Badge Issuers

Advice for issuers on planning, requesting, creating and managing new open digital badges.

What are the benefits of open digital badges?

Image
Three people sit outside a University building on a bench and look at a laptop.

Open digital badges have benefits for both earners and issuers.  Benefits for issuers include:

  • motivating earners to continue learning and engaging in an activity
  • providing an easy way to share validated skills and achievements with potential employers
  • verifiable, embedded metadata (information) that goes beyond the limited information provided on a certificate, report or simple image
  • verifiable metadata which makes a digital badge hard to fake, forge or copy

Who can issue a University open digital badge?

University of Edinburgh schools, programmes, service groups and staff can use the BadgEd service to issue agreed digital badges to both University students/staff and to external learners undertaking University courses or activities. 

How could I start issuing a University digital badge?

If you have an idea for a new digital badge, the process begins with planning the badge. It is essential to consult our planning guidance and your local digital badge Champion during this part of the process, as they can advise on next steps. In some cases, you may also wish to organise a workshop with the BadgEd team to help you explore and clarify the proposed use case and next steps.

Your conversations with your Champion about your badge idea are a key part of the planning and request process.  Once your plans are fully developed, your Champion will help you complete the relatively simple request form. It's important to take the time to develop the wording on the form, as this will be the wording that appears publicly in your badge information. 

After you've submitted your new badge request, the Governance team will evaluate your request, giving feedback and suggestions. Please allow 4-6 weeks for the entire review process.

After your new badge is approved, you will receive your Canvas Credentials login and further technical guidance on how to actually issue the badge to your earners. As an issuer, you are responsible for confirming all award criteria have been met before issuing a digital badge.

Image
Process diagram showing badge idea, contacting a champion, planning, requesting, creating, issuing and managing your new badge.

Digital Badges Champions

Image
Image of 2 people smiling and having a discussion in an office

Open Digital Badge Champions will be your first point of contact for any questions or issues.  They assist with the open digital badge applications, and they can also help manage the creation and issuing of badges for their School or professional service group if needed.

You can find the list of current Champions using the link below.

If your School or Deanery is not listed, or if you are unsure who to contact, please raise a call to the IS Helpline who will be able to help further. 

View the list of Champions

Contact IS Helpline about Champions

Questions to consider: Support and guidance for potential badge issuers

In the section below,  you can find resources and guidance to support you in the process of planning, requesting and creating a new University digital badge. This includes important questions to consider when planning your badge.  These questions centre around:

  • badge value and the effort required to earn the badge (i.e., not just attendance)
  • why digital badges are a good choice for your idea
  • how you will support awarding digital badges, including assessing whether earning criteria are met and communication with earners.

If you are considering creating a new badge, please take a look at the questions below.  Considering these will help you create a valuable badge and will simplify the request process. 

Expand all
Collapse all
Expand all
Collapse all

 

Information and guidance for current issuers

If you are a current issuer or issuer administrator and are looking for more information, support or guidance, please visit our Guidance and Support page for current issuers. 

Guidance and support for current issuers

Further information

Contact the IS Helpline with as much detail possible about your question:

Contact IS Helpline