ICoBCAcademy

Digital Badges and Credentials Essentials

What badges, micro-credentials and verifiable credentials are, and what makes one worth trusting.

  • Knowledge
  • L1 Contribute
  • Foundation
  • Credential design
  • ICB-F01
Start the courseSource on GitHub

Why this course

Every pathway starts here. ICoBC audiences use the same words for different things (badge, certificate, micro-credential), which slows projects at the start. One shared entry course gives all later courses a common vocabulary and is cheap to build and maintain.

What you will be able to do

  1. Distinguish digital badges, micro-credentials, certificates and verifiable credentials by purpose, issuer and evidence.
  2. Name the parts of a credential (issuer, earner, achievement, criteria, evidence, alignment, validity) and explain what each tells a reader.
  3. Explain the roles of earner, issuer and verifier and what each needs from a credential.
  4. Recognise warning signs of a credential that carries little meaning.

Modules

  1. Why recognition goes digital
  2. Anatomy of a credential
  3. Earner, issuer, verifier: three views of one credential
  4. Types and terms: badge, micro-credential, certificate, verifiable credential
  5. What makes a credential meaningful

Assessment

Online knowledge check, 15 questions with feedback; pass mark 80 percent; two attempts.

Badge evidence: Passed knowledge check (score recorded in the evidence field).

Prerequisites: None

Who it is for

  • Companies and employers
  • Education and providers
  • Associations and policy
  • Earners

Framework alignment

ICSFframeworkCRDSskillL1levelKstage

Credential design (CRDS, VRITE pillar Rigor)

Related skills: Standards and interoperability, Quality assurance and accreditation. About the framework

Use in your organisation

In corporate training

Self-paced module for L&D and corporate academy leads; HR, talent acquisition and mobility. Badge aligns to ICSF CRDS L1 (SFIA 1 to 2) and can be referenced in role profiles. Counts as awareness evidence; it does not show performance.

In education

Micro-credential of 3 h notional workload (about 0.1 ECTS), indicative EQF 3 to 4, assessed by knowledge check with feedback. Stacks into pathway PW01, PW02, PW03, PW04.

EU micro-credential elements

Awarding body ICoBC e.V. or licensed issuer. Learning outcomes: see column. Notional workload: 3 h (about 0.1 ECTS). Level: ICSF L1, EQF 3 to 4 (indicative). Type of assessment: knowledge check with feedback. Form of participation: Online, asynchronous. Type of quality assurance: ICoBC internal QA against VRITE. Prerequisites: none.

Elements following the Council Recommendation of 16 June 2022 on a European approach to micro-credentials.

Part of these pathways

Quality and AI

Quality focus: Introduces the five VRITE pillars as questions any reader can ask of a credential.

AI dimension: Shows where AI already touches credentials (generated content, skills inference) and points to F07.

Improve this course

The course is open on GitHub in LiaScript format under CC BY 4.0. View the source or read how to suggest a change.