The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Mozilla, and HASTAC (Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Alliance and Collaboratory) have announced a commitment to expand access to Open Badges, an open technical standard designed to facilitate the creation, issuance, and verification of digital badges related to skills acquisition and assessment.

Announced last week at the Clinton Global Initiative America meeting in Chicago, the commitment includes outreach and technical assistance to help employers and universities incorporate the Open Badges system into their hiring, promotion, admission, and credit processes. Through the system, the partner organizations aim to expand the use of digital badges over the next three years, providing one million K-12 and college students and a million workers with access to verifiable credentialing of skills they have learned in school, in the community, on the job, or online.

Universities, massively open online courses (MOOCs), high-tech employers, and K-12 programs already are experimenting with digital badges to certify varying levels of skills acquisition. Last week, for example, DePaul University and the Information Technology Industry Council pledged to incorporate badges into their credentialing, hiring, and admissions processes.

"In the changing ecology of technology and learning at all levels, open badging offers an innovative set of ways to recognize, assess, and accredit learning, as well as to provide employers ways of recognizing less visible skills and capabilities of potential employees," said David Theo Goldberg, founding co-director of HASTAC, an online consortium that has promoted the creation of design standards for digital badges and also administers the MacArthur Foundation Digital Media and Learning Competition.

"Veterans transitioning to civilian life who have high-demand skills but no certifications, Internet 'ninjas' who are technically adept but self-taught, and childcare workers who have years of experience but no formal degree can all benefit from Open Badges, which provides an alternative and more in-depth method to demonstrate new knowledge and skills," said Connie Yowell, director of education at the MacArthur Foundation. "Meanwhile, Open Badges gives employers a new way to assess critical but hard-to-measure skills such as creativity, communication, teamwork, and adaptability."