2 The Relationship between Digital Badges and Micro-credentials

Credentials provide a method of verifying all types of achievements. Historically, achievements have been recognized with paper records, medals, badges, and other signifiers. In academic settings, credentials have included college and university degrees, diplomas, certificates, and endorsements that were often verified with paper records. Within the past few decades, technology has enabled paper records to be digitized in a variety of formats, which include digital badging technology. Digital credentials is inclusive of the digital versions of previously mentioned credentials, including digital badges and micro-credentials.

What are Digital Badges?

Digital badges are electronic symbolic representations sometimes used as micro-credentials to recognize competency in a skill (Stefaniak & Carey, 2019). Post University (2022) adds that a digital badge “acts as a visual representation of the micro-credential for sharing purposes.” The micro-credentials earned on Digital Promise’s Micro-credential Platform meet the Open Badges technical specifications stewarded by 1EdTech. A digital badge must be portable, shareable, controllable, and verifiable by the issuer and earner to be considered an Open Badge. A digital badge is portable if it can be transferred between any Open Badge standard-compliant system without losing achievement data. A digital badge is shareable, allowing the learner to share via social media, such as LinkedIn, and display it on their resume and email signature. Aside from the digital badge being portable, the earner can also control who sees it and which platform it lives on.

Since their introduction, digital badges have been used for a variety of purposes. Earning a digital badge is “a way to demonstrate skills to potential employers, build identity and reputation within learning communities, and create pathways for continued learning and leadership roles” (Digital Promise, 2014). Digital badges are a way to recognize, display, and share information about a learner’s skills and knowledge.

They recognize a variety of achievements that include participation, learning, and skill application. For example, event organizers have used digital badges to verify that someone has attended or presented at a conference. Badges are sometimes used by instructors to mark progress in coursework or within gamified learning. These types of badges are often issued after completing a task or exam and may represent anything from completing an assignment, unit, or entire course. Digital badges can also provide a customizable learning experience, allowing the learner to choose what to pursue based on their career needs. Also, digital badges provide the opportunity to bridge the gap in career development, allowing individuals to acquire skills to stay up to date in their current position or prepare for a career change, displaying marketable skill sets to prospective employers. Digital badges can be issued for a variety of reasons and they are not always connected to a micro-credential.

To learn more about micro-credentials, please read the “What Are Competency-Based Micro-credentials?” section in the Introduction.

What Is the Difference Between Digital Badges and Micro-credentials?

Micro-credentials “are held to more rigorous standards than digital badges” and issued by an educational institution or organization (Post University, 2022). Digital badge and micro-credential are used interchangeably, especially since a digital badge represents earning a micro-credential. Digital badging technology is used to provide information about the learning, skill, or competency that is being verified. This provides flexibility in how a program that awards digital badges and/or micro-credentials is designed. Some organizations award just digital badges, while others award just micro-credentials, and others award both. For example, digital badges for certifications are offered by Google and Amazon, both multinational technology companies. On the other hand, micro-credentials are offered by educational institutions like the University of Maryland Baltimore County, the Project Management Institute, the University of Colorado Boulder, and many others. An example of both digital badges and micro-credentials being offered is at the Institute of Excellence in Early Care and Education at Palm Beach State College, where learners complete intentional pathways to earn competency-based digital badges and then the competency-based micro-credential, as a capstone. Lastly, some micro-credentials support the earning of college or graduate credit. For example, Wichita Public Schools offers to their educators micro-credentials that are connected to graduate credit from Friends University.

At Digital Promise, the micro-credentials require evidence of practice or implementation of a skill. Digital Promise’s micro-credential offerings include standalone badges, stackable credentials towards a certificate, college credit, and many other purposes.

Using Open Badges as the Representation of Micro-credentials

This evidence is part of the digital badge’s metadata. Digital badges that are Open Badges carry metadata about the learning experience, specifically what the learner had to do. Unlike transcripts, certificates, and diplomas that just state which learning program was completed and when, digital badges convey what the learner has demonstrated they can do. This metadata includes but is not limited to the badge name, badge criteria, badge image, issuer, issue date, recipient, tags, alignment/standards, expiration date, and evidence URL. The metadata “connects evidence and criteria” to provide “a wealth of information beyond what current educational credentials communicate” (Young, West, & Nylon, 2019, p. 106). Lastly, the metadata verifies the authenticity of the digital badge.

Micro-credentials use digital badges as representation and share metadata about the learning experience. They harness the technology of digital badges to create a professional learning currency (Cator, 2016). Hence, digital badges and micro-credentials go together.