The following list provides the UNH community with a common taxonomy around micro-credentials.
Note: This list may be expanded or revised over time.
Backpack: A backpack, (or wallet), stores badge award data on behalf of recipients, making it possible for recipients to organize and manage the badges they have earned. Backpacks may allow sharing to social media sites as a means of transmitting information about the achievements that a learner has gained. Example: The Canvas Badges Backpack.
Badge: The term “badge” is typically used as shorthand to mean “digital badge,” “micro-credential" or “digital certification/credential." However, the term “badge” is sometimes also used in reference to a “lower stakes” digital award that may be used to motivate recipients rather than recognize them in a more formal way. Badges can represent competencies and involvements recognized in online or offline life. Each badge is associated with an image and some metadata. The metadata provides information about what the badge represents and the evidence used to support it. Earners can display their badges online and can share badge information through social networks. Issuers define badges and award them to earners.
Canvas Badges/Credentials: A suite of digital credentialing tools used to create, award, and store digital badges (also called micro-credentials, digital credentials, etc.) within a secure platform that integrates credentials from other platforms and learning management systems. It allows organizations to build meaningful and scalable credentialing programs that improve education and workforce outcomes, and learners can see and have agency over their path from achievement to opportunity.
Claim code (QR Code): A claim code is created by a Canvas Credentials issuer and given to an earner when they earn a badge. The earner can take the code and claim the badge associated with that code. Claim codes can be unique to the earner or multi-use, in which case many different earners can use a code to claim the same badge.
Competency-based: Competency-based digital badges or credentials are generally considered “higher stakes” credentials in that the award is contingent on the demonstration of stated competencies. Many competencies are supported by industry research.
Credit-bearing: Indicates a course carries undergraduate or graduate level academic credit upon successful completion.
Credit-bearing certificate: Earned by completing courses that carry academic credit. Some for-credit certificate programs can be counted towards a formal degree program.
Digital Badge: A UNH digital badge is an electronic representation of a skill, achievement, or experience.
- It contains detailed information about the skill or experience which enables viewers (consumers) to ascertain what activities and/or assessments the learner completed.
- Skills and/or competencies are defined and evaluated by the digital badge issuer.
- Badges represent successful completion of a variety of learning experiences in credit and non-credit coursework.
- Sharing badges is learner controlled and open across technology platforms including social media, blogs, online portfolios and others.
Earner (or Learner): An individual who has met the necessary requirements to earn a badge or micro-credential.
Issue (or Award): To connect a badge to a person. This is the act of awarding the badge to the earner. This may happen when an earner makes a successful badge application. Badges can also be issued by submitting claim codes, or directly by the issuer to the earner's email address.
Issuer: Person or organization who creates/offers badges and issues them to earners. Issuers can be individuals or organizations.
Micro-credential: UNH defines a micro-credential as evidence that reflects attainment of specific skills or competencies. Micro-credentials can be issued for formal and informal academic or professional learning experiences. A digital badge is one example of a micro-credential.
- UNH Micro-Credentials are:
- Competency-based
- Approved through faculty/staff governance
- Meaningful and of high quality
Modularity: means that the credential includes units that carry independent value, which can be combined in multiple ways with other units and credentials and across multiple industries to create pathways. Modular credentials can be combined to demonstrate attainment of a broader, more complex, and/or more specialized knowledge of skills over time.
Non-credit Certificate: Proof of completion of a specialized non-credit education program focused on developing transferable skills.
Learning Pathway: A learning pathway, or pathway, is defined as the route an individual completes “as they progress through a range of specific courses, academic programs, and learning experiences.” Digital Badges can be used to create such learning pathways, serving as markers or stepping stones that lead the learner forward toward various achievement goals, defining one’s progression and experience.
Portability: means the credential has value locally, nationally and perhaps internationally in labor markets, education systems, and/or other contexts. The earner is able to use the credential in a variety of environments, and the context and competencies the credential represents remain intact and are accessible by credential consumers. A portable credential enables earners to move vertically and horizontally within and across the credentialing ecosystem for attainment of other credentials
Professional Certification: An industry-recognized and regulated attestation of a status or level of achievement, conferred by an external entity (ex. Project Management Professional (PMP)).
Re-skilling: Training for employees who have shown they have the aptitude for learning a completely new occupation. For example, an office clerk whose job has become obsolete will need to learn new skills to perform a different in-demand job within the same organization, such as a web developer.
Stackable Credential or Career Pathway: Part of a sequence of credentials that can be accumulated over time to build up an individual’s qualifications and help that individual move along a career pathway and further education.
- Vertical stacking is the most common in which a single topic is explored in advancing detail. For example, Microsoft Excel level 1, level 2, and level 3.
- Horizontal stacking is the acquirement of knowledge across several topics. For example, marketing, data handling, Microsoft products.
- Hybrid stacking is a combination of both vertical and horizontal stacking, where learners explore multiple topics in increasing levels of difficulty. For example, marketing level 1 and level 2.
Taxonomy: A system of classification.
- UNH Badging Taxonomy
- STYLE: ASSOCIATION
- Participation Badge: Badge earner participates in an event (i.e. professional development, classroom or online learning, etc.) but has not taken an assessment.
- Contribution/Recognition Badge: Badge earner has made a non-trivial contribution as part of a team or project. Can serve as recognition of accomplishment; i.e. an award.
- STYLE: LEARNING
- Grade Based Badge: Badge earner has earned recognition for successfully completing a learning event. Examples of formal recognition might include college credit, CEUs or other measures for non-collegiate credit learning.
- Level/ Program Based Badge: Badge earner has earned formal credit for one or all event(s) in a series of learning gains (i.e. levels of learning). Can serve as badge for encouragement and progress to larger learning goal. Badge should indicate how it fits within a progression or pathway to other badges or as a result of previous accomplishment.
- STYLE: COMPETENCE AND VALIDATION
- Performance Badge: Badge earner has demonstrated skills in a high-stakes environment. Badge earner successfully demonstrates claims to performance. Proctored assessment.
- Certification/ License Badge: Badge earner has demonstrated competence in a substantial domain of knowledge. Proctored assessment and other documentation satisfying certification/licensure requirements (i.e. work experience, education background, etc.) should be included.
- STYLE: ASSOCIATION
Upskilling: Providing training for employees who need to learn new skills to improve their current performance without changing their position or career path. One example would be a grants manager who uses Microsoft Excel to administer grants would need to be trained on robotic process automation as the organization implements this modern technology.
