Competency Credentials with Open Badges: The New Language for Workplace Skills

Open badges allow jobseekers to communicate competencies to employers and educational institutions across national boundaries and life transitions

By Don Presant

There’s a new language for skills developing in Canadian workplaces. It goes beyond resume keyword clichés and rigid application forms. It focuses on the demonstration and assessment of skills, rather than how they’re taught.

As career professionals, we should be aware of this emerging language so we can help our clients use it to their advantage as it makes its way into the mainstream.

What is a competency?

According to Canada West Foundation* and the Canadian Council of Chief Executives (CCCE), a competency is a job skill, the combination of knowledge and practical ability required to perform a task.

When competencies are linked and combined into structured frameworks, they provide useful maps for hiring, building careers, managing workplace performance and promoting talent. This has been the work of Canada’s sector councils and Tourism HR Canada has great examples. Another good model is the federal public service’s Key Leadership Competencies.

Employers tell us that “soft skills” are key: communication, teamwork, problem-solving, resilience, leadership and so on. These skills are traditionally hard to measure, but they are crucial to success.

What is a competency credential?

Open Badge Ecosystem (Badge Alliance CC BY-SA 4.0)

A competency credential is a statement of capability that says, in effect, “this person can do this thing.” Good assessments make good credentials. Unlike paper credentials, digital credentials can be shared online. If these digital credentials follow technology standards, they can be easily exchanged and start operating like an online skills currency.

In 2010, Mozilla Foundation invented a new technology standard for digital credentials. They called this technology Open Badges, and it has been adopted by employers such as IBM and Microsoft and by DisasterReady.org, a global learning community for the humanitarian sector. Pearson Learning’s Acclaim system has already issued over one million of these credentials for professional learning, and they’re just getting started.

Credentials that follow the Mozilla Open Badge standard can now follow people wherever they go: formal courses, extra-curricular activities, workplace training, open online learning. A transcript is no longer a static piece of paper from one institution, but a flexible collection of competency credentials from multiple sources. The credentials can be shared on social media like LinkedIn or displayed in ePortfolios to achieve career goals.

How can Open Badge credentials support career development?

Let’s explore our DisasterReady.org example. A person wanting to enter the sector can demonstrate commitment and introductory knowledge by earning DisasterReady.org’s Humanitarian Starter Pack, a collection of learning activities provided by several organizations.

Once recruited by an agency, orientation programs can generate new credentials. Ongoing professional development can be recognized for missions (“Bangladesh 2013” or “Liberia 2015”) and growing expertise (“Logistics,” “Security”), based on experience and training programs, whether internal or external. This growing collection of personalized skills credentials can be searched on people assembling mission teams.

As this person becomes a mid-career professional, he/she may want to pursue a master’s degree. DeakinDigital, subsidiary of a top-flight Australian university can formally recognize their Professional Practice at the master’s level, awarding credentials for “soft skills” such as “communication,” “critical thinking,” “professional ethics” in leadership roles.

Open Badges can also help this person make a career transition to a new job in a new sector. If there are gaps, they can be filled as needed, without having to start from zero.

Who is using Open Badges now?

Here’s a current short list, with a focus on access to education and employment:

• org
  Open Badges to recognize shared courses and learning across the humanitarian sector.
• IBM Worldwide
  Used for talent pipelines and professional development.
• Madison Area Technical College – Continuing Education
  Credentialed programs with local industry partners, aligned with industry standards.
• Get Skills to Work (Manufacturing Institute)
  For US veterans, to help translate Military Occupational Specialty codes (MOS) into vocational credentials for advanced manufacturing.
• Deakin University (AUS)

Recognition of Graduate Learning Outcomes – at the bachelor’s level
DeakinDigital: Recognition of Professional Practice – at the master’s level

Open Badges Workforce Pipeline Bryan Mathers CC BY-ND 2.0

What can I do as a career professional?  

Open Badge credentials are not yet universal. But you can already find many opportunities to explore Open Badges as they make their way into the mainstream:

• Make yourself aware
  You can find presentations and videos online, track trends and events on Twitter (#OpenBadges, #digitalbadges, #BadgeCAN), and get more detail about case studies and evolving solutions around the world in the Open Badges Google Group as well as on free “Community Calls.”
  You can also start earning and displaying your own badges. Why not try to earn badges for the Barclay’s Digital Drivers Licence or Open University’s Badged Open Courses? Store these for free in Mozilla Backpack or Open Badge Passport. Display them on LinkedIn, Facebook or in your own ePortfolio.
• Reach out to your network
  Most employers welcome the idea of competency credentials; the Canadian Chamber of Commerce suggests that they can “attest to the fact that a student has acquired a skill such as problem-solving, communicating with team members and producing innovative solutions to industry problems.”** Canadian institutions such as UBC and St Lawrence College are already experimenting. Funders may be looking for better ways to track the impact of training. See what employers, educators and funders in your network think.
• Consider becoming an Issuing Organization
  Do you have a solid learning program with a good reputation? Can you assess clients as “work ready” in whole or in part? Consider creating your own badge system as a way to improve your profile and reach. As an educator, why not recognize uncredited employability outcomes? Is this a new value proposition for Continuing Education programs?

* Competence is the Best Credential, April 2015 http://t.co/LjicRtNbhg

** Fragmented Systems: Connecting Players in Canada’s Skills Challenge, September 2015 http://t.co/XizE38lI2a

Don Presant is President of Learning Agents, an award-winning provider of educational technology solutions for learning and career development. Presant currently serves on the Badge Alliance Working Groups for Workforce and Higher Education and is a regular contributor on #BadgeChatk12. He is an advisor for the Open Badge Factory and Open Badge Passport cloud services from Finland. Presant is currently developing several initiatives for Open Badge systems in Canada and abroad.