Tag: badges

  • Over 1 Million Digital Badges on Offer in the U.S.

    Over 1 Million Digital Badges on Offer in the U.S.

    The number of unique credentials available in the U.S. has hit a whopping 1.8 million, with digital badges making up more than a million of those offerings, according to the latest report from Credential Engine.

    The report, released Tuesday, is the fifth in a series tracking the ever-growing variety of credentials and providers cropping up across the country. Much has changed since the last “Counting Credentials” report came out in 2022. Credential Engine, a nonprofit dedicated to charting the credentialing landscape, improved its data collection and analysis strategies to remove duplicate programs from data samples and include more badge programs, allowing for more accurate counts and estimates, the new report noted.

    Researchers found that 134,491 credential providers—including colleges and universities, online course providers, nonacademic organizations, industry associations, and state governments—are producing 1,850,034 credentials, up from the 1,076,358 they counted in 2022. The report also found that education institutions, federal and state governments, and employers spend $2.34 trillion annually on these programs.

    Credential Engine identified 1,022,028 badges and 486,352 certificates among the total. Degrees, by comparison, made up a smaller fraction of the credentials tallied this year: 264,099 programs. The number of secondary school diplomas and occupational licenses followed behind at 52,948 and 14,331, respectively. Certifications, which require an exam and tend to expire, reached 6,892. And the organization found 3,384 microcredentials, defined by the report as any program offered by a massive open online course provider that embraces the label.

    Scott Cheney, CEO of Credential Engine, said the standout finding to him is “there’s a lot of digital badging being done,” a trend he finds “really exciting.” He believes digital badges, which recognize specific skills and achievements for display online, allow workers to better showcase their learning at a more granular level. For example, badges, whether offered by academic or nonacademic providers, can recognize skill sets ranging from emotional intelligence to mastery of a coding language, or even completion of a class or work project.

    Badges are “being used to recognize smaller and smaller learning activity and skill attainment,” Cheney said. “We’re really seeing a moment when we’re able to actually count all learning,” which helps job applicants “tell their story.”

    He said the digital format not only makes it easier for learners to keep track of everything they’ve achieved but also simplifies sharing that information with employers.

    A companion report, released with the credential count, suggests innovations like digital wallets and learning and employment records, which can house collections of digital credentials, are making badges more shareable and verifiable for employers.

    “The technology is there,” Cheney said.

    He also believes the ascent of skills-based hiring is driving the trend. More than half of states have adopted policies to encourage hiring according to skills, not degrees, and a slew of employers have embraced the approach. He’d like to see more employers with these goals use digital credentials to assess what candidates bring to the table.

    Because of these recent developments, “all of a sudden, we need ways to actually unpack the skills that you have in a traditional degree or certificate or certification” and to offer ways to learn and prove mastery of “a single skill,” he said.

    Though the report doesn’t delve into it, he noted that traditional higher education institutions are increasingly interested in offering nondegree credentials, which he believes is “healthy for them and their relationship with their students” as demand for such programs ramps up.

    But Cheney also understands colleges’ trepidation about entering a nondegree credential landscape that’s crowded, “very chaotic” and “difficult to navigate.” He acknowledged that some academics have healthy concerns about the quality of proliferating nondegree credentials as nonacademic credential providers grow their offerings at fast clip. The trend “does cry out for … a greater need to have reliable outcome data and impact data,” he said. Members of the committee engaged in the negotiated rule-making process for Workforce Pell, a new federal financial aid option for short-term job training programs, are wrestling with such questions about how to ensure credentials’ quality this week.

    Nondegree credentials aren’t “going to be right for every institution, and that’s OK, too,” Cheney said. “We need some that are still going to be very traditional … because the economy needs that as well.” At the same time, higher ed institutions “need to recognize where the marketplace is, where the zeitgeist is in the country and what employers need and what students are calling out for.”

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  • 22 ideas for department chair merit badges (opinion)

    22 ideas for department chair merit badges (opinion)

    A running joke with my department chairs, when I was a dean, involved the awarding of merit badges for the accomplishment of a particularly thorny task that the outside world (outside of academia, that is) would not otherwise have known about. Generals rising in the ranks of the military accumulate ribbons. Why shouldn’t there be a similar accumulation of ceremonial badges for accomplishments on the way up the academic leadership ladder?

