As the youth apprenticeship field in the U.S. expands in scale and scope, so too has the expansion of organizations to support the development and successful implementation of apprenticeship initiatives. The term, “apprenticeship intermediary,” has been coined to refer to the function and focus of intermediary organizations that serve the needs of students, educational institutions, communities, and workforce partners in the apprenticeship field.

Career counselors work mostly with college students and recent graduates. They are frequently found in community colleges, universities, nonprofit organizations, and high schools.

Various credit transfer options are available to help individuals receive credit for what they know. Credit by exam is a process that allows students to earn college credit typically by taking subject-specific tests.

• At the K-12 level, credit by exam (CBE) is a method for individuals to demonstrate proficiency in grade level or course content (often at the K-12 level). Some state policies (for example, the Texas Education Code -TEC- §28.023) allow students to accelerate a grade level or to earn credit for a course based on credit by examination. Credit-by-examination assessments (CBEs) are typically approved by a local school district board of trustees for their district. CBEs are administered by the district or test provider in accordance with local district policy. Scores are reported directly to the school district and/or student.
• At the higher education level, some higher education institutions offer their own challenge exams. These exams are known by terms such as institutional exams, credit by exam, departmental exams, or proficiency exams. The assessment process provides academic departments the flexibility to tailor exams to fit specific course curricula, give program faculty confidence the exams reflect an appropriate level of academic rigor, and provides faculty direct control of the assessment process.
• An intermediary, the College-Level Examination Program® (CLEP) helps individuals receive college credit for what they already know. CLEP offers 34 exams that cover introductory level college course material. Exams are available in History and Social Science; Composition and Literature; Science and Mathematics; Business; and World Languages. Exams cost around $100 (exam plus test center’s administration fee). This amount is commonly used to compare to the cost of a college course. For military service members, the exam cost may be free. More than 2,900 U.S. colleges and universities award credit for CLEP. A college’s CLEP credit policy explains which CLEP exams are accepted by the institution, what CLEP score is needed to receive college credit, and how many credits are awarded for a particular CLEP exam. The policy may also include other guidelines, such as the maximum number of credits a student can earn through CLEP. With a passing score on an CLEP exam, an individual could earn 3 or more college credits at many U.S. colleges and universities.
• Some third-party organizations offer courses of study that can result in individuals receiving credit transfer from a higher education institution when they successfully complete the course. Courses are evaluated by intermediaries such as the American Council on Education or National College Credit Recommendation Service (NCCRS). Over 1,500 accredited institutions in the U.S. accept credit earned by passing a course that is pre-approved (recommended) by ACE or NCCRS. The courses are evaluated for quality by a team of university faculty and since each course has been successfully evaluated, they can be recommended for credit transfer.
  • The American Council on Education (ACE) evaluates nontraditional forms of learning for transfer credit recommendation. Thousands of colleges and universities in the U.S. use ACE recommendations to determine transfer course equivalencies to their institutions.
  • The National College Credit Recommendation Service (NCCRS) evaluates non-collegiate learning experiences for possible college credit recommendations. Their mission is to provide access to a variety of educational opportunities to nontraditional students and adult learners by recognizing learning that occurs outside of the college classroom. NCCRS evaluated courses undergo extensive review to ensure academic rigor and high instructional quality. College professors (serving as subject matter experts) determine if the courses are equivalent to similar college level courses and if credit recommendations are warranted.

Refers to organizations that serve as a bridge between employers and the education and workforce systems by providing the capacity, expertise, and coordination needed to design, implement, and scale work-based learning opportunities, including internships and apprenticeships, while strengthening talent pipelines for industry. Employer intermediaries help employers overcome common barriers such as limited staffing, program design challenges, regulatory compliance, and candidate recruitment. Intermediaries engage employers around talent needs, co-designing solutions with education and training providers, brokering partnerships, supporting program implementation, and managing administrative and funding requirements.

