Badging programs are rapidly gaining momentum in higher education – join us to learn how to get your badging efforts off the ground.
Key Considerations: Assessment of Competencies
During this session, you will learn how to ask the right questions and evaluate if badges are a good fit within your unique institutional context, including determining ROI on badging efforts. You’ll also learn how to assess the competencies behind digital badges.
Key Technology Considerations
This session will allow for greater understanding of Open Badges standards, the variety of technology software and platforms, and the portability of badges. We will also explore emerging trends in the digital badging space and discuss campus considerations.
Key Financial Considerations
During this hour, we will take a closer look at answering key financial questions surrounding badges:
What does the business model look like behind existing institutional badging initiatives?
Are these money-makers for an institution? Is there revenue potential?
Where does funding for these efforts come from?
Partnering with Industry
Badging can be a catalyst for partnerships between higher education and industry. In this session, you will have the opportunity to learn more about strategies for collaborating with industry in the development of badges and how badges align with employer expectations.
Branding and Marketing Badges
Now that we have a better idea of the “why” and “what” of badges, how do we market their value to external and internal stakeholders? You’ll see examples of how other institutions are designing and marketing their badges.
Consultation Time
Alongside your peers and our expert instructors, you will have the opportunity to brainstorm ideas, get feedback, ask questions, and get answers.
Next Steps and the Road Ahead: Where Badging in Higher Ed is Going
Most institutions are getting into the badging game, and we’ll talk about the far-reaching considerations in the world of badging. We’ll use this time to engage in forward-thinking and discuss the future of badging and what future trends in badging might be.
While employers increasingly demand that new hires have college degrees, the transcripts supporting those hard-earned credentials are no longer the most informative tool students have to exhibit their skills.
An estimated 1 in 5 institutions issue digital badges, which can be posted to social media, stored on digital portfolios and displayed by other specially designed platforms. When clicked on, the badge lists a range of skills a student has demonstrated beyond grades.
“The reason they’re taking off in higher education is most employers are not getting the information they need about people emerging from higher ed, with previous tools we’ve been using,” says Jonathan Finkelstein, founder and CEO of the widely used badging platform Credly. “The degree itself doesn’t get to level of describing particular competencies.”
For instance, a Notre Dame student who goes on a trip to Ecuador to build bridges can earn a badge for mastering the calculations involved in the construction, says G. Alex Ambrose, associate program director of e-portfolio assessment at the Indiana university’s Kaneb Center for Teaching & Learning.
Students can be pretty certain when they have passed calculus or creative writing, but they don’t always recognize when they’ve excelled in demonstrating soft skills such as critical thinking, communication and work ethic, says MJ Bishop, director of the system’s William E. Kirwan Center for Academic Innovation.
Badges have been most popular in the school of education—including with student teachers who, in turn, have created badges for the elementary and secondary classrooms where they’ve apprenticed, says Anna Catterson, the university’s educational technology director.
The campus library is another badging hotspot. Students there have earned microcredentials for research, 3D printing and other skills. These badges are being shared on LinkedIn and other platforms to obtain internships and scholarships.
The university runs faculty training sessions on badging and has established a review process for when faculty submit ideas for microcredentials.
One pothole to avoid is trying to create a schoolwide badge that’s standardized across a wide range of courses or majors. This can force the involvement of committees that can bog down the process, so it’s better to start with skills within single courses, says Ambrose at Notre Dame.
When creating a badge, system faculty have to identify a business or industry interested in that credential.
Badges that have the backing of a college or university are more impressive to job recruiters than are completion certificates from skill-building websites like Lynda.com.
Students won’t be motivated to earn a badge that’s a stock blue ribbon downloaded off the internet. Many institutions put a lot work into the design, and this can include harnessing expertise from the marketing department and graphic designers
and learn the strategies and processes that other institutions have used to develop digital badge initiatives and programs. You’ll learn the different ways that badges can add value to the learner experience, key considerations for developing badges, and how to effectively connect learners to industry.
An academic institution’s digital badging initiative is getting off the ground and students are “earning” badges, or micro-credentials, but are they actually providing value to the student toward his or her future career?
According to a report by the University Professional and Continuing Education Association (UPCEA), one in five institutions now offers digital badges, but as educators tinker with micro-credentialing, digital badging initiatives at educational institutions can prove worthless to students due to seven common mistakes.
1. (Operational Inefficiency) Making faculty and staff manually issue badges
2. Issuing badges without authentic evidence
3. Issuing badges randomly
4. Expecting students to manually claim badges
5. Hiding badges where employers won’t look
6. Storing badges in a separate silo
7. Issuing badges that don’t match to internships or jobs
Guess what … I searched for Brenda Perea (in hopes of maybe getting some information on how they set up their system) … One of her current positions is with Credly … Do we still want to reach out to her?
94%: Institutions offering alternative credentials
1 in 5: Colleges and universities that issue badges
Nearly 2/3: Institutions that cited alternative credentials as an important strategy for the future.
-Source: “Demographic Shifts in Educational Demand and the Rise of Alternative Credentials,” University Professional and Continuing Education Association and Pearson, 2016
Digital badges are receiving a growing amount of attention and are beginning to disrupt the norms of what it means to earn credit or be credentialed. Badges allow the sharing of evidence of skills and knowledge acquired through a wide range of life activity, at a granular level, and at a pace that keeps up with individuals who are always learning—even outside the classroom. As such, those not traditionally in the degree-granting realm—such as associations, online communities, and even employers—are now issuing “credit” for achievement they can uniquely recognize. At the same time, higher education institutions are rethinking the type and size of activities worthy of official recognition. From massive open online courses (MOOCs), service learning, faculty development, and campus events to new ways of structuring academic programs and courses or acknowledging granular or discrete skills and competencies these programs explore, there’s much for colleges and universities to consider in the wide open frontier called badging.
