Pell verification through one learner-held record for American Job Center navigators.	The TDLWD Eligible Training Provider List remains authoritative. Approved providers issue credentials as marketplace contributors with built-in crosswalks to high-demand career signals.

If the State were to find this conversation worth continuing, three paths forward suggest themselves — each with discrete decision points and none requiring the State to commit beyond the step in front of it. The first is to extend the existing pilot: a joint progress brief to THEC, TDLWD, and TNECD leadership, followed, if the State chooses, by extension to one additional sector. The second is broader availability at no cost to Tennesseans outside the TBR footprint. The third would, only at the State’s direction, layer in optional subscription services integrating the marketplace with Jobs4TN.gov, the ETPL, WIOA case management, and the Supply and Demand Report pipeline. State funds engage only in the third phase, and only to the extent the State chooses.

We recognize that Tennessee has earned the right to be deliberate. EBSCOed has no interest in disrupting the coordination among THEC, TDLWD, TNECD, TBR, the UT System, and the Local Workforce Development Boards. Our interest is in offering a free, open-standards layer that makes Tennessee’s existing investments more useful to the Tennesseans they serve, and in continuing the partnership the Southeastern Regional Talent Ecosystem Pilot has already begun.

If any of this is worth a conversation, we would welcome one — at the convenience of whoever the State considers the right convening authority, in whatever form would be most useful, and on whatever timeline the State prefers.

With great respect for the work Tennessee is already doing, and with hope that the next chapter may be written together,

Mississippi has, since 2020, accomplished what most states talk about and never deliver: the consolidation of a fragmented workforce system into a clear central authority. State law established the Office of Workforce Development — branded AccelerateMS — as Mississippi’s lead workforce development office, advised by the State Workforce Investment Board under Section 37-153-7 and the federal Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act. AccelerateMS now coordinates strategy across the Mississippi Department of Employment Security, the Mississippi Community College Board, the Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning, and the Mississippi Department of Education. The SWIB Approved Credential List, developed in collaboration with employers and educators, is Mississippi’s emerging credentials-of-value framework. Few states have achieved this level of governance clarity.

This letter is written in admiration of that work, and with a specific proposition: that the governance architecture Mississippi has built is now ready for a digital infrastructure layer it has not yet had occasion to construct. EBSCOed is the division of EBSCO Information Services that has spent the last several years building that layer — the LER talent marketplace — and offering LER.me to states, learners, educators, and employers at no cost. We write to share what it is, where it complements Mississippi’s investments, where it bridges systems that today operate in parallel, and how it is designed to operationalize the SWIB Approved Credential List at population scale.

LER.me is an open-standards platform that gives each individual a portable digital wallet containing their verified learning and employment records. The marketplace is built on the IEEE Learning and Employment Record standard, Open Badges 3.0, and Comprehensive Learner Record 2.0. The platform is free to learners, to educators, and to employers, with optional subscription services available to states and large institutions that want deeper integration or custom analytics. The foundation is the foundation, and the foundation is free.

Four capabilities are most relevant to Mississippi’s context. The first is free credential issuance: any approved Mississippi institution, apprenticeship sponsor, or employer can issue verifiable credentials into learner-held wallets without licensing fees. The second is an open employer marketplace, in which Mississippi employers post opportunities and discover qualified candidates based on verified skills and credentials. The third is public workforce intelligence — dashboards that aggregate credential issuance and labor demand data as linked open data, delivering exactly the kind of analytics the SWIB’s 2024–27 recommendations call for. The fourth is the contributor framework, which crosswalks issued credentials to the SWIB Approved Credential List at the point of issuance.

Two 2024 initiatives signal where AccelerateMS is heading, and where the marketplace is designed to meet it. The Mississippi Apprenticeship Accelerator committed $2 million to support 600 new apprentices through the Mississippi Apprenticeship Program, and Mississippi Reconnect provides short-term training pathways for working-age adults without a credential. Both programs lean heavily on the state’s 15 community colleges and on MIBEST. The SWIB has explicitly recommended improving credential attainment and retention, expanding internships and career coaching, and strengthening education-employer data use — all of which point toward the kind of learner-held, employer-readable record that LER.me provides.