Intermediary organizations are often viewed as a distinct class of third-party entities. They tend to support the provision of services by another organization rather than providing direct services. They tend to be technical assistance providers or capacity-building organizations. They include nonprofit and for-profit entities, governmental and quasi-governmental entities, and membership organizations. Some are global in focus; others focus within nations, states, or cities. Some focus on the research and policy arena while others are subject- or discipline-specific. An intermediary organization can function in one or many capacities: It can be both a think tank and advocacy organization or both a technology company and consultancy. Intermediaries can also be networks or coalitions of organizations working toward a similar goal.

Refers to methods used to create, share, use, and manage the knowledge and information of an organization; and the technology that makes it possible to store, access, and update information. KM technology is a portal that links many databases together and enables the exploration of one or multiple sources simultaneously.

KM in the information-age requires an increasingly large proportion of the working population to consist of information workers. In this context, KM is a movement to create an information environment conducive to successful research and development—one that depends on extensive and deep open communication and information access that can be shared broadly across an organization.

Many organizations develop a knowledge management system to conduct their business efficiently and effectively. Common steps include: 1) knowledge creation; 2) organization of knowledge; 3) sharing of knowledge; 4) acting on knowledge; and 5) updating knowledge.

Main KM strategies include: 1) collecting and recording information (codification), 2) spreading information (dissemination), and 3) tailoring information to specific audiences (personalization). Most organizations with knowledge management systems use a blend of these strategies.

In the KM literature, knowledge is often categorized as:

• Explicit—information or knowledge that is set out in tangible form; structured information easy to document, share, and learn from.
• Implicit—information or knowledge that is not set out in tangible form but could be made explicit; the application of explicit knowledge.
• Tacit—information or knowledge gained from experience or intuition.

Enable linking or binding of data across multiple Learning and Employment Records (LERs) as well as for individual or organizations like employers, to validate one or more assertions in an individual’s LER.

In the learn-and-work ecosystem, multi-organization collaborations refer to groups of organizations that voluntarily work together—formally or informally—to pursue shared goals related to research, innovation, policy, workforce development, credentialing, and/or system improvement. Common characteristics include shared purpose and mutual benefit, cross-organizational participation, varying levels of formality, and may be ongoing or time-limited

Forms of multi-organization collaborations include:

• Alliance – A collaborative partnership that may be formal or informal, often used as a flexible term for multi-stakeholder, cross-sector efforts focused on advancing shared missions.
• Coalition – A group of organizations temporarily or permanently aligned to advocate for a policy, cause, or system reform.
• Collaborative-A group working together on joint projects or shared objectives, often emphasizing co-creation or co-design. The collaborative often emphasizes shared ownership and work.
• Consortium/Consortia– A group of organizations (often educational institutions, but can include employers, government agencies, nonprofits, and others) that voluntarily come together to collaborate on shared goals such as research, innovation, policy development, resource sharing, and/or joint programming. Consortia often have a formal structure, governance, shared funding, and clearly articulated objectives.
• Network – A loosely connected group of individuals or organizations sharing information, best practices, or informal collaborations. They may be ad hoc, and have low or no formal governance
• Partnership – Two or more organizations working together under a formal or informal agreement. Partnerships can range from simple agreements to complex joint ventures.
• Task Forces / Blue Ribbon Committees – A panel of experts convened (typically short-term) to study or make recommendations on particular issues.

See Topic Report: Multi-Organization Collaborations in the Learn-and-Work Ecosystem | Learn & Work Ecosystem Library

A network is a group or system of interconnected people or things.

Networks approaches to addressing issues in the learn-and-work ecosystem bring together individuals, organizations, or entities in an interconnected whole to address complex social or systematic challenges. Unlike traditional organizations or hierarchical structures, networks are typically decentralized, flexible, and adaptive, allowing participants to share knowledge, resources, and strategies in a coordinated way.

Neurodiversity recognizes that everybody’s brains work differently and these differences are normal. Neurodivergent is an umbrella term that refers to people who have autism spectrum disorder, ADHD, dyslexia, or other atypical ways of thinking, learning and interacting with others. Neurodivergent is not a medical diagnosis.

