Together with Learning Agents, common sense has designed a concept for digital badges at ITCILO.
What is it about?
ITCILO offers a wide range of trainings for governments, employers' and workers' organisations, as well as national and international partners, based on a clearly structured certification system.In this certification system, Diplomas, Certificates of Achievement andCertificates of Participation are awarded to participants and graduates, depending on the learning effort involved. In 2020, also digital badges were introduced at ITCILO, but these were awarded on a more voluntary basis by trainers and programme managers and were not based on a clear set of guidelines. By developing a new badging concept, the well-established and recognised three-tier certification system will be supplemented and complemented by awarding digital badges.
Project profile
Client | ITCILO (International Training Center of the International Labour Organization) |
Period: | 11/2022 -02/2023 |
Target group: | Office of the Director of Training of the ITCILO |
Our work: | Needs analysis in relation to digital badges and micro-credentials at ITCILO; research & evaluation of international trends & good practices; strategic advice; derivation of recommendations for ITCILO. |
Language: | English |
Enabling learning!
The use of digital badges enables the visualization of individual learning paths and offers many advantages for both learners and ITCILO: By awarding digital badges, the ITCILO's training offer can be made more visible to the outside world. The visualization in line with the corporate design and existing design elements also ensures a high recognition value. In addition, a badging system increases the traceability of learners' successes and makes it easier to certify smaller parts instead of a complete course certification, thus accrediting the acquisition of concrete individual competences in a course.
For learners, digital badges also offer the great advantage that they can be shared easily - whether via email or social media - to communicate newly acquired competences to the outside world, to make one's own learning history visible and to share learning successes with others. Awarding badges even for smaller learning achievements and their stack ability not only boosts motivation, but also enables flexible learning!
Our contribution
After an initial consolidation phase, an online survey on digital badges was conducted at ITCILO. Based on the results of the survey, we conducted focus group interviews with all relevant stakeholders at ITCILO to get a differentiated picture of existing practices, expectations and needs regarding a systematic deployment of digital badges. We contrasted these findings with a detailed analysis of existing good practice examples against the backdrop of the evolution of badging strategies and trends since the introduction of Mozilla's Open Badges in 2012. Based on these findings, we developed tailored recommendations for ITCILO on how to implement a new badging framework:
Our final report includes recommendations for clear terminology, proposals for a badge concept based on the existing three-tier certification framework, guidelines for visual design, and proposals for the creation and use of 'low stack' badges outside of formal training activities to extend the existing framework in a meaningful way.
Insights into the creation process
Our highlights and learning in this project
As in previous projects, working with Learning Agents was a particular highlight: It gave us the opportunity to share our respective expertise and to deepen and broaden our knowledge and competence in this area.
The project's clear focus on strategic consultancy and concept development was particularly exciting: this enabled us not only to carry out in-depth analyses of the current badging landscape, but also to extract the best from existing good practice examples and to prepare them in a targeted and specific way for ITCILO.
Of course, we are particularly pleased that the results and other exciting insights will also be presented in presentations at the eLearning Africa 2023 in Dakar, the UN Stakeholder Conference and the ePIC Conference 2023 in Vienna.
Link to the project report and further information
The project report has been published on the ITCILO website and is available online and as a PDF download for all interested parties.
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