Canvas Badges / Credentials — Can the term 'Badges' be renamed?

[alexander_mitch]

I'm the LMS Admin at a small college that has a few certificate programs, and we're interested in possibly replacing our current digital credentialing solution with Canvas Badges (or possibly Canvas Credentials). One of the main sticking points is the term 'badge', which seems more appropriate for smaller or less formal credentials, but not really appropriate for a full multi-course certificate.

Do any of the Canvas/Badgr credentialing options allow someone to change the term 'badge' to something else as it appears in emails, etc? Right now, the only option I can imagine is including the word Certificate in the title, thus getting the somewhat underwhelming '___ Certificate Badge'.

Our current credentialing service allows us to call our credentials 'certificates'.

How are other institutions handling this?

[jmerlenbach1]

We do not have a solution for this, but experience the same problem often. With end users, there is a great deal of confusion of what is a badge/certificate/credential.

The only suggestions we have made are to attempt to use some sort of differing language, as you mentioned, or to make the Badge Image different for these different types of microcredentials.

[ProfessorBeyrer · Accepted solution]

I'm not aware of options for changing the terms within Canvas Badges/Credentials, especially if Instructure is committed to using the Open Badges standard. They discuss this in the document What are Open Badges? in the Canvas Badges Guide. This distinction between badges, credentials, and certificates is something that's unresolved, especially as these terms mean different things in different contexts.

For example, I work with an organization that uses Canvas Badges/Credentials to document the completion of a certificate in online teaching and design. The organization focuses primarily on California's community colleges, and the wording can be confusing. "Badges" is something that our various colleges don't understand, as few of the HR departments/department chairs/area deans are comfortable accepting a digital token as documentation (that's an ongoing challenge for the Open Badges movement). We have another challenge with "credential," because that's what K12 teachers are required to have and we used to have credentials for community college faculty. We settled on "certificate," which presents a smaller challenge because all our colleges award certificates (in addition to degrees). Since Canvas Badges can be printed as certificates, that makes it easier for our participants to provide evidence they have completed the training. 

I look forward to a time when these verifiable badges will be broadly accepted and understood. In the meantime, @alexander_mitch, your option to include the word "certificate" as part of the title is the best one.

I’m going to mark my response as a solution, but there can be more than one. I hope our colleagues here in the Community can share other options for communicating the meaning of a Canvas Badge/Credential. 

[BarryBEATTIE]

I'd like to offer that it's the context that's causing the confusion, and how each term is loaded depending on how it's used elsewhere.

My organisation looking at Canvas Credentials is a state government with over half a million P-12 students across more than 1000 schools. Within the same space we also have formal vocational training delivering (by a completely separate state govt entity but sometimes in partnership) the national accreditation using the term "Certificates" (and Diplomas, et al which is typically delivered to adults but teenagers are a crossover and can do both at school).

The main use we see Canvas Credentials (product)/Badgr used for fits the concept of "micro-credentials", and that term is perhaps the best description because we are the issuer, owner of the courseware and owner of the standard that issues the specific "micro-credential". Unlike National Training packages, or qualifications outside of our organisation (and even the student results that see them progress to Higher Education), these "micro-credentials" have no formal recognition outside of our organisation.

"I look forward to a time when these verifiable badges will be broadly accepted and understood"

The key is quality assurance of both the award process (evidence/attainment) and the veracity of the issuer (trust/standards). Either it's a recognised standard that's portable across multiple organisations (so it's called what ever has been agreed upon by the standards body), or it's bespoke to the organisation, and they can call it whatever they want (with internal agreement).

Some reading on this:
https://oeb.global/oeb-insights/how-canvas-credentials-supports-the-european-approach-to-micro-crede...

https://desbt.qld.gov.au/training/employers/funding/micro-credentialing

[BarryBEATTIE]

just to add to some of the considerations (because I'd like to see @alexander_mitch come up with something usable, because I suspect others - me - will hit this problem).

Have a look at this organisation: they have no problems having all different flavours of badges ("seal of proficiency"? really?)
https://mbs.au.badgr.com/public/organization/badges ... but they're all just badges.

Nice icons, though. Gonna have to look into how to add custom icons.

[MelissaDaigle-B]

We have the opposite issue. Certificate and certification are not the right fit for us in most cases, and they are terms in Canvas Credentials, regardless of what the microcredential is called (i.e., badge).