Most of us have dusty portfolios full of paper certificates at home, from those representing high stakes exams or degree certificates with complex watermarking and holograms, to distinctly low-fi certificates of completion that showed you attended a training course. But in the complex and fast-paced knowledge economy of the 21st century, which drives the need for a wide range of credentials as the currency of knowledge [1], this often does not adequately meet the user needs of students [2]. There is a lack of understanding about what these certificates actually mean: the activities completed to get them and the skills gained can often remain opaque. So how has certification needed to adapt to a knowledge-driven economy in an era underpinned by profound technological change? As a former academic working at the intersection of sociology, computer science and employability, I have seen and created first-hand the socio-technical systems and artefacts used to evidence knowledge and skills acquisition. In this blog I explore Arm Education’s experiences of creating certification 2.0 in the form of online credentials and digital badges.
Certificates are subject increasingly to a disruptive innovation process in the truest sense. Disrupters move into new markets and exceed the foundational needs of its users [3], creating a range of credentials beyond classic certifications, towards easy-to-issue digital badges and micro-credentials which reward a much wider range of activities and skills. Indeed, the digital era and information age is also driving a disruptive process around certification. Technology allows us to give certification more performance attributes and affordances [4] around shareability in email and social media, underpinned by a secure by design approach of immutable linking to the blockchain. They have greater ‘informational affordances’ [5] around metadata embedded descriptions. Technology also creates a blurring between certification and digital badging; with badging being a ‘leaner’ form of certification, often more informal, and granular [6] and typically associated with gamification - “the use of game-design elements in non-game contexts” [7]. Digital badges have often been used to set goals, motivate behaviors, represent achievements and communicate success in many contexts. It is important to see digital badges as a more public and shareable form of recognition than the traditional paper certificate, plaque, or trophy. As argued by Casilli and Hickey [8], they are: “rooted in the concept of contextualized and public credibility.” Badges are classically about ‘social translucence’ [9] – about making visible to a wide range of connections the positive activities people are performing and at different levels, from completing summative assessments to attending that workshop.
With the ability to create these wider ranges of credentials comes broader questions about their value proposition. Credentials need to have value and users need to be able to easily extract their value – for students, employers, schools, colleges, and universities. But to extract that value, the value of those credentials needs to be created in the first place in terms of an online platform that can support their issue and secure distribution. I will discuss my experiences of each of these in the following.
For Arm Education, a move to digital certification and badging necessitated using an online platform that has the affordances required and opened up by credentials issued in a digital form. It has been argued that the digital era means no clear conceptual distinction between the original and a copy [10], which makes the creation of fraudulent credentials a known hazard. Credentialing platforms therefore require links back to an original record that are incorruptible and verifiable – Blockchain provided the digital ledger for our certificates, and unique html links feature on digital and paper reproductions of a credential for security. The platform produces transcripts that are forever linked with the credentials which describe the activities undertaken and metatag the skills gained.
Digital credentials also become shareable credentials and the auto-sharing capabilities of our online platform to social media platforms creates opportunities for people to share their achievements and successes. The need and capacity to share becomes intertwined with the digital. Shareability on social media benefits not only the recipient but also the issuer – the badges become a form of prized currency in circulation and people become curious about the issuer and the reason for issue, which gives added publicity for an organization and its mission. But the need to share is also accelerated by strong branding and design.
Arm Education needed a variety of credentials including certificate designs that would work for a co-branded certificate and a set of digital badges. Ben Webdell, Senior Visual Designer at Arm, agreed to support the project and set to work after receiving a project briefing.
For a certificate that involved working with partners, the brief highlighted the collaboration between Arm and academic partners in considering the design required, as well as working innovatively with the Arm brand.
The design for the co-branded certificate was based on branding elements from Arm’s corporate handbook. In terms of the design process itself, Ben’s approach was to make the certificate memorable: “I elevated some of the elements to make the certificate feel fun and have a unique look and feel that stands out from the crowd. It was also really important to make sure all the accreditations are clearly visible and the text is easy to read and legible.” He also sees the multiple positive interpretations of the Arm ‘plus’ graphic element from Arm’s branding. Incorporating it as a stand-out element in the main body of the certificate and to connect the signatories of Arm Education and our partners Nanyang Polytechnic in Singapore: “We used the ‘plus’ graphic to highlight the student’s name, this element we use to show connection, partnership, and achievement.”
Figure 1: A co-branded digital certificate for a partnership model
The page design where the certificates are viewed is finished off with skills and knowledge meta-tagging as well as links which aggregate all of Arm Education’s credentials to give students and the certificate’s audience a wider awareness of Arm Education’s offer and website.
