Another Improvement to Degreed: Retainment

<a href="http://www.degreed.com">Degreed is an education evaluation service. I am a huge fan of Degreed, but I have also been keeping track of ways to improve the service. This article covers one such improvement.

Degreed does not account for the ability to retain education. If I read a book 1 year ago, or if I just finished reading the book, I receive the same number of education points. For example, I recently told Degreed that I read the book, "Chemistry: The Central Science" by Brown et al. I was awarded about 50 points. That number accounts for more than 1.4% of my total education according to Degreed, which seems to me to be disproportionately large considering that I barely remember the contents of that book, which I read as part of an undergraduate course in chemistry years ago.

Degreed allocated me 81 points for the course on chemistry and 50 points for the book. I think that is an accurate allocation, but it also indicates that people who want full credit for a course need to include which books were read or they will be dramatically undervalidated.

I have 4 ways to fix this, although there are probably other ways as well. In order from easiest to implement to hardest

1. Create a disclaimer which notifies potential users of the score as to the weakness and put the onus of correction on someone else.
2. Use a simple mathematical formula to model expected retainment over time.
3. Use testing at the time the educational material is claimed.
4. Use testing at the time the educational material is claimed and conduct periodic testing both in order to continuously check for changes to retainment and also to encourage maintenance and development.