Digital badging helps showcase skill growth, build connections

Kirkwood Community College begins offering digital badges in three programs

Lesley Voigt said Madison College’s 2011 entry into the idea of offering digital badges came as an attempt to help students get more than an S or a U on a transcript in noncredit courses.

Offering digital badges was a way to help determine what was learned rather than whether a student was present — but may have not been engaged in what was being presented.

“We wanted something that validated and verified in better detail what was happening in the classroom and we really wanted to redefine what was happening,” said Lesley Voigt, director of Digital Credentials Institute at Madison College located in Madison, Wis. “We wanted to recognize more than just you showed up and instead focus on what was achieved and skills you built.”

Now Voigt is helping programs across the country — including Kirkwood Community College — get into digital badging.

In the years since, Madison College — located in Madison, Wis., — has expanded and now offers more than 250 badges active at any one time. The badges recognize the mastery of specific skills, are used to help train staff members, or even ways to recognize teaching excellence awards or student academic achievement.

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Madison College recognizes dual-credit programs — where high school students earn both high school and college academic credit — with digital badges.

“They may be off to a two-year or a four-year program right away and that’s great, but maybe it’s going to be a while before a student continues education …. whatever their next step in life is, they have something to show for the skills they learned,” Voigt said.

Digital badging is common among technology companies, using it to show skill certification or proficiency in certain skills. Educational institutions have been slower to adopt, Voigt said.

How does badging work?

Organizations partner with a software tool — such as Credly, Canvas or Accredible — which helps an organization or institution manage its badging.

Recipients can share the information onto other social media channels like LinkedIn, or even download the badge to a mobile wallet or email signature.

The digital badges have metadata associated with them so that people can link directly to information about the institution that issued the badge, when a badge was issued and what criteria was met in order for a person to earn the badge. Proponents say digital badging can be a more comprehensive way of understanding a person’s accomplishments compared to diplomas or paper certificates.

Information about the skills learned to obtain the badge can be viewed by potential employers or people interested in completing a specific project. It’s also a way that an educational organization can raise its profile in a region, proponents say.

Many technical companies like Google, IBM or software certifications moved to digital badging some time ago. Academic institutions have been slower to do so, though the number pursuing digital badges is growing significantly.

Programs must be deliberate and consistent with badges

Back in Madison, Voigt reviews every digital badge, making sure the rigor, the look, the naming scheme makes sense and aligns with industry standards. While the faculty help set the learning objectives, the digital institute helps manage consistency.

In the United States, there isn’t a centralized certification or commission that accredits badges like have popped up in other countries. In the UK, the Digital Badging Commission helps monitor the rigor behind digital badging programs.

Programs have to be really intentional around developing badging. Everything from the look of the imagery on the credential, to how and when they’re issued, becomes very important, Voigt said. If one badge is misrepresented or the rigor isn’t there, it can devalue the organization’s other digital credentials.

“The challenge here is that you have to create something, but I would much rather create what works for the institution rather than trying to fit a square peg in a round hole and make it match a system,” Voigt said. “Ultimately the organization’s name is on a badge ….it’s their reputation that they work hard to build and maintain that they’re working to keep.”

Kirkwood begins digital badges

Kirkwood started its first three digital badges — in canine health/CPR, pet grooming and its coaching certificate program — and is planning to continue expanding into additional programs going forward.

Badging is a way to recognize some of the learned skills learned that don’t show up on a traditional college transcript in a way that is more transferable to the person earning them, said Emily Logan, Kirkwood’s dean of programming for the Continuing Education & Training Services Program.

“Short-term and noncredit training programs do not have the same verification that college credit transcripts do,” Logan said. “While the college or third-party credentialing entity might issue a paper or electronic certificate, it can be difficult for students or employers to substantiate the authenticity of these types of documents.”

Kirkwood is already looking at co-branding a badge with area nonprofits because they’re designing training programs for them, Logan said.

“Digital badging is rooted in the value that it provides to the learner, the issuing body, and the audience. With any new badge, Kirkwood would consider what value the badge would bring to students, the college, and/or local industry,” Logan said. “”If Kirkwood provides customized training for a local business, we can co-brand a digital badge to highlight the skill or learning experience created from that partnership. The opportunities are limitless.”

Proponents of digital badging say a badge can help recipients share about detailed experiences during job interviews or to prospective clients, promote continuous learning, provide more verifiable credentials or track employee competencies.

Credly, the platform Madison College and Kirkwood are using to manage their digital badges, has issued more than 100 million digital credentials to 50 million people since the company started in 2012, according to Sara Bartlett, a senior corporate communications manager of workforce solutions for Pearson, which bought Credly in 2022.

The platform is used by more than 4,000 organizations — including by businesses who want to track employee skills or for companies to manage supplemental or required training programs.

Finding footing in hiring process technologies

Incorporating digital badges into the hiring process still is something employers in some sectors are grappling with. A 2024 report by the Upskill America Initiative of the Aspen Institute found that there aren’t yet enough badge earners with digital credentials to drive broad changes to hiring systems and the technology platforms the companies use to track candidates and data in the hiring process.

In the report, commissioned by Western Governors University, companies told researchers they were working to figure out how to interpret the rigor of credentials with the job roles in organizations and bring information about the badges into the right parts of the hiring process.

“While they seek ways of understanding this value more deeply and creating more meaning from it, employers do ultimately look to colleges, universities, and training organizations to provide education and credentials and stand behind them,” the report concluded.

Digital badging isn’t a competitor to the traditional degree and the number of organizations participating is continuing to grow, Voigt said. Badging recognizes accomplishments and helps move people along the path of continuing to learn, Voigt said.

“People get training from a multitude of places — whether it’s in a classroom, a specialized program like SkillsUSA or from TikTok and YouTube,” Voigt said. “Why not take the skills and recognize if someone masters something? It doesn’t look one way.”