Debunking Myths and Misconceptions about Digital Badges

Digital badges are low-stake credentials that are proven to be effective to help the certification program increase engagement and create brand awareness. Although Digital badges are incorporated by many professional institutions and businesses across the globe, there are some misconceptions and myths related to them.

Let’s analyze the myths and misconceptions and debunk them:

MYTH 1: White labelling is the only effective way for creating brand awareness

White labelling allows a company to manufacture the product which is then rebranded by another company that then sells the product under its own name. White labelling is inexpensive and saves a lot of time and effort for businesses. However, White labelling cannot be the only way to create brand awareness and here’s why,

White-labelled products cannot be displayed on the search engine result page, eliminating the opportunity to gain organic traffic. The digital badge issued through the third-party application will always remain under the provider’s name irrespective of the fact that they were issued and branded by businesses themselves or through third-party assistance.

White labelling may be the best for businesses who are looking for consistent web traffic and need to verify the digital badges if or when shared or linked on digital platforms. But gaining new members through website traffic without the aid of a marketing team and analytical tools and technology and creating brand awareness, then white-labelling may be something the businesses should reconsider.

MYTH 2: Digital badges are a workplace gamification concept

Digital badges in a workplace are often used to gamify and encourage members’ engagement and participation. Gamification could be done by enabling a scoreboard for employees to progress in the team and get rewarded for it.

However, Digital badges gamification cannot be enabled for the long-run working of the team. Businesses have their own set of rewards and recognition through the issue of Digital badges to acknowledge the employees’ skills, abilities, progress and qualification. These Digital badges are vastly recognised for career development as compared to the gamification digital badges that only encourages short term engagement and participation.

MYTH 3: Digital Credentials cannot help employees advance in their career

During the global pandemic 2020, the White house incorporated a policy to minimize educational requirements which were followed by many leading organizations. With The incorporation of this education policy, employers are now focused on skills and abilities rather than educational degrees and diplomas.

This encourages the need for Digital credentials like digital certificates and digital badges that verify the competency of the individual skills, knowledge and abilities to help them advance in their career.

MYTH 4: One needs to enrol in a course to get a Digital Badge

This is a most common myth that digital badges could only be gained through a digital course or programs. Digital Badges are part of every organization to recognise and reward the employees’ progress or ability to perform a certain skill.

Organizations may offer a digital badge for both soft skills and hard skills that they find valuable to their business progress. Digital badges could also be issued as a promotion to acknowledge the employees’ progress and loyalty, or through assessments and training programs.

MYTH 5: Digital badges are LMS’

Digital badges are often said to be a part of LMS or compete against the Learning Management System. This is false as digital badges rather than competing augments the learning management system. LMS introduces the learner through the new levels and content while Digital badges recognise the learners’ achievements.

However, Digital badges can be synced with the LMS through integration that automates the learner to earn a badge on successfully completing predetermined requirements.

MYTH 6: Issuing digital badges are time-consuming

By issuing the digital badges through a digital credential platform, the time and effort that goes into building the digital badges are minimized. Digital credential platforms also consist of templates and branding examples for businesses to save their time creating and designing these credentials. They also allow easy customisation and enable automated integration to issue digital badges and digital certificates.

MYTH 7: All digital credentials platforms create and issue equally

Although each digital credential platform is enabled to create and issue digital badges, each platform works in their way and for a certain industry. Each platform has its way of issuing and creating digital badges and may differ in quality, accreditation, white-labelling, pricing, status and more.

Each platform also comes with its own set of security, authentication, and verification of the digital badges to be issued.

In Conclusion:

Every misconception regarding digital badges can be debunked. Since digital badges are the most effective and secure way to recognise the employees’ skills and will further allow them to advance in their career these badges are gaining popularity and are soon to become the future of certification.