provide educators with recognition for the skills they develop throughout their careers. Earners receive a shareable digital badge that enhances their resume and validates their unique skills. All micro-credentials issued on Digital Promise’s Micro-credential Platform are Open Badges, which has been important for the growth of the micro-credentialing ecosystem.
Mozilla created Open Badges in 2011 with funding from the MacArthur Foundation and a network of partners (including Digital Promise) committed to incorporating this technical specification.
An Open Badge is three things:
If a badge lacks one of these components, it’s not an Open Badge. For example, if there is no information about the badge issuer embedded into the badge, it cannot be verified by a third party.
A community of contributors has since driven the Open Badges movement. Because of these efforts, badges have gained widespread interest and adoption by policy, technology, and education stakeholders, and are providing ways to recognize learning beyond traditional credentialing systems.
Open Badges empower individuals to take their credentials with them wherever they go, building a rich picture of their lifelong learning and achievements journey.
Imagine you’re starting a new job, for example, and want to communicate that you can teach computational thinking. With an Open Badge, you can share evidence of your competencies with your new employer, who can then easily verify your skills.
Technically speaking, each micro-credential awarded to educators through Digital Promise’s platform is aligned to the Open Badges 2.0 (OBv2) specification. When compared to alternative forms of credentialing, OBv2 offers more robust and reliable capabilities to users in the education and employment marketplace.
Open Badges are:
If you want to verify your badge, the first step is to download it from the platform where you earned it. If you’re having trouble finding where to do that,reach out to the customer support team from that platform. This embedded image must be downloaded as a PNG image file. (Note: Your badge should download as a PNG file by default.)
Once you have your badge, complete the following steps:
If the badge is valid, the badge checker will let you know.
Example of a valid badge confirmation
If your badge isn’t valid, you’ll see a different image, similar to the one below.
Example of an invalid badge confirmation
If your badge is valid, congratulations! You can share your badge universally and feel confident that current and future employers can verify your competencies. If your badge is not valid, contact the platform provider where you earned the micro-credential and request an Open Badge.
In your communication include:
If you cannot obtain an Open Badge from your platform provider, contact mcsupport@digitalpromise.org for support in obtaining an Open Badge.
For more on micro-credentials, explore our Educator Micro-credential initiative page and visit our Micro-credential Platform.
