Digital Badges and Micro-Credentials
Also known as الشارات الرقمية والمؤهلات المصغّرة
Definition
A digital badge is a verifiable digital token representing a specific achievement, carrying embedded metadata about the issuer, criteria, evidence and date. A micro-credential is a narrow, stackable qualification certifying a single competency, often assembled over time into a larger recognized qualification.
A badge is worth what its criteria are worth. A badge for watching a video shows that someone watched it. A badge for passing an assessed demonstration shows that they met the assessment's standard when they took it, though not how they perform at work since. Because the metadata travels with the badge, anyone who receives it, including a future employer, can check which kind it is.
Open standards such as Open Badges make them portable across platforms and verifiable without contacting the issuer. Internally, badges are most useful when they map to a competency framework, so a person's collection shows which framework requirements they have met, beyond a list of courses taken.