The Civics Credentialing System uses digital Open Badges technology and standards, which lets people earn and share secure, verifiable badges that show what they’ve learned or accomplished. Each badge is packed with details about the skills or actions behind it.
Digital badges are visual digital documents that recognize competencies, trainings, actions, and appreciation. They are displayed as a digital image that can be posted on a website. Most importantly, they are linked back to the issuer of the badge, the assessment criteria, and the evidence of achievement, which support the badges’ credibility. Users can also easily display and share their badges using social media channels such as LinkedIn and Facebook.
While there are some differences between the terms “Open Badges,” “badges,” “micro-credentials,” and “digital credentials,” for the sake of simplicity, we use these terms interchangeably.
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Open Badges are digital badges that follow a standard that makes them easy to accept, share, and transfer across platforms. Open Badges have several key features:
Open Badges establish a common framework for recognizing skills and competencies between employers, professionals, and educational providers.When accepted and used by all parties, open badges establish common standards and a common language that define and describe professional achievement. For organizations, open badges help identify quality professionals through recognized and substantiated skills and achievements. For individuals, open badges are a way to display these skills and achievements, making them more visible in the job market and among their peers and networks.
There are three major players in a badging ecosystem: issuers, earners and consumers. The diagram to the left describes how these players interact in the process of creating, finding, earning, issuing, claiming, sharing and recognizing a digital badge.
