Digital Badge

What is it and How do we use it? What are Digital Badges?

A digital badge is a digital depiction of a learner’s accomplishment that includes the organization’s accreditation, the recipient’s name, and the qualified skill’s validation. They are low-stake credentials and are still in the developing stage.

The global pandemic has shifted the digital landscape, making it more learner-centric. Digital badges provide flexibility in learning numerous professional paths, completing multiple activities and projects, completing short courses, and filling the portfolio gap by acquiring hard and soft skills while also receiving validated hands-on experience.

Digital badges can be displayed on social media, websites, and blogs, among other places. It can also be used as an email signature, a digital avatar for social networking sites such as LinkedIn or Facebook, and for creating a digital CV or resume.

Why are Digital Badges often associated with Open badges?

The most extensively used Digital Badge in the world is Open Badges, a type of digital badge that is portable, shareable, and easy to verify. Open Badges provide verifiable meta-data that tracks and verifies the contents of the digital badge.

The essential white paper “Open Badges for Lifelong Learning,” written by Erin Knight and others at Peer2Peer University and the MacArthur Foundation, detailed the goals and potential of the Open Badges movement. “Learning, Freedom, and the Web” was the founding concept for OpenBadges at the Mozilla Drumbeat festival in 2010.

According to the research. “Badges may have a major influence, and can be used to motivate learning, denote community, and signal progress.”

Anatomy of a Digital Badge:

The name of the recipient, the name of the issuer, the badge URL, the issuing date, the expiration date, the badge criteria, and the digital signature or business logo are all included in the meta-data of the digital badges issued. Apart from that, the digital badge is tagged and can be revoked if it is misused. The revocation is kept in the meta-data and may not be visible on the digital badge.

Frequently, the digital badge just shows the recipient’s name, the badge’s issuer, and the badge’s criterion. The meta-data supports the above-mentioned features for content verification.

How do we use Digital Badge?

Digital badges can be displayed and shared on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, as well as social networking sites such as LinkedIn. It could be used in your email signature to ensure that the message is genuine. For easy verification of the certificate and career advancement, the digital badge URL or link can be included in your portfolios, resumes, CVs, or educational documents.

Issuers benefit from digital badges as well, because the display of the badge on social media attracts attention and promotes brand awareness.

In Conclusion:

Digital badges are the most straightforward and safe method of recognising a person’s abilities, growth, and potential. It is simple to trace and verify the contents and identity of the badge issued because they are backed by meta-data. Both the recipient and the issuer benefit from digital badges in terms of increasing brand value and awareness.