Dive Brief:
- Coastal Carolina University now has two years of progress to look back on in its implementation of a badge program for first-year composition courses, an effort that has developed consistency across hundreds of course sections.
- For Campus Technology, two CCU instructors write that the program had a rocky beginning as faculty and students got used to the extra work requried by the 14 badges and figured out how to embed them in existing courses.
- Students earn badges for proving they have mastered certain skills like shaping a thesis or synthesizing content, and while the program has become more popular among faculty and students, learners with low expectations for their own potential do not get much motivation from the badges. CCU is still trying to figure out how to give the badges more currency beyond the institution.
Dive Insight:
Digital badges and other alternative credentialing methods likely will become more common across traditional higher education institutions as they adapt their own operations to remain competitive with online education companies and other schools. The availability of alternative credentials is expected to double in the next five years, while students and their future employers come to demand new ways to highlight skills. Key to the success of such programs is the infrastructure that allows students to store and display their badges.
Notre Dame has turned to badges to drive its e-portfolio initiative, creating concrete ways for students to prove they have specific skills and giving employers definitions to better understand what each badge took to earn.