Certifications Instead of Quizzes - Enhancing the Attractiveness and Skills of Digital Marketing Students

The Digital Marketing landscape continues to evolve into a mass number of specialized tools applicable to various stages within the customer journey.  The development of software platforms to support specializations such as digital ad placements, keyword analysis, analytics, customer retention and others put pressure on digital marketing students to be skilled in a variety of platforms and specializations.  In many instances, digital marketing textbooks provide a baseline of digital marketing knowledge but fail to be exhaustive in any particular software platform and are limited in applications of verifying a student’s abilities.  The overall problem to be addressed in this paper will be the lack of in-depth application of digital marketing platforms available to students from traditional publishers.  

 

Students can continue to be quizzed on digital marketing theories and tactics espoused in textbooks.  They may understand characteristics of an e-mail platform, for example, but may never be exposed to actually using such a platform.  Fortunately, key software companies offer certifications to develop one’s skillsets in a variety of digital marketing applications.  In many instances, the certifications require several hours of instructional video on how to use a platform, require the student to actually use the platform, quiz the student in various steps of the learning path, and ultimately take a final test before certification is awarded.  Professors of Digital Marketing courses have an opportunity to enhance student learning, develop practitioners of key software platforms, and offer students a valuable and notable achievement they can include on their résumés by implementing certifications rather than traditional quizzes in the digital marketing courses.  The combination of textbook learning combined with industry certifications can position the digital marketing student to be competitive in the job market or provide them a platform to develop their own business from.  The purpose of this case study will be to understand student development and assessment of using certifications rather than quizzes as part of a digital marketing course curriculum for undergraduate students at a large, private university in Virginia.