    The granting of ribbons or merit badges will be ever more important in the AI era, in which leaders cannot simply speak about something but rather demonstrate and present the knowledge physically. As the Boy Scouts Merit Badge Hub states, “If it says ‘show or demonstrate,’ that is what you must do. Just telling about it isn’t enough. The same thing holds true for such words as ‘make,’ ‘list,’ ’in the field,’ and ‘collect,’ ‘identify,’ and ‘label.’”

    For example: Consider details of just two of the 12 areas Scouts must master to earn the Boy Scout Bird Study Merit Badge:

    Demonstrate that you know how to use a bird field guide. Show your counselor that you are able to understand a range map by locating in the book and pointing out the wintering range, the breeding range, and/or the year-round range of one species of each of the following types of birds:

    1. Seabird
    2. Plover
    3. Falcon or hawk
    4. Warbler or vireo
    5. Sparrow

    Observe and be able to identify at least 20 species of wild birds. Prepare a field notebook, making a separate entry for each species, and record the following information from your field observations and other references.

    1. Note the date and time.
    2. Note the location and habitat.
    3. Describe the bird’s main feeding habitat and list two types of food that the bird is likely to eat.
    4. Note whether the bird is a migrant or a summer, winter, or year-round resident of your area.

    When scouts earn a Bird Study merit badge, you will know they know what they’re talking about and feel comfortable with those scouts running a birding outing. You will feel confident putting matters in their hands.

    Wouldn’t this approach be helpful for showing department chair expertise as well?

    The Basic Badges: Survival Skills for New Chairs

    I propose the list below as standard merit badges any department chair should be working toward. Following the Bird Study merit badge model, the specific tasks involved in earning the first badge are listed in detail. Follow this model and logic if you decide to document and award any or all of these badges at your institution.

    Meeting Management Merit Badge (for mastering the art of running efficient faculty meetings while maintaining collegiality and reaching actual decisions)

    1. Show that you are familiar with the terms used to describe meetings by doing the following:
      1. Sketch or trace a meeting room and then label 15 different aspects of a meeting.
      2. Draw up a meeting agenda and label six types of agenda items.
    2. Demonstrate that you know how to properly follow an agenda, use the AV equipment in the room and use the hybrid camera, plus monitor for virtual attendees:
      1. Explain what the Roman numerals mean on an agenda.
      2. Show how to present a PowerPoint to both present and virtual members.
      3. Show how to see, in a timely manner, when a virtual hand is up.
      4. Describe how to bring a latecomer up to speed on an agenda item already discussed.
    3. Demonstrate that you know how to use Robert’s Rules of Order. Show your dean that you are able to understand each chapter in the book, pointing out the debate rules, the tabling-a-motion rules and the majority requirements for each of the following types of votes:
      1. Motion to accept minutes.
      2. Motion to object.
      3. Motion to suspend consideration of an item.
      4. Motion to call the question.
      5. Motion to take up matter previously tabled.
      6. Procedure to select a second when everyone’s hand is up.
    4. Observe and be able to identify at least 20 types of meetings. Prepare a field notebook, making a separate entry for each species of meeting, and record the following information from your field observations and other references:
      1. Note the date and time.
      2. Note the location and room capacity.
      3. Describe each attendee’s main feeding habitat and list two types of food that the attendees are likely to eat.
      4. Note whether the attendee is a tenure-line professor, career-line or part-time/adjunct resident of your department.
    5. Successfully defuse at least three of these common meeting scenarios:
      1. The Filibuster Professor who “just has a quick comment” that turns into a 20-minute monologue.
      2. The Side Conversation Insurgents who start their own parallel meeting.
      3. The “Actually …” Interrupter who must correct every minor detail.
      4. The Passive-Aggressive Email Sender who “just wants to follow up on some concerns.”

    Do you not feel comfortable with any department chair who has earned a Meeting Management merit badge running a meeting? Following are some additional basic badges that one can earn for adept engagement in the everyday and more occasional department chair work.

