University of Mary Washington — Continuing & Professional Studies
A professional credential ladder for the AI workplace
14 verifiable badges — each one skill, two to four hours, and a real evidence artifact — stacking into five UMW micro-credentials, from everyday AI fluency to building assistants, agentic workflows, and AI governance. Earn exactly the rungs your work demands.
- 14 badges · 5 micro-credentials
- Every credential publicly verifiable
- Platform-neutral: Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot
Meet Anand.AI, your AI learning guide
Anand.AI learns your role, industry, and goal on day one, then frames every badge around your work — a marketer drills prompting on campaign briefs, a clinical manager pressure-tests tool choices against patient-data rules. Anand.AI coaches and questions; it never grades you, and the program teaches you to verify everything it says.
Badges → micro-credentials → certificate
The badge is the unit of design: one verifiable skill with its own evidence artifact. A micro-credential groups badges into a workplace competency. The certificate sits on top of the ladder — and every rung below it stands on its own.
- MC1 · Micro-credentialAll staff
AI Fluency for Professionals
Understand what AI is, use it well, and choose the right tool. The foundation every other micro-credential assumes.
- Badge 1.1 — AI Foundations
- Badge 1.2 — Prompting & Communicating with AI
- Badge 1.3 — Choosing & Using AI Tools
- MC2 · Micro-credentialAll staff
Responsible and Trustworthy AI
Use AI with integrity, recognize bias and ethical risk, and verify what AI produces. The trust layer that distinguishes a university credential from vendor training.
- Badge 2.1 — Working with Integrity
- Badge 2.2 — Bias, Fairness & Ethics at Work
- Badge 2.3 — Evaluating & Verifying AI Outputs
- MC3 · Micro-credentialPractitioners & power users
Building and Automating with AI
Move from using AI to making things with it: multimodal work, custom assistants, agentic workflows, and automation.
- Badge 3.1 — Multimodal AI
- Badge 3.2 — Building AI Assistants
- Badge 3.3 — Agentic AI
- Badge 3.4 — Automating Your Workflows
- MC4 · Micro-credentialLeaders, managers & IT
AI Governance and Leadership
Set the rules and lead the rollout: governance frameworks, risk tiers, acceptable-use policy, and adoption strategy.
- Badge 4.1 — AI Governance Foundations
- Badge 4.2 — Leading AI Adoption
- MC5 · Micro-credentialCompleters — capstone
Applied AI Practitioner
Anticipate AI's impact on your work and ship a real solution. The capstone that integrates the other micro-credentials.
- Badge 5.1 — AI, Work & Your Career
- Badge 5.2 — Applied AI Capstone
- CertificateSuggested composition — pending SCHEV approval
Certificate in AI for Professionals
The suggested composition: AI Fluency (MC1) and Responsible & Trustworthy AI (MC2) as the common core, at least one of Building & Automating (MC3) or Governance & Leadership (MC4), plus the Applied AI Practitioner capstone (MC5) — so a builder and a leader earn different, equally valid paths to the same certificate.
No prior AI experience required — most learners start with Badge 1.1. Practitioners and leaders can enter at MC3 or MC4 directly.
How the ladder works
The badge is the unit
Each badge is one verifiable skill: roughly two to four hours of focused learning plus an evidence artifact you actually use at work — an 'AI in my role' memo, a working assistant, a governance policy. Every badge you earn carries its own serial number and public verification link.
Badges stack into micro-credentials
Complete every badge in a group and the micro-credential is awarded automatically — a workplace competency like AI Fluency for Professionals or Responsible and Trustworthy AI, with its own verifiable serial. Badges and micro-credentials stand alone: start anywhere the work demands.
Platform-neutral, integrity-first
You learn across Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, and enterprise assistants — because professionals choose tools rather than being handed one. And every rung carries the trust layer that distinguishes a university credential from vendor training: disclosure, verification, and working with integrity.
Designed around a working adult's week
A badge fits in a busy week
Each badge is two to four hours: a focused reading, a working session with Anand.AI, and the evidence artifact — completable across a few lunch breaks or one quiet afternoon. There are no live-attendance requirements (recordings always count), and because badges stand alone, a busy month costs you nothing but time.
Accessible by design
The platform targets WCAG 2.1 AA throughout: full keyboard navigation with visible focus, screen-reader-labeled controls, transcripts and captions notes for media, readable text alternatives for every status indicator, and reduced-motion support. AI tutorials work in both voice and keyboard modes.
Earn your first badge this week
Create a free account, tell Anand.AI about your work, and start Badge 1.1 — AI Foundations. Two to four focused hours later, you hold your first verifiable UMW credential.