A big part of the criticism that people rally against the current crop of online learning initiatives boils down to one thing: credentialing. Traditional degrees from established universities are a trusted way of documenting that a student knows what they claim to know. But a clear equivalent of this doesn’t yet exist in the online space. Starting from the obvious problem of establishing identity online to the more nuanced problem of proper testing, there are a host of issues still remaining to be resolved.

The utmost importance of high-quality credentialing came up repeatedly in a recent conversation Stanford President John Hennessy and Khan Academy founder Salman Khan had with Walt Mossberg of AllThingsD.

This conversation also brought up some interesting ways of working around the problems of credentialing online. The ideas raised included testing in a proctored environment with identity verification and micro-credentialing for specific courses instead of complete degrees.

This is the route that Udacity is taking to make their classes count towards a credential that is recognized by employers. Just a short while ago, Udacity announced their new partnership with testing service provider Pearson VUE. In addition to completing classes on the website as usual, students who wish to pursue an official credential and be part of Udacity’s job placement program will take an additional final exam at a Pearson testing center.

I think this goes a long way towards giving students a credential that has some weight, and addresses the primary criticism people have with online learning initiatives today.