There are three lenses through which we have found it useful to discuss this marketplace with state leadership. The first is complement: the SWIB Approved Credential List names credentials of value but cannot, today, prove a Mississippian holds them or expose them to employers in verifiable form. LER.me adds the learner-held layer and crosswalks issued credentials to the SWIB list at issuance time. The second is bridge: the marketplace connects MAP apprenticeship outcomes, MCCB community-college credentials, and employer-issued microcredentials into a single learner LER — so an apprentice completing at one employer can be discovered by another without losing their record. The third is interoperability: Mississippi has no incumbent statewide LER wallet vendor. This is, in vendor terms, a fully greenfield state — and EBSCOed is positioned to establish the standard.

The matrix below applies three perspectives to selected Mississippi initiatives.

Complements	Bridges	Interoperability
The SWIB Approved Credential List names credentials of value. LER.me adds the learner-held layer, crosswalking issued credentials to the SWIB list at issuance — making every approved credential immediately employer-readable, statewide.	Bridges the credentials-of-value policy framework with verifiable, learner-controlled records. Every approved credential becomes portable and employer-readable across all 15 community colleges and every participating employer.	The SWIB list is policy; LER.me is technology. They do not overlap. EBSCOed will brief SWIB on how the contributor framework operationalizes the list at no cost to the state.
MAP and MAA face a scaling challenge: making completion credentials portable and visible. Free credential issuance lets MAP sponsors issue Open Badges 3.0 at apprenticeship milestones, directly to learner wallets.	Bridges MAP apprenticeship outcomes, MCCB credentials, and employer-issued microcredentials into a single learner LER. An apprentice at one employer can be discovered by another Mississippi employer.	MAP already operates sponsor-facing tools (msapprenticeship.works). LER.me complements them by being the learner-held record that downstream sponsors and employers can read.
Mississippi Reconnect and MIBEST move adults through short-term training. LER.me captures durable skills, work-based learning hours, and stackable credentials these programs generate.	Bridges adult learners moving across community colleges, WIN Job Centers, and employers without forcing them to rebuild a resume each transition — particularly important for the MIBEST population.	MyWayMS.org is Mississippi’s career-exploration portal. LER.me complements it by being the record where attainment lives once exploration leads to enrollment and completion.
MDES WIN Job Centers serve WIOA Title I, dislocated workers, and UI claimants. LER.me gives every participant a free LER on intake, including durable skills from prior work experience.	Bridges WIOA eligibility, the SWIB Approved Credential List, and apprenticeship completion through one verifiable record. Reduces caseworker time on resume-rebuilding and credential-verification.	MDES operates an ETPL. LER.me complements rather than replaces it: ETPL-listed providers become contributor-marketplace issuers, with credentials crosswalked to the SWIB list.

If Mississippi were to find this conversation worth continuing, three paths suggest themselves. The first is a focused pilot: two community colleges — one Delta, one Gulf Coast for regional balance — in high-demand sectors aligned with the Apprenticeship Accelerator. The 600-apprentice MAA target becomes a natural pilot population. The second is statewide availability at no cost. The third would, at the State’s direction, integrate with MDES WIN Job Center case management, ETPL eligibility automation, and IHL student information systems. State funds engage only in the third phase.

Mississippi is, in our assessment, the most efficient engagement in the Southeast: one convening authority, one advisory board, fifteen community colleges, and a policy mandate that maps directly to what we have built. Cross-border portability with Alabama and Tennessee via the Southeastern Regional Talent Ecosystem Pilot adds regional value the Gulf Coast labor market naturally demands.

If any of this is worth a conversation, we would welcome one — with the Executive Director of AccelerateMS and SWIB leadership, in whatever form would be most useful, and on whatever timeline Mississippi prefers.

With great respect for the governance clarity Mississippi has achieved, and with hope that the digital infrastructure layer may now be written alongside it,