The Colorado Community College System has partnered with other higher education institutions and businesses to create a digital badging ecosystem. Digital badges can convey micro-credentials to demonstrate specific skills or knowledge. CCCS aims to build a comprehensive badge system where badges provide evidence of competencies aligned with industry standards. The system would make skills more transparent and help motivate learners. CCCS conducted pilots with their TAACCCT grant and developed badges for a technical math course based on competencies. However, challenges remain around awareness, technical issues, faculty buy-in, and ensuring badges are sustainable over time.

1. Brenda M. Perea
Instructional Design Project Manager
Colorado Community College System
CCCS’s Digital Badge Possibilities

2. Colorado Community College System
Badge Consortium
Colorado Community
College System has
partnered with a
consortium of 2 /4 year
higher education
institutions, business and
workforce to create a digital
badging ecosystem to
address stakeholders
(education,
industry/business and
workforce) needs.
CCCS is hoping to build a
comprehensive badge
ecosystem where digital
badges convey value
through micro-credentialed
learning.

3. College Level Learning
• Traditional Credentials
– As a community we
have given
information on a
transcript implicit
meaning
– Grades, certificates
and degrees are a
visual
representation of
mastery

4. Largest Potential for Micro-
Credentials
• Capturing latent talent using unified
language
–Recognition of specific skills or knowledge
–Display achievements
• Creating transparent pathways
–Building a digital portfolio or academic
transcript
• Motivate learners

5. The vision
Every badge issued or accepted is tied to: specific standard or
competency or industry evaluation providing evidence of micro-
learning.
Based in capturing competency in different ways and be:
• Industry driven
• Community centered
• Learner focused
Pilot Digital badging project would be developed to be the model
for a system wide badging initiative.

6. Provide a way for anyone to
Differentiate themselves from a crowd

7. The Journey…late 2013
• Opportunities
– TAACCCT grants
– Colorado Workforce asked for other types of credentialing
– Colorado Industry demanded shorter turnaround training
– Colorado State University (CSU) developed a non-credit
professional development program that unbundled on-
demand and competency based.
• Challenges
– K-12 public school system implementing badges desired
badges to articulate to the community colleges
– Workforce was experiencing large incumbent workers
needing retraining

8. How did we start?
Colorado Career Cluster Model: Agriculture
& Energy, Advanced Manufacturing, IT, Health
Science & Public Safety, Hospitality & Education,
Business & Public Administration
– Round tables with the community and business in
discussing current educational delivery and what
was really needed
– Evaluation of badges with a jobs driven approach
– Identified how the learner/earner would value
badges

9. Digital badge value
• Assessments
• Testing
• Portfolio of work
• Certifications
• Field work in real time
documented with
images, movies….
“currency” is
based on
recognition of
the value of
demonstrated
mastery

10. Issuing
Badges
• Transcript
PLA
• Identify and
crosswalk
Competencies
• Review
Metadata
• Access the
digital badge
Display
• Identify
granular
competencies
Competencies
• Measure
mastery
Assessments
• Compile the
meta data
Metadata
• Issue digital
credential
Badges
Define the Ecosystem of Micro-credentials
in Higher Ed
ACCEPTING
BADGES

11. Define the Ecosystem of Micro-credentials
in Industry
Issuing
Badges
• Identify skills
and
competencies
Competencies
• Evidence of
mastery
Evidence
• Compile the
metadata
Metadata
• Issue digital
credential
Badges
ACCEPTING
BADGES
• Document
Credential
• Identify and
match to job
skills
Competencies
• Review for
mastery
Metadata
• Access the
digital badge
Display

12. Expectations of where Digital Badges
Micro-Credentials fit
Proof of concept
– TAACCCT 3 grant, built a free MOOC-Technical Math
for Industry mirroring for credit MAT108 course
• Identified evaluations/assessments for the 27
competencies in the credit course
• Grouped the competencies in “chunks” of learning
with appropriate summative assessments
• Designed badges to visually represent the
competencies
– Creation of badges is dependent upon industry
understanding micro-credentials in terms of workforce
and faculty understand value behind digital badges

13. MAT 108 Credentials

14. Biggest Challenges to Building Badge
Systems
• Lack of knowledge or awareness about badges
inside and outside of institutions
• Resistance from faculty and administration
• Time needed to design and assess badges
• Technical challenges (platforms, tools, staff)
• Requires investment of infrastructure
– Stable and sustainable platform
– Control over metadata, typical lifespan is 5-
7 years

15. Critical assessment of Student
Management System
Evaluation of the student management system
– Competencies of courses all in one text field
– Grades to Courses need to be grades to
competencies
• Rewriting competencies not only to reflect
higher order Bloom’s taxonomy, but in
looking forward to competency based
education goals
– How do you transcript information such as
digital credentials?

16. Evaluation of our Prior Learning Policy
Prior to February 2015 Revised Policy
Credit for Prior Learning Prior Learning Assessment Credit
One credit in residency requirement Credit on transcript when student
applies/ declares major
Varied costs: <50% of tuition cost per
credit
System –wide cost matrix
Institutional assessment methods, vary
by college
PLA training and standards for assessors
Handbook: specific to current policy.
Most credit matrix information 2005 or
earlier.
Handbook: Expanded crosswalks; ACE
apprenticeships/industry credentials,
shared challenge exams, state/local
industry training

17. The acceleration of the Colorado Badge
Movement...
• Demand from Industry
– Shortage of qualified workers
• Colorado Advanced Manufacturing Alliance
– Economic development
• May 2015 Executive Branch of Colorado state
government
• October 2015 State Representative crafting
legislation around digital badges

19. What we are experiencing and
Issues to avoid
• Conflicting badging systems and
procedures
– Inconsistent metadata
• Participatory or “gaming achievement”
badges
–“Carpet badging”
• Competing badges

20. Questions

21. CC BY License
This Workforce Solution CCCS’s Badging Possibilities Brenda M. Perea is licensed under
a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Permissions beyond the
scope of this license may be available at www.cccs.edu.
This workforce solution was funded by a grant awarded by the U.S. Department of
Labor’s Employment and Training Administration. The solution was created by the
grantee and does not necessarily reflect the official position of the U.S. Department of
Labor. The Department of Labor makes no guarantees, warranties, or assurances of any
kind, express or implied, with respect to such information, including any information on
linked sites, and including, but not limited to accuracy of the information or its
completeness, timeliness, usefulness, adequacy, continued availability or ownership.