Organizations in the learn-and-work ecosystem are developing strategies to help make education and training more hospitable to neurodivergent learners, be they students or employees. Strategies typically focus on empowering learners and employees with ways to address the challenges they may face related to executive functioning, socialization, and self-care. Strategies are also needed to equip teachers and employers to work effectively with neurodiverse populations.

A measure that organizations use to assess the strength of their recruiting process. The new hire retention rate calculates the percentage of new hires (e.g., middle management, specialists, operational workers, office staff, senior management, executives) who are still employed at the business entity 12 months after accepting a job offer.

Public libraries are increasingly positioned to act as learning and skills intermediaries, helping individuals use technology to access learning, demonstrate and verify their skills, and navigate emerging microcredential and Learning & Employment Record (LER) systems. While public libraries do not typically issue formal academic or workforce credentials, they play a critical intermediary role by connecting community-based learning and support to education and employment pathways.

Public libraries are distinctive in their ability to serve learners across the full life course, including K–12 students, young adults, mid-career individuals seeking reskilling or career change, and older workers adapting to evolving labor market demands. This age-agnostic reach positions libraries as continuity institutions within a fragmented learn-and-work ecosystem, supporting learning and skill development before, during, and between formal education and employment experiences.

A central feature of this intermediary role is technology and digital navigation support. Public libraries are commonly trusted sites for device access, broadband connectivity, and hands-on assistance with account creation and recovery, online safety, and the use of learning, credential, and employment platforms. These forms of support are often prerequisites for participating in furthering education and career goals.

Public libraries also contribute an accessibility and inclusion infrastructure that strengthens learning ecosystems. Through assistive technologies, language access, flexible learning spaces, and in-person support, libraries help ensure that education and workforce systems are usable by individuals with varying abilities, languages, and levels of digital readiness. This role is particularly important as higher education institutions and employers seek to serve learners at multiple stages of life rather than at a single point of entry.

In addition to direct learner support, public libraries often function as local ecosystem connectors. As trusted, neutral community institutions, libraries can coordinate with higher education institutions, workforce boards, nonprofit organizations, and employers to align learning opportunities with local needs and reduce fragmentation across systems. In emerging partnership models, libraries typically focus on learner-facing support, accessibility, and navigation; and higher education and credential issuers provide assessment of individuals’ competencies, quality assurance, credential issuance, and Learning & Employment Records (LERs).

A structured, interactive conversation between a user and a librarian or information professional intended to clarify the user’s needs for information and identify relevant resources, sources, or search strategies. The reference interview helps to surface the:

• purpose of the search
• level of depth required
• constraints (time, audience, format)
• decision or action the information will support.

Historically, reference interviews were conducted in person at a library reference desk, particularly in academic, public, and special libraries. In academic environments, reference librarians played a central role in supporting student learning and faculty research by helping users navigate information catalogs, indexes, print collections, and subscription databases. These interviews emphasized:

• translating research topics into searchable terms
• guiding users to authoritative scholarly sources
• teaching effective research and evaluation skills as part of information literacy instruction.

In modern library environments, reference interviews continue to be a foundational practice but are now conducted across digital and hybrid formats, including chat, email, video consultation, and AI-assisted tools.  In AI-enabled digital libraries, reference interviews increasingly operate as a hybrid process:

• AI supports initial intake, keyword expansion, and discovery.
• Human librarians intervene where nuance, judgment, or verification is required.
• The reference interview becomes a tool not only for finding information, but for teaching users how to search, question, and interpret AI-mediated results.

In modern academic and research-oriented libraries, reference interviews are commonly conducted by reference librarians in support of student learning, faculty research, and institutional inquiry. Librarians support users who may not know what to search for, how to frame a question, or how to assess AI-mediated or algorithmically ranked results. Reference interviews increasingly focus on:

• clarifying intent rather than keywords
• improve prompts and search strategies
• guiding ethical and responsible use of AI tools
• helping users interpret, validate, and apply information rather than simply retrieve it.

Coordination among the many partners in apprenticeship programs (e.g., sponsors, employers, providers of related technical instruction) is an important feature of successful apprenticeship programs.

