After much deliberation, CAEL is excited to announce that we will now be using the term credit for prior learning (CPL) when referencing the various methods, strategies, and programs used to evaluate and assess an individual's extra-institutional learning for the purposes of awarding college credit or advanced academic standing.
CAEL's work to support adult learners has long been broad ranging - from advising postsecondary institutions on making programs better for adult students to making workforce development systems more closely aligned with economic development initiatives, and from testing new models for career navigation to leading national discussions on the future of work and learning. But our roots are in postsecondary efforts to recognize and value adult students' experiential learning - it has been so important to CAEL's history that experiential learning is still part of our name today.
For four decades now, we have been using the term prior learning assessment, or PLA, as the umbrella term for all methods that institutions use to evaluate a student's prior learning - learning acquired outside of a formal college classroom, such as from work experience, corporate training, military training, self-study, volunteer work, and more. But now, after many internal discussions, consultations with external experts and members, and a national student opinion survey, we are shifting to use the term credit for prior learning, or CPL.
The main reasons for this change are:
It makes little sense to hold on to a term that is too narrow in its implied scope, not very clear in its intent, and unappealing to its target population. So we're making the leap and embracing a change to credit for prior learning/CPL.
This change will not be immediate - nor is it likely to be an absolute change. It will take CAEL a period of time to implement the change across all of our various work streams, and many of our publications - like The PLA Boost research report - will still use the term PLA. But you will start to see more use of CPL, or a combined term CPL/PLA, on our website, at the CAEL conference, in our communications, and as we interact with our members and the larger field.
Check out CAEL's robust set of helpful and instructional resources on CPL/PLA available to postsecondary institutions at no charge.