We’re excited to introduce significant updates to Canvas Credentials that will elevate the value and relevance of your digital badges. These enhancements include the integration of Talent Neuron’s market-driven skills taxonomy, providing real-time labor market insights, and the introduction of a new Flexible Skills option, offering you greater control and customization in your credentialing process.
Enhanced Badges with Talent Neuron’s rich skill Taxonomy
Our new default skills taxonomy, powered by Talent Neuron, allows your badge recipients to discover which skills are most in demand, where those skills are needed, and the current job opportunities available—all without leaving the Canvas Credentials platform. This seamless integration ensures that users have everything they need at their fingertips, empowering them to make informed career decisions based on the latest data.
Watch here how this enriched functionality works.
What Does This Change Mean for You?
We are transitioning to Talent Neuron as our default skills taxonomy, a move that brings a wealth of benefits. First, Talent Neuron’s market labor data will guide your badge recipients on a skills-defined learn-to-earn journey, helping them make informed career decisions that are aligned with current market demands. The enhanced accuracy provided by this new taxonomy ensures that your skills assessments are always up to date, reflecting the latest trends in the job market. Additionally, the broader coverage offered by Talent Neuron means you will have access to a wider array of skills and job titles, offering a more comprehensive view of the labor market, with insights that span across regions including Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States. This global reach will help you be better equipped to make informed decisions about career development and workforce planning.
For most badges, this transition will be seamless, with existing skills automatically linking to Talent Neuron’s taxonomy. However, in cases where there is no exact match between the old and new taxonomies manual updates will be required. We’ll guide you through this straightforward process with clear notifications, ensuring that your transition to the new taxonomy is as smooth as possible.
Watch here how to manually update a skill.
Introducing Flexible Skills: Tailor Your Credentialing Experience
In addition to adopting Talent Neuron as the default, we are introducing a Flexible Skills option, giving you even more control over your credentialing process. By switching to Flexible Skills under the organization or issuer edit pages, you can retain your existing Lightcast skills, which will automatically be displayed as “Flexible Skills.” This option allows you to define skills by name, link a URL, and include optional fields like framework or code. Whether you want to continue using Lightcast skills or add new custom skills, Flexible Skills offers the flexibility to align your badges with the specific needs of your organization, without compromising on the integrated data provided by Talent Neuron.
This new option ensures that you are not limited to a single taxonomy, but rather, you can create a truly customized and flexible credentialing experience that meets your unique requirements. Whether you are integrating market-driven skills data or building your own custom skill sets, Flexible Skills allows you to do it all within the Canvas Credentials platform.
Watch here how the new Flexible Skills will work.
Grace Period for Transition
To ensure a smooth transition, we’re providing a 30-day grace period for you to make internal decisions regarding your skills taxonomy. During this period, you can decide whether to stick with the new default Talent Neuron taxonomy or switch to the Flexible Skills option. If no changes are made within this period, your default taxonomy will remain Talent Neuron, and any previously associated skills will be migrated accordingly. If you prefer to continue leveraging Lightcast skills, simply selecting the Flexible Skills taxonomy will keep all your existing Lightcast skills intact and allow for the addition of new ones.
This grace period is designed to give you the time and flexibility you need to make the best choice for your organization. We understand that change can be challenging, so we are committed to making this transition as easy as possible, providing you with all the tools and support you need to succeed.
What is next?
This update is just the beginning of our efforts to make Canvas Credentials more valuable, robust, and adaptable to your needs. As we move forward, we are committed to expanding the data available on skill usage and its impact on learners’ career paths, helping you gain deeper insights into how your credentials are making a difference. We also plan to offer increased options for selecting your ideal taxonomy, giving you even more control over how you align your badges with industry standards. Additionally, we are working to broaden our global coverage to better serve our diverse user base, ensuring that no matter where you are, you have access to the best tools and resources available. Finally, we are dedicated to continuous improvement based on your feedback and suggestions, so that Canvas Credentials can evolve to meet your needs in an ever-changing market.
Tell us your thoughts
We hope you’re as excited about this enhanced skills-defined learn-to-earn journey as we are. We’d love to hear your thoughts on how this change will impact your credentialing process and what improvements you’d like to see next. Why is this change important to you?
You can share your feedback by commenting below, or by reaching out directly to your Customer Success Manager. Your insights are invaluable in helping us shape the future of Canvas Credentials.
Thank you for being part of our community and helping us make Canvas Credentials even better!
Best regards,
The Canvas Credentials Team
