I was interviewed by John Dujay (from HR Reporter) for an article on digital credentials and blockchain applications in higher education.
Micro-credentials indicating courses and competencies that have been successfully completed are also offered by the University of Calgary, in the form of badges.
“On our badges platform, [students] log in with their UCalgary email address and it’ll show any of these recognitions that they’ve accumulated over their career as students,” says D’Arcy Norman, manager of technology integration at the institution.
The university established the program so students can prove, via a website, that they have achieved certain competencies.
“Participants can earn these badges and then they can add it to their LinkedIn or their other social media platforms through the badges API (application programming interface) that Mozilla provided. [They are] a way to socialize what they’re doing and let them provide almost like an e-portfolio to document their learning to a career in various contexts outside of a course or a program,” says Norman.
The Calgary program has granted 2,187 badges of the 108 they offer, which have been issued to 1,264 students from 14 faculties and departments, says Norman, calling the implementation “wildly successful.”
“At first, we thought it would be ‘Who cares about the badge?’ And then we realized the grad students are extremely competitive and it was a thing they could add to their CV, their academics resumés. They were basically chomping at the bit to get the recognition. That was kind of surprisingly powerful in that they could brag to their peers that they’ve got it,” he says.