For youth apprenticeship programs specifically, employers and high schools must work together to design flexible schedules so students can complete their high school diploma requirements and required on-the-job training (OJT) hours for participating in Registered Apprenticeships. When related technical instruction is delivered at a community or technical college, the colleges and high schools may need to work to provide dual (concurrent) credit opportunities. Parents too may need additional information on apprenticeships.

For all apprenticeship programs (youth and older populations), coordination among program partners is often the role of a Registered Apprenticeship Intermediary. The intermediary communicates among the partners and helps partners successfully create, launch, and expand apprenticeship programs. Key tasks typically include student and employer matching, participant and employer recruitment, managing registration, and reporting outcomes (from data tracking).

This role is provided by various types of organizations: high schools, industry associations and business organizations, community and technical colleges, nonprofit and community-based organizations, labor management partnerships, state agencies, and workforce development councils.

See Glossary Term: Apprenticeship Sponsor | Learn & Work Ecosystem Library

Refers to a collection of materials that are typically segregated from a general library collection according to form, subject, source, value, etc.  Although the Learn & Work Ecosystem Library is itself a specialized collection of information resources pertinent to the learn-and-work ecosystem, smaller subsets of information (sub-collections) are also available at the Library to serve particularized information interests of stakeholder groups; for example, alliances of organizations interested in resources on a particular topic such as Learning and Employment Records (LERs). The Library includes these sub-collections in its Special Projects section.

A model in which there is no dedicated central entity that coordinates the identification or the cultivation of new talent for state organizations. Each state agency is responsible for recruiting and hiring its own employees. This model is generally viewed as a flexible, responsive way to hire but there are fewer incentives for agencies to seek talent outside of their usual recruitment channels.

Refers to an emerging workforce and economic framework that emphasizes the importance of technicians and technical workforce capacity in enabling the deployment, operation, maintenance, scaling, and long-term sustainability of modern technologies, infrastructure, and industrial systems. The framework argues that economic competitiveness increasingly depends not only on innovation, research, financing, or invention, but also on whether industries and regions have sufficient technical workforce capacity to implement and sustain those innovations in practice. The framework positions technicians as essential operational infrastructure within the modern economy. The framework also describes what some leaders call the “Innovation–Deployment Gap,” referring to the growing divide between what the economy can design, finance, or announce versus what organizations and regions can reliably install, operate, maintain, troubleshoot, and scale in real-world environments.

Within this framework, technicians are viewed as essential workers who support sectors such as advanced manufacturing, semiconductor production, logistics and transportation, energy infrastructure, healthcare technologies, telecommunications, data centers, AI-enabled systems, and industrial automation.

The framework is associated with efforts to better align employer technician demand, skill development, workforce training capacity, and hiring outcomes through collaboration among employers, community and technical colleges, workforce organizations, and regional economic leaders. The framework emphasizes that large investments in infrastructure and emerging technologies may fail to achieve intended economic outcomes if geographic regions lack coordinated systems for workforce preparation, technical training, hiring, and deployment. Supporters of the framework argue that future economic strength may depend as much on the ability to sustain and operate complex systems as on the ability to invent them.

The concept was introduced publicly in 2026 during a major workforce and higher education convening focused on economic mobility, workforce deployment capacity, and technician workforce shortages.

An online directory and discovery platform for artificial intelligence (AI) tools worldwide. Launched in late 2022 as a simple web tool, it has evolved into a comprehensive searchable and filterable index with user voting and tagging. As of mid-2025, the daily-updated directory had over 12,000+ AI tools. There is no formal registration required for browsing. The website serves as a centralized hub that consolidates, categorizes, and updates a wide range of AI applications, especially in the areas of productivity, education, business, design, and more. It offers users a way to find specific tools by use case, category, or function (e.g., text generation, image creation, research, productivity). The platform developed in response to the explosion of AI tools following the release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in 2022, which led to a fragmented digital landscape of applications, many of which lacked visibility or easy categorization.

Examples of users include:

• Individual professionals and creators seeking productivity boosts
• Educators and students exploring educational applications of AI
• Startups and business teams scouting emerging tools for operations or innovation
• Journalists, researchers, and technologists tracking AI trends and tool growth
• Search and filtering tools for narrowing by pricing, popularity, recency, or task
• Newsletter and trend tracking, highlighting new or trending AI tools
• API access for developers or platforms looking to embed AI tool discovery

Another name for this type of platform is an AI Tool Aggregator.

