2026 Badge Summit

For centuries, higher education has invested in learners enabling them to build economic, social and cultural capital through a variety of settings. How can institutions help students write and share their narratives with evidence that says, “This is what I practiced and how”? This session asks attendees to reimagine howlearner experiencescan be digitally transported and verified by using Competencies and Academic Standards Exchange (CASE), Comprehensive Learner Record (CLR) and Open Badges together.

Credentialing programs aim to signal durable skills, yet decision-making often remains invisible. Drawing on real-world Decision Education implementations, this Dream Makers’ Lounge session invites participants into a facilitated reverse design challenge: How might we embed Decision Education into our existing badge and credential stacks so decision-making skills are visible, meaningful, and impactful? Attendees will engage in a rapid design consultancy to surface practical, scalable ideas they can apply to their own credentialing work.

Maricopa County Community Colleges, ASU, and DXtera share a living use case of issuing verifiable credentials at scale through the Trusted Learner Network. This session highlights how real students are gaining access to secure, portable records of their learning, while institutions build shared infrastructure that supports transparency, transfer, and lifelong learning—and invites others to join a growing credentialing network.

Badges are everywhere but not all badges are created equal. In this highly interactive session, participants will critique real-world badges (the good, the bad, and the ugly), unpack what makes badges visible, meaningful, and trusted, and then design their own. They will draft badge metadata, evidence, and messaging, and leave with a template they can use in their own work. Format can be adapted for 30 or 45 minutes.

NOTE:  The session below is linked to the suggestion of organizing a pre-conf workshop on Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS).

In particular, the workshop could be oriented to be about learning "Protocols for non-indegenous people working with Indigenous Knowledge"

This workshop should be co-Design with Badge Summit hosts (Noah, Kristi) and a few others, including:
- Taylor Kendall from LEF
- Nathan Schneider from UC Boulder MedLab
- Wakanyi Hoffman from Inclusive AI Lab (University of Utrect) and African Folkstales Project
- and others

Additionally this session proposal might be reshaped to be a Dream Makers Lounge
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The Challenge: Colonial credentialing systems universally recognize Western validation mechanisms while frequently framing millennia-old Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS) as “unrecognized” or “informal.” This perpetuates a fundamental injustice: the refusal to recognize Indigenous Recognition Systems (IRS) themselves—the sophisticated, community-governed protocols for validating competