Blockchain Digital Badges – Building Blocks for 21st Century Learning Ecosystems

One key capability and use case scenario for Blockchain Identity is the digitization of academic credentials.

These technologies can be used to implement ‘Digital Badges‘, which can then enable ‘gamified’ learning models through to providing a complete framework for a common, industry-wide credential recognition system.

They are also referred to as ‘micro-credentials’, and are offered by Education providers like the Open University and Glasgow University among many others. As a very pertinent example vendors like Microsoft issue training badges for partners via digital badge service providers like Credly.

Education and Employment is a great scenario where the core components and value ecosystem are easily understood: The credential – Your academic qualification in certificate form, and the recognition – How employers seek that qualification as a requirement for employment.

Open Digital Badges

The Open Badges standard describes a method for packaging information about accomplishments, embedding it into portable image files as digital badges, and includes resources for web-based validation and verification. Open digital badging makes it easy for anyone to issue, earn, and display badges across the web—through an infrastructure that uses shared and open technical technical standards.

In the feature video Indicio, a digital identity vendor, explains how Open Badges 3.0 and verifiable credentials offer an efficient way for educational institutions to issue traditional education documents, such as diplomas and transcripts, directly into a student’s personal digital wallet on their mobile device making them portable and easily verifiable.

Assistant Executive Director of United School Administrators (USA) Kansas Jerry Henn joins them to share how USA Kansas are currently working on implementing this technology and how they see it benefitting their members.

Blockcerts

Complimentary technologies include ‘Blockcerts‘, an open source blockchain project for enabling a Universal Verifier that will verify any Blockcert issued by any institution, anywhere in the world. Via their Medium article UniversaBlockchain explore the scenario of Blockchain in Education.

They highlight keynote problems like the high rates of medical school diploma falsification as pain points a technology like Blockchain is ideal for tackling in some form, among a wave of other transformative benefits for the sector as it ripples through all workflow areas related to HR, resume checking, et al.

• Blockchain-enabled digital certificates are immutable and cannot be forged.
• The records are stored on a distributed ledger, hence certificates can be only evaluated by anyone who has access to the blockchain.
• Since the records are stored in a shared distributed ledger, the certificate can still be validated even if the organization that had issued it no longer exists.
• The digital certificates stored in the ledger can only be destroyed if all the copies in every system are destroyed.

National Roadmaps

Indeed in their Blockchain Roadmap Scottish Enterprise identifies academic credentials as a key use case for Blockchain, making this specific point:

“The technology is most associated with the financial sector, but we wanted to look beyond that across industries where blockchain technology might be lesser known, but no less innovative, such as in education where it’s used to make qualifications secure.”

Blockchain in education offers tamper-proof digital records for qualifications, streamlining storage, sharing, and transfer of academic credentials while preventing fraud. It improves data management with a secure, decentralized database for educational records.

Decentralised learning platforms enable peer-to-peer learning and credentialing, fostering a flexible, merit-based system. Additionally, blockchain allows institutions to track funding sources transparently, ensuring effective resource allocation.

Vendor Landscape

A number of vendor options are available for implementing some or all aspects of these technologies:

Digitary

A leader in this space is Digitary. As they write here Digital Badges in Education offer the ability for learners to establish portfolios and express knowledge. Critically they demonstrate how they can be applied across the entire educational ecosystem, describing in this news how the Irish education sector is adopting this approach:

“EduCampus and Digitary are excited to announce an additional feature under the collaborative framework agreement, enabling all EduCampus clients from Irish higher education institutions to be able to adopt Digital Badges. Sitting alongside the existing Digitary CORE solution for the issuance of academic credentials, such as degree certificates, academic transcripts, European Diploma Supplements (EDS) and other official academic documents; Digital Badges enables institutions to recognise all kinds of learners skills, competencies and learning experiences.”

Credly

Another major player is Credly, who raised $11m in 2019 and were recently acquired by Pearson. Their CEO describes how they help foster a more diverse and inclusive workforce.

Users include Frederick College, where they highlight the value of digital badges:

• Provide a more complete picture of your interests and experience
• Show potential employers evidence of your up-to-date proficiency, relevant skill sets, and achievements
• Help assist employers in matching you to their specific positions
• Reflect your efforts to engage in more flexible ways of learning and scope of knowledge
• Can be displayed on social media channels, LinkedIn, emails, and your resume
• Display current knowledge in your occupational field and reflect professional development

They are widely used across industry, including learning platforms like Skilljar and Intellum, and corporate users like ISC2 and Cisco. They are also a great way to add value to your own technology product, for example Optimizely, a Digital Experience Platform, offers a digital credential using Credly. For developers seeking to achieve something similar there are Zapier integrations.

CertifyMe

CertifyMe is a VC backed SaaS solution, based out of Bangalore India.

Their immutable crypto credentials use advanced technologies like the AWS Quantum ledgers to ensure your credentials are secure. 40+ features includes advanced options like cryptographic signatures based on RSA SHA-1 and Id Tagging.

Each of their credentials is enabled with a unique QR Code. Their Immutable Cryptographic Credentials can further be linked with the awardee’s unique identities like a Passport number, drivers licence, etc.

CertifyMe helps your awardee publish your credentials across 50+ social media platforms. Their certificates are also customizable to include a branding banner and a CTA button.

Other Alternatives

Other noteworthy vendors include Certifier, Virtual Badge, Sertifier, Badgecert, Accredible, Badgr and Give My Certificate. The principle features these vendors offer are:

• Certificate creation – Create visually appealing certificates.
• Issue certificates – Generate digital credential.
• Manage certificates – Provide users with a dashboard for managing their credentials.
• Verification – Authenticate digital credentials.
• Social share – Enable publishing and sharing of credentials across networks like Linkedin.