More colleges are issuing digital badges to help their students display skills to employers or graduate programs, and colleges are tapping vendor platforms to create a verified form of the alternative credentials.
Digital badges aren’t replacing the bachelor’s degree any time soon. But a growing number of colleges are working with vendors to use badges as an add-on to degrees, to help students display skills and accomplishments that transcripts fail to capture. Illinois State University is an early adopter. Students in the university’s honors program have earned roughly 7,400 digital badges as part of the experiment, which just began at full scale last year.
The university brought in Credly, a badging platform provider, for the project. Administrators at Illinois State said the badges serve as a form of verified “three-dimensional transcript,” which augments the traditional degree. “It’s a way for them to organize all of their experiences, all of the skill sets they learn,” said Rocio Rivadeneyra, the honors program’s interim director. Students control which badges are public, and the credentials are aimed at helping students position themselves with potential employers or graduate programs, said Amy Oberts, the honors program’s associate director, who helped create the badging project.
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By Paul Fain
