How can we build trust in digital microcredentials?
It is estimated that the total number of digital credentials issued globally may now exceed 300 million. The decentralised model of issuing microcredentials introduced by the Mozilla Foundation has helped to popularise this solution. The digital badge market continues to grow, but it faces challenges related to the lack of standards, quality assurance, and trust. The model being developed by the Educational Research Institute – National Research Institute (IBE-BIP) – appears to be devoid of these common shortcomings. But why?
Read on to find out:
- Digital credentials around the world – what does the market look like?
- The microcredential system – decentralised or hybrid?
- Trust in digital microcredentials – why is it crucial and how can it be built?
- How is trust in digital microcredentials being built in Poland?
Digital microcredentials – quality and trust
In many countries, digital microcredentials are playing an increasingly important role in the recognition of skills – especially for professionals who want to take control of their career paths. In Poland, digital badges are also being issued. Many holders are already using them to improve and update their CVs.
The question of the quality of these credentials remains open. To what extent do they reflect the actual skills and competencies of their holders? Who issued them? What standards did their creators follow? And ultimately: can they be trusted? These are fundamental concerns from the perspective of microcredential system designers, individuals collecting them, and potential employers or HR departments. This is not just a challenge faced by Poland, which is still in the process of developing its national solution, but by every country where digital credentials are in use.
Digital credentials around the world
This very issue is the focus of the article by Tim Riches, executive director and co-founder of Navigatr, a company that promotes credentialing solutions. As a long-standing expert in this field, Riches has been instrumental in promoting digital badges and the Open Badges standard across multiple countries. Despite his significant involvement in developing and popularising the system, he hasn’t shied away from offering a critical perspective.
According to estimates cited in an article on the FE News portal, by 2023 the total number of digital badges issued worldwide had reached 74 million. It is now estimated that this number could be as high as 300 million. What’s particularly significant is that by 2023, over half a million digital badges globally had been created without any quality standardisation. More than 26,000 organisations are currently offering credentials, which means that the recipients of digital microcredentials – such as employers – are faced with a highly fragmented and inconsistent picture. This lack of coherence directly undermines trust in this method of validating skills.
Digital microcredentials – the decentralised system
Tim Riches explores the foundations and outcomes of the decentralised digital badge system, originally developed by the Mozilla Firefox Foundation. The idea was to create an open, accessible framework, that would allow anyone to issue and earn digital badges. This approach helped make microcredentials widely available and supported the democratisation of skills recognition.
However, the system also turned out to have certain limitations. The fact that anyone can issue a badge, without having to prove its actual value, leads to issues with verifying quality.
The model that currently dominates in many countries is characterised by:
- full democratisation and accessibility – anyone can issue and earn a credential,
- high flexibility and innovation,
- trust based on the reputation of individual issuers,
- little or no standardisation – credentials can be created according to each issuer’s own rules,
- uncertainty regarding quality,
- limited alignment with labour market needs – employers may struggle to assess the actual value of a credential,
- high risk of misuse – since anyone can issue a badge without the need to prove its credibility.
Digital microcredentials – hybrid system
The Educational Research Institute – National Research Institute is working on creating a public system aimed at ensuring that digital credentials issued in Poland are characterised by standardisation and the highest quality, which will help build trust in microcredentials and facilitate the wide-scale implementation of this solution in education and the labour market. It has become crucial to collaborate with both public and private entities during the ongoing pilot phase.
‘We aim to create a central solution that will convince all digital credential issuers in Poland that the so-called ‘quality path’ requires effort, but it’s not actually that difficult. We will ensure this by, among other things, offering the entire market ready-made and, what’s not less important, freely accessible standards and a catalogue of microcredentials, where each issuer will be able to submit their own verified proposals,’ says Michał Nowakowski, leader of “Microcredentials – A Pilot Project for Supporting Lifelong Learning” which is funded by European Funds for Social Development (FERS).
What characterises the model being developed at IBE-PIB?
- high standardisation – the Institute develops consistent standards for creating credentials,
- credibility – built through, among other things, ensuring quality and the standard model developed by a highly reputable public institution,
- quality control – every credential undergoes thorough verification,
- lower risk of misuse,
- better integration with the labour market – public systems are generally recognised by employers and more quickly accepted by them.
Digital microcredentials – how to build trust?
Every digital credential system has its advantages and disadvantages. As Tim Riches emphasises, it is crucial to establish consistent, top-down frameworks and principles.
Riches has developed guidelines that, in his opinion, allow for building trust in digital credentials in countries where a decentralised system operates:
- each digital credential must specify what skills it is awarded for, what criteria need to be met to receive it, and who the issuer is,
- every credential issuer must be verified, whether it is a government institution, a university, an employer, or an educational platform,
- the credential must contain a current and consistent description, created using language that is understandable to the audience (e.g., employers),
- each credential should be understandable to the recipient at first glance, with clear graphics used to identify the skills it pertains to easily,
- credentials should receive recommendations from external entities to add credibility.
In the system being developed at the IBE-PIB, almost all the points aforementioned are treated as mandatory.
‘We consider ensuring the transparency of metadata to be a key aspect of our work. In our project, this is guaranteed by our proprietary standard for describing microcredentials. From the very beginning, it was clear to us that any issuer wishing to create credentials within our system must undergo thorough verification. This will allow us to avoid the risks of misuse and a decrease in quality. Even during the pilot phase, in which we collaborate with various entities testing our solutions, we carefully assess each one before starting cooperation,’ comments Michał Nowakowski.
The system of microcredentials – support, not competition
The model for promoting microcredentials proposed by IBE-PIB does not involve abandoning the positive aspects of the decentralised model. On the contrary – the aim is to combine consistent principles for verifying competencies with the flexibility and openness of the decentralised approach so that microcredentials meet the real needs of the labour market.
‘It should be emphasised that the public solution we are creating is not intended to limit the commercial market in our country – it functions and will continue to function. The most important thing is for all credential issuers to ensure the highest quality and use reliable and proven solutions so that the idea of this form of skill verification is not corrupted,’ emphasises Michał Nowakowski.
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