One year after Digital Promise’s formal launch, Mozilla released the publicly available technical infrastructure for open badges. Fast forward to 2013: That same year, Digital Promise introduced educator micro-credentials. In the following decade, technical developments, systems, local and national policies, and program support grew throughout the badging ecosystem, ensuring learners have greater access to digital achievements that fit their needs and goals.
Since then, Digital Promise has built a system of competency-based micro-credentials and open-source badging technology that allow learners to achieve well-being, agency, and economic security regardless of where, how, and when they have attained their skills. Digital Promise micro-credentials are specific, competency-based digital credentials grounded in the Digital Promise Micro-credential Design Principles, including our research-backed competency-based framework. Transparency and trust are woven throughout the design principles—how all micro-credentials are written—and include cited, available research used to develop the competency; free resources for learners to use should they want to learn more; and specific and available rubrics so learners know exactly what and how their submissions will be evaluated. When these micro-credentials are awarded, they are signified by an Open Badge, which is a portable, transferable, digital credential that learners can use to show their skill and competency. The nature of how micro-credentials are constructed is collaborative; the team who develops micro-credentials is made up of subject matter experts, Digital Promise framework experts, and practitioners. This collaborative nature ensures that the content is rigorous, relevant to learners, and appropriate for what is being assessed.
Learners earning MCs need reliable, transferable, and recognizable digital credentials and signifier badges to have their competencies formally recognized. While some platforms may offer certificates and badges for attendance or seat time, Digital Promise’s MCs are the only verifiable credentials on the market aligned with a rigorously designed, research-based process certifying competency demonstration meeting the Open Badge Standard. Earners can feel confident their digital credentials are verifiable with metadata and will be internationally recognized and endorsed. In essence, learners have access to a rigorous competency-based assessment that leads to digital badges that learners control.
As skills-based hiring becomes more reliant on robust technology and continues to make headway, we must ensure collaboration with learners and across organizations to center and prioritize the needs of historically and systematically excluded learners. Credential Engine is a nonprofit organization whose mission is “to map the credential landscape with consistent information and fuel the creation of resources that empower individuals to find the best pathways.” Credential Engine provides clarity and transparency to the complex world of credentials, helping learners, employers, and education providers navigate the landscape of micro-credentials, badges, degrees, licenses, and more. Transparency is the bedrock of empowering learners with the information they need about the credentials available to them so they can make informed decisions in navigating their pathway to career success.
One of the resources that Credential Engine has created is the Credential Transparency Description Language (CTDL), which is a common language that creators use within, and to describe their digital credentials. By using CTDL, digital credential creators—including universities, NGOs, subject-matter expert organizations, and more—can register their available credentials on Credential Engine’s Credential Finder, which includes nearly 100,000 credentials. Their robust system maps across credential types, instructional programs, skills, and even how long a learning engagement might last.
Credential Engine’s work, like Digital Promise, is collaborative, transparent, and rooted in ensuring that today’s learners have the information they need to pursue their life and career goals.
Digital Promise has been a pioneer in competency-based micro-credentials and has more than 10 years of experience in supporting organizations with their micro-credentialing needs. Check out this eBook, The Role of Micro-Credentials in Lifelong Learning and Development: Empowering Learners, Empowering Organizations, a comprehensive resource accessible to all interested in understanding micro-credentials. If you are interested in learning more about Digital Promise’s micro-credential services, please contact us at microcredentials@digitalpromise.org.
