In a vocational setting, digital badges can be used to evidence specific skills that may be mapped directly to an existing standard. This provides employers with the confidence that the skills represented by the badge are authentic and robust. This also provides a powerful use case for badges to link to real-world evidence, e.g. the learner demonstrating the specific skills.

Issuing badges to represent specific vocation skills could include:

• Workplace Health and Safety Compliance
• Electrical Installation Competence
• Food Safety and Hygiene
• Welding Skills
• CAD Skills

For badges that align with specific industry certifications, it is essential that they meet the criteria for that certification. Learners can provide evidence by attaching a digital scan of a paper-based certificate. When designing badges that include alignment to specific industry standards, there may be value to add additional skills and behaviours that represent current employer needs. The evidence required could be provided by employer trade bodies, giving the badge further credibility and value.

This badge works as an example of a recognising a specific vocational skill. Its alignment with a globally recognised standard and being awarded by a certified awarding body provides trust. It provides a mechanism for employers to validate credentials and provides employees with a portable, shareable credential that evidences their skills.

This format could be adapted to cover a wide range of vocational skills that are recognised and valued by employers.

Want to use this badge? Click the link for an Excel spreadsheet containing all of the badge data, ready to be copied and customised.

To use an exemplar badge and make it your own:

1. Download the spreadsheet and customise to your needs.
2. On your digital badge issuing platform of choice, create a new badge and input the badge data from the spreadsheet.
3. Edit and adapt the data to suit your needs.
4. Publish the badge / make it available for issuing.

While all badges that follow the Open Badge Standard will contain the same core components, different issuing platforms can label and format them differently and often have different approaches to applying settings and attributes to a badge.

Don’t panic – the excel file contains all the information you’ll need to build the badge on your chosen issuing platform (full list of Open Badge platforms) and come readily formatted with instructions for three popular issuing platforms: Open Badge Factory, Navigatr, and Credly.

Consider these badges as templates – it is always recommended to ensure your badges are adapted to your needs and tailored to be relevant to your recipients. This will ensure that your badge is meaningful and valued by those you issue it to.

Examples of customising an exemplar badge to fit your needs could include:

• Expanding on the information to add specific detail about an activity you will issue the badge for.
• Adjusting language to suit your organisation’s brand.
• Adding a location.
• Removing any elements you feel are not relevant to your badge recipients.

The platform examples provided in our exemplar badges are intended to help illustrate how a set of badge data may require adjusting to fit the issuing platform being used. Which badging platform you choose will depend on the on your individual use case and the functionality you require. The Digital Badging Commission does not endorse any particular badging platform. A full list of Open Badge platforms is maintained by 1EdTech.

If you represent an Open Badge platform and would like to be included in our exemplar files, please provide us with an excel sheet containing our exemplar data mapped to your system and we will add you to the download files.