    Budget Detective Merit Badge (for successfully tracking down and reallocating mysterious fund transfers and finding hidden resources)

    Schedule Tetris Merit Badge (for fitting 47 course sections into 32 available time slots while satisfying everyone’s preferences)

    Diplomatic Relations Merit Badge (for mediating between feuding faculty members without taking sides or losing sanity)

    Paperwork Expedition Merit Badge (for successfully navigating a minor curriculum change through six committees and three levels of administration)

    Assessment Survival Merit Badge (for completing a program review cycle without uttering the phrase “this is meaningless”)

    Email Endurance Merit Badge (for maintaining inbox zero while receiving 200-plus daily messages during registration week)

    Faculty Development Sherpa Merit Badge (for successfully guiding junior faculty through the tenure process wilderness)

    Student Crisis Navigation Merit Badge (for handling everything from grade appeals to mental health emergencies with grace—and documentation)

    Accreditation Archive Merit Badge (for creating and maintaining the sacred assessment documents for the next site visit)

    Interdepartmental Peace Treaty Merit Badge (for negotiating shared resources and cross-listed courses without starting a turf war)

    Conference Room Warrior Merit Badge (for surviving 50 consecutive hours of committee meetings in a single semester while maintaining consciousness)

    The Advanced Badges

    As department chairs move toward the “seasoned category,” akin to Eagle Scouts’ level of capability, these are the advanced merit badges department chairs should be moving toward:

    Everyone Remained Seated Merit Badge (for successfully hosting a controversial speaker event where the Q&A didn’t require campus police, no one stormed out, everyone actually asked questions instead of making speeches, and the dean didn’t have to issue a statement the next day)

    Viewpoint Diversity Navigator Merit Badge (for successfully resolving ideological tensions between the “universities are too woke” faculty member and the “universities aren’t woke enough” faculty member, while keeping both the university counsel office and the campus newspaper uninterested in your department)

    Social Media Firefighter Merit Badge (for managing department communications after a faculty member’s tweet goes viral, while upholding both academic freedom and institutional reputation)

    Soft Landing Merit Badge (for compassionately guiding a struggling graduate student toward alternative career paths while avoiding lawsuits, maintaining departmental reputation for mentoring, preventing faculty infighting about “standards” and ensuring the student leaves with dignity and future options intact)

    Side Hustle Tackler Merit Badge (for successfully filling out outside employment forms for a professor simultaneously consulting for Google, running a resale textbook start-up and offering expert testimony, while ensuring university compliance, managing jealous colleagues and preventing the local newspaper from running a “professors don’t work” exposé)

    Advanced Curriculum Shepherding Merit Badge (for successfully shepherding an interdisciplinary, multimodal, study abroad–required curriculum through 17 different committees without having it transformed into “just add one elective to the existing major”)

    Bonus points for maintaining revolutionary elements like “required internships,” “community-engaged capstone” and “two semesters abroad” through final approval, while fielding questions like “but how will student athletes do this?” and “what exactly do you mean by ‘transdisciplinary’?” and “have you checked with Risk Management?” and “will this impact our parking situation?”

    Fresh Blood Without Bloodshed Merit Badge (for successfully integrating an outside chair into a department that has been “led” by the same three faculty trading the position since 1987; includes surviving the “but that’s not how we do it” phase, the “well, in my day as chair” phase and the “I’ll just CC the dean on this email to help you understand our culture better” phase)

    Special recognition for preventing the emeritus faculty from creating a shadow government in the department’s second-floor conference room.

    The King Has Voluntarily Left the Building Merit Badge (For masterfully orchestrating the graceful exit of a chair who has held the position since before email existed, memorized every bylaw and has an office containing 27 years of irreplaceable paper files organized in a system only they understand; successfully convince them that spending more time on research is a promotion, not a demotion, while ensuring they actually hand over the department credit card and graduate student admissions spreadsheet before leaving)

    Bonus points if the outgoing chair willingly shares the password to the department’s social media accounts and reveals where they’ve been hiding the good coffee maker.

    The “Reply All” Survivor Merit Badge (for maintaining composure during the dreaded accidental reply-all chain that encompasses the entire college)

    And, finally (drum roll) the Ultimate Achievement: The Phoenix Chair Merit Badge (for successfully completing a term as chair and willingly agreeing to serve again)

    This highest honor requires:

    1. Completing all previous merit badges
    2. Still believing in the mission of higher education
    3. Retaining enough optimism to sign up for another term

    Note: This badge has only been awarded twice in recorded higher education history.

    Hollis Robbins is professor of English and former dean of humanities at the University of Utah.


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