Refers to approaches that support both children and their parents or caregivers at the same time, rather than focusing on only children or adults.  2Gen programs work with the whole family to connect services like education, job training, childcare, health, and financial support to meet the needs of both generations, bringing together different programs and organizations to work as a team for families. 2Gen programs typically involve families in designing programs that affect them.

Examples of programs:

• CAP Tulsa (Oklahoma)
  • A Head Start program that serves children from low-income families while also supporting parents.
  • Children receive high-quality early childhood education.
  • Parents are offered GED classes, job training, career coaching, and parenting support.
  • Services are coordinated so that while children are in school, parents can pursue education or employment goals.
• Jeremiah Program (in multiple U.S. cities)
  • A national nonprofit that supports single mothers and their children through education and career pathways.
  • Mothers receive support for college education, career readiness, life skills, and housing.
  • Children receive early childhood education in the same building where moms attend classes.
  • The program builds social capital through peer support and mentorship.
• Garrett County Community Action Committee (Maryland)
  • A rural community action agency that uses a 2Gen model to deliver services across family needs.
  • Families work with a navigator to develop a whole-family success plan.
  • Services include childcare, housing, transportation, employment training, and financial education.
  • Parents and children have shared goals and milestones that guide their support journey.

While there is no single federal 2Gen policy, multiple federal programs provide funding and flexibility to support 2Gen approaches:

• Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) – gives states flexibility to design programs that can incorporate 2Gen models—supporting both workforce development for adults and early education or childcare for children. Some states have used TANF funds to pilot 2Gen demonstration projects (e.g., Colorado and Connecticut).
• Head Start / Early Head Start – While focused on child development, these programs also support parental involvement, family goal setting, and access to job training, which aligns with 2Gen principles.
• Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) – Supports career pathways and wraparound services that can be adapted to support parents while coordinating with services for their children. Some local workforce boards have also adopted 2Gen-informed planning and service delivery.
• Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program (MIECHV) – Uses a family-centered model that provides services to both parents and young children, aligning closely with 2Gen goals.

A growing number of states are adopting formal 2Gen frameworks, passing legislation, and running pilot projects. Efforts often include cross-agency coordination, shared family goals, and a focus on equity and systems change:

• Colorado – In 2015, the Colorado Office of Economic Security adopted a formal 2Gen framework across its human services agencies. The state issued a 2Gen Policy Framework to guide state and local implementation.
• Connecticut – Created a Two-Generational Interagency Working Group and pilot programs in several communities with legislative support. Also passed Public Act 15-142, which established the state’s 2Gen initiative focused on integrating education, workforce, and family services.
• Utah – The Intergenerational Poverty Initiative, launched in 2012, applies a 2Gen lens to reduce poverty through cross-agency collaboration. This requires annual reporting to track outcomes for both children and parents.

See Topic: Two-Generation Approach (2Gen Approach) | Learn & Work Ecosystem Library

See Glossary Term: Students Who Are Parents | Learn & Work Ecosystem Library

Offices operated by labor unions that help distribute job assignments to union members, often in skilled trades such as construction, maritime work, or longshoring. Employers contact the hiring hall when they need workers, and the union dispatches available members based on seniority, qualifications, or rotational systems. The purpose of union hiring halls is to match workers to jobs fairly and efficiently, ensure compliance with union contracts, and maintain job order and labor market balance within an industry.

Services that assist individuals with disabilities to achieve employment. Common services provided by VR service organizations include:

• Exploring employment interests and skills
• Job search assistance – helping in finding employment
• Providing assistive technology and other services to help individuals keep your job
• Re-entering employment after a period of not working
• Training for a new career due to factors related to an individual’s disability
• Providing services for career advancement

Refers to all enterprises, the public sector, and civil society organizations — a holistic term that refers to learning integrated with work, and the integration and relationship between work, society, and personal life. Employment is a related term which is work done for employers.