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The idea of Digital Badges is first seeded at the 2010 Conference hosted by Mozilla in Barcelona, sparking the launch of their Open Badges Project to recognise that a lot of learning takes place after school hours. -
In 2011, Secretary Arne Duncan of the U.S. Department of Education helped launch the idea of Digital Badges to Educators. He said “Badges can help speed the shift from credentials that simply measure seat time, to ones that more accurately measure competency” -
Cathy Davidson a Distinguished Professor of English and Founding Director of the Futures Initiative at the Graduate Center CUNY blogs on conversations about the introduction of digital badges "I remember when we started writing, blogging, talking, speaking, and other ways trying to create a conversation around badges as an alternative mode of assessment, people would look at me like I was a little daft. Boy Scout sashes? Police badges?" -
With the rise of the DIY learning movement, and many identifying as 'lifelong learners', there was no way to demonstrate their knowledge and skillset. Traditional students receive a degree, whereas digital badges could bridge that gap for many who continue to study. -
Lydia Dobyns, President and CEO of New Tech Network writes an article declaring digital badges as the way to create equality and access to Higher Education. -
The MacArthur Foundation, HASTAC and Mozilla recognised that traditional measures of achievement do not convey the full range of knowledge and skills of students and to remedy this, announced $2 million dollars as part of the Digital Media and Learning Competition for leading organizations, learning and assessment specialists, designers and technologists to create and test badges and badge systems. -
At the 2013 Ed Tech Industry Summit Digital Badges are a key theme of the conference -
The Smithsonian Center for Education and Museum Studies launched Smithsonian Quests, a digital badging program. Students complete project learning challenges that can be applied to the real world and then are assessed by Smithsonian Education Experts. -
The WICHE Cooperative for Education Technologies (WCET) in collaboration with Blackboard and Mozilla announce a massive open online course (MOOC) on digital badges as professional credentials. -
The Open Badges Ecosystem Model paves the way to become the world's leading format for digital badges. The badges ensure that qualifications are verifiable, portable and give more detail about the qualification. -
In 2014, the University of California allows students to create completely customized badges to recognise their achievements across a variety of content and contexts. -
With the momentum and recognition of Digital Badges as a powerful pipeline to continued learning, some learning management systems such as Moodle, Canvas, Blackboard and Brightspace move to include badges for learners. -
The resume platform launches a skill assessment initiative that allows users to certify their skillsets via the display of a Digital Badge -
As a response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the move to online learning, Torrens University launches Digital Smart Badges as a way to demonstrate your learnings to peers and future employers. -
The COVID-19 Pandemic has accelerated the acceptance of digital and open badges which has infiltrated many online digital learning environments and has made way for platforms such as Badgr to allow users to share their credentials on Social Media—as well as professional networking sites.