Artifact
An artifact is physical documentation (document, video, image, etc.) developed to demonstrate specific knowledge and skills. Together the collection of artifacts make up the participant’s portfolio of evidence that they submit to demonstrate competency within a micro-credential.
Dependent Artifacts
For some portfolios of evidence, demonstration of competency requires the demonstration of knowledge, skills, and/or abilities within a cycle, resulting in dependent artifacts.
Dependent artifacts are interconnected in such a way that the participant cannot demonstrate competency on a dependent artifact until the competency indicators of a separate, related artifact have been met.
- For example, if a portfolio of evidence requires planning and implementation, the video evidence of implementation is dependent upon effective planning. Because planning is such an integral part of implementing a quality lesson, if the participant fails to demonstrate competency in the plan, then the video of implementation can not be assessed for competency.
Therefore, the artifact upon which other artifacts are dependent serve as a gateway; all indicators must be assessed as “met” before dependent artifacts in the portfolio of evidence can be assessed. If a gateway artifact is assessed as “not met,” then all other dependent artifacts in the portfolio of evidence will not be assessed for competency and will be assessed as “Not Met”.
- In the example above, Artifact 1 (the lesson plan) serves as a gateway artifact. Artifact 2 (the video) is then dependent on all indicators in Artifact 1 being assessed as “met” before Artifact 2 will be scored. If Artifact 1 is assessed as “not met,” then Artifact 2 will not be assessed and the portfolio of evidence will be returned to the participant for feedback and resubmission.
Once you update your evidence in Artifact 1, be sure to review your evidence in Artifact 2 to determine if any updates are needed prior to resubmitting.
Note: Dependent artifacts are not assessed during the pre-assessment check. A portfolio of evidence is first reviewed for pre-assessment indicators. These indicators check for completeness only to ensure that all required artifacts have been submitted in the correct format. Dependent artifacts are assessed when assessing for the competency indicators. An artifact may pass pre-assessment check, and then be scored “not met” during the competency indicator review.