Learning Objectives
During this ELI course, participants will:
Explore core concepts that define digital badges, as well as the benefits and use in learning-related contexts
Understand the underlying technical aspects of digital badges and how they relate to each other and the broader landscape for each learner and issuing organization
Critically review and analyze examples of the adoption of digital credentials both inside and outside higher education
Identify and isolate specific programs, courses, or other campus or online activities that would be meaningfully supported and acknowledged with digital badges or credentials
Consider the benefit of each minted badge or system to the earner, issuer, and observer
Develop a badge constellation or taxonomy for their own project
Consider forms of assessment suitable for evaluating badge earning
Learn about design considerations around the visual aspects of badges
Create a badge-issuing plan
Issue badges
NOTE: Participants will be asked to complete assignments in between the course segments that support the learning objectives stated above and will receive feedback and constructive critique from course facilitators on how to improve and shape their work.
Jonathan Finkelstein is founder and CEO of Credly, creator of the Open Credit framework, and founder of the open source BadgeOS project. Together these platforms have enabled thousands of organizations to recognize, reward, and market skills and achievement. Previously, he was founder of LearningTimes and co-founder of HorizonLive (acquired by Blackboard), helping mission-driven organizations serve millions of learners through online programs and platforms. Finkelstein is author of Learning in Real Time (Wiley), contributing author to The Digital Museum, co-author of a report for the U.S. Department of Education on the potential for digital badges, and a frequent speaker on digital credentials, open badges, and the future of learning and workforce development. Recent speaking engagements have included programs at The White House, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Smithsonian, EDUCAUSE, IMS Global, Lumina Foundation, ASAE, and the Federal Reserve. Finkelstein is involved in several open standards initiatives, such as the IMS Global Learning Consortium, Badge Alliance, American Council on Education (ACE) Stackable Credentials Framework Advisory Group, and the Credential Registry. He graduated with honors from Harvard.
In addition to helping Credly clients design credential systems in formal and informal settings, Susan Manning comes from the teaching world. Presently she teaches for the University of Wisconsin at Stout, including courses in instructional design, universal design for learning, and the use of games for learning. Manning was recognized by the Sloan Consortium with the prestigious 2013 Excellence in Online Teaching Award. She has worked with a range of academic institutions to develop competency-based programs that integrate digital badges. Several of her publications specifically speak to digital badge systems; other work is centered on technology tools and online education.
EDUC-441 Mobile Learning InstructionalDesign
(3 cr.)
Repeatable for Credit: No
Mobile learning research, trends, instructionaldesign strategies for curriculum integration and professional development.
EDUC-452 Universal Design for Learning
(2 cr.)
Repeatable for Credit: No Instructionaldesign strategies that support a wide range of learner differences; create barrier-free learning by applying universal design concepts.
ELI Online Event | July 12, 2017 | Noon–4:00 p.m. (ET)
One in five colleges have issued digital badges, according to a recent survey.* Today, all kinds of organizations, from higher education institutions to professional associations to employers, are issuing digital microcredentials. Are you?
Join us for an introductory webinar, “Alternative Credentialing in Higher Education,” on July 10. Both events are free and open to all EDUCAUSE members (available to purchase for nonmembers).
The UK-listed firm, a major supplier of courseware and assessments in schools and colleges in the United States, Britain and around the world
Pearson CEO Andy Bird told Reuters that verified credentials were becoming more important as technology adapts, leaving many companies with a skills gap where staff need training on how to work with processes such as artificial intelligence.
Pearson, which has been buffeted by the shift from physical courseware to online learning, bought AI and analytics group Faethm in 2021, which spots skills gaps for organisations.
Credly partners with organisations such as IBM, Microsoft and Amazon Web Services to provide certifications, or digital credentials, to workers both inside their firms and out who have attained a certain level with their product. Based in the United States, half of the people earning credentials on the platform are outside America, with India one of its biggest markets.
Pearson will now be able to combine the diagnostic tools of Faethm with its own digital learning programmes and Credly’s certification capabilities to offer a full service to companies.
our faculty will discover that effectively teaching in a hyflex environment without adequate support is extremely difficult and truly exhausting.
Adapt Hyflex — and Be Ready for Anything (security)
Move Beyond Zoom into the Metaverse
Reap the Rewards of 2 Years of Strategic Decision-Making
campus leaders who have intentionally put students at the center of organization and system design will reap a great reward.
Expect More Disruption and More Innovation
look for movement in the augmented and virtual reality space.
Online Ed Becomes the Norm
online education will become the norm rather than the step-sister of “traditional” education
Build Off the Threads that Are Here to Stay
Alternatives Will Continue Gaining Ground
The cultures within institutions may prevent these significant changes from occurring. If that occurs, alternatives will continue to build momentum.
Emphasize Choice and Support
Alumni will be looking for upskilling opportunities via microcredentials, to navigate growth and career change during the “Great Resignation.” Recent high school grads will expect a variety of online, hybrid and in-person courses to choose from, many bringing with them years of experience with virtual learning.
Students Need Faster Routes to Completion
Climate Change Ed Gets Embedded
Hybrid Learning Tech Will Step Up
many lecture theaters might come to look like professional TV studios, to meet growing quality and usability expectations. Also, technologies will likely be expected to make classrooms environments more “peer-learning friendly” and inclusive
Blockchain Will Gain Ed Pickup
The (Arizon State) university announced that in 2022 it would release Pocket, a digital wallet for students as a comprehensive learner record.
