MOOC to explore digital badges’ role in online learning, professional credentials


Digital badges could allow students to work toward degree requirements and help employees demonstrate skills that would help advance their career.

As educators and companies look for ways to denote learning outside of the traditional college credit, some are beginning to look toward digital badges as a serious contender.

The badges could be particularly helpful for providing credentials for students who take online classes or massive open online course (MOOCs).

The WICHE Cooperative for Education Technologies (WCET) has partnered with Sage Road Solutions LLC, Mozilla, and Blackboard, Inc. to explore the possibilities of digital badges through — what else? — a MOOC.

The “Badges as a New Currency for Professional Credentials” MOOC will begin on Sept. 9 and run through Oct. 14. The course will examine the burgeoning interest is utilizing digital badges to measure and recognize knowledge, skills, and competencies.

“We believe that badges offer a promising approach to addressing a vexing challenge, getting under- and unemployed Americans into high-paying, unfilled jobs,” said Anne Derryberry, one of the course’s designers. “We look forward to what is promising to be a lively and thought-provoking discussion.”

The concept is an attempt to recognize the sorts of achievements that are not always illustrated by a college transcript or degree. Digital badges could allow students to work toward degree requirements and help employees demonstrate skills that would help advance their career.

Think Boy Scout badges, but instead of earning a badge for camping, a student can earn one for leading a group discussion or mastering HTML.

See Page 2 for details on what the MOOC will cover.

The non-profit Mozilla and the learning management system giant Blackboard, two of the entities behind the MOOC, announced in June that they had partnered to create a new update to Blackboard’s LMS software that would support the use of digital badges in education.

With the update, students can use Mozilla’s Open Badges Infrastructure to earn digital badges through the Blackboard Learn system and then share those badges across the internet through social media profiles like LinkedIn.

At the time, Jessica Finnefrock, senior vice president for product development at Blackboard, had said that a MOOC to help facilitate a discussion about digital badges was in the works.

Each free, weekly session will explore different aspects of digital badge technology, including the “role of post-secondary institutions in developing work-force-ready graduates and the link between competency-based learning and workplace readiness,” WCET announced.

The course will be hosted on Blackboard’s CourseSites.

“Digital badges represent an emerging way to demonstrate achievements and certify mastery and competence in a wide variety of professions, across many different sectors,” said Ellen Wagner, WCET’s executive director. “I am delighted to collaborate with these industry and practice-leading partners as we work together to get smarter about the opportunities that badges offer higher education decision makers, employers and learners.”

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