Digital badges denote education and skills gained

Mozilla's Open Badges project aims to create a library of symbols that indicate skills and learning achieved by potential employees outside of mainstream education.

We’ve already seen Gild Source determine coders’ abilities by analyzing their work and providing a score to make it easier for recruiters to find the right person for their team. Broadening this concept to include all workers, Mozilla’s Open Badges project aims to create a library of symbols that indicate skills and learning achieved by potential employees outside of mainstream education. While official school and college qualifications are recognized by all employers, knowledge and experience gained in after-school programs, on-the-job training and online courses can be more difficult to prove. Organizations that offer these opportunities can apply to become an Issuer under the scheme, and if successful can create their own awards to be offered through the service. Earners each have an online Mozilla Backpack where they store the badges they’ve acquired and can choose to broadcast them on participating social networks or their personal sites. The authentication system means that both Issuers and Earners must agree for the badge to be awarded before it appears in the Backpack, and secure metadata ensures that the images can’t be simply copied and pasted. The Open Badge project aims to bring legitimacy to the multitude of new opportunities for learning, as well as providing a visual system to make it easier to quickly see the attributes held by job candidates. Could this idea hold a place in online recruitment in the future?