Our digital badge designs needed to be constructed for both an internal and external audience, with an underlying design that could be adapted for a large range of circumstances. Although they are much smaller than certificates, the design challenge is greater in needing to be succinct in their use of text, have a recognizable shape and using the Arm brand innovatively in a small space. Ben’s view on the design was that they had to be: “clean, simple and memorable.” They also needed to be color themed to create ‘classes’ or themes of badges for particular circumstances (such as reviewing our education kits or being a more general reviewer or user tester, such as of our edX MOOCs – see figure 2). As well as tiered in order to show and encourage progression – with bronze, silver and gold banding in some cases. In terms of the design for Ben, the shape and affordances of physical badges came into play: “The square set up was used to highlight the logo and give the badge a border, like in traditional badges these are used to draw the viewer’s eye into the middle to read the text.”
Figure 2: Digital badge designs showing themes and progression with the Arm brand
On the credential online platform, the page design again involves tagging skills and knowledge, but as a more granular, leaner credential, it has a much more succinct wrapping of information and description than the certificate around the activity completed to obtain it.
Figure 3: Digital Badging Online with Skills/ Knowledge Meta Tagging
In the era of certification 2.0, with an accelerating knowledge-driven economy coupled with the radical shifts of an information age, traditional certification has needed to change from the paper certificates locked privately away in our dusty portfolios. The digital era and its disruptions have opened up ‘informational affordances’ [11] that move us more from certification to a wider umbrella of credentials – including digital badges and micro-credentials. These can be used to motivate and reward a much more granular range of skills and activities, in an era where public credibility (ibid.) through social media sharing is much more important. However, a proliferation of shareable digital credentials requires a shift to a different way of thinking. Their infinite reproducibility requires a secure by design approach linked back to the owner, creator and a secure ledger, with platforms which enable easy issue at scale. Brand, identity and strong design become even more important in the shareable world where credentials are currency of both knowledge and association, circulated at will on social media. More than anything, certification 2.0 needs to continue to think about the meaning and value of what it is producing - that informational affordances are used wisely within structured plans for credentials which include themes and progression as well as using the ‘social translucence’ [12] of skills meta tagging and digital transcripts. This means students’ efforts can be appreciated and the value extracted for the full for the benefit of their future and careers.
[1] Lumina Foundation. 2015. Connecting Credentials: Making the Case for Reforming the U.S. Credentialing System. Indianapolis: Lumina Foundation. Available from: www.luminafoundation.org/.../making-the-case.pdf
[2] Ganzglass, E., Everhart, D., Hickey, D., Casilli, C. and Muramatsu, B. (2016). Quality dimensions for connected credentials. Washington, DC: American Council on Education. Available from: https://www.acenet.edu/Documents/Quality-Dimensions-for-Connected-Credentials.pdf#:~:text=The%20six%20dimensions%20described%20in,characterizes%20quality%20in%20connected%20credentials.
[3] Christensen, C.M., Raynor, M.E. and McDonald, R., (2015). What is disruptive innovation. Harvard business review, 93(12), pp44-53.
[4] Compare Bower, J.L. and Christensen, C.M., (1995). Disruptive technologies: Catching the wave. Harvard business review, January–February 1995 Issue. Available from: https://hbr.org/1995/01/disruptive-technologies-catching-the-wave
[5] Casilli, C., & Hickey, D. (2014). ‘Transcending conventional credentialing and assessment paradigms with information-rich digital badges.’ Available from: http://www.academia.edu/download/35362987/Casilli___Hickey_2014__in_review.docx
[6] Peer 2 Peer University and The Mozilla Foundation, in collaboration with The MacArthur Foundation (N.D.) An Open Badge System Framework - A foundational piece on assessment and badges for open, informal and social learning environments. Available from: https://dml2011.dmlhub.net/node/4440.html
[7] Deterding S, Dixon D, Khaled R, et al. (2011) ‘From game design elements to gamefulness: defining gamification.’ In Proceedings of the 15th international academic MindTrek conference: envisioning future media environments, Tampere, Finland, 28–30 September 2011, 9–15. New York: ACM, p9.
[8] Casilli, C., & Hickey, D. (2014). ‘Transcending conventional credentialing and assessment paradigms with information-rich digital badges,’p4. Available from: http://www.academia.edu/download/35362987/Casilli___Hickey_2014__in_review.docx
[9] Erickson, T. and Kellogg, W. A. (2000) Social Translucence: An Approach to Designing Systems that Support Social Processes. Available from: http://www.pliant.org/personal/Tom_Erickson/st_TOCHI.html
[10] Davis, D. (1995). ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Digital Reproduction (An Evolving Thesis: 1991-1995),’ Leonardo, 28(5), pp381-386.
[11] Casilli, C., & Hickey, D. (2014). ‘Transcending conventional credentialing and assessment paradigms with information-rich digital badges.’ Available from: http://www.academia.edu/download/35362987/Casilli___Hickey_2014__in_review.docx
[12] Erickson, T. and Kellogg, W. A. (2000) Social Translucence: An Approach to Designing Systems that Support Social Processes. Available from: http://www.pliant.org/personal/Tom_Erickson/st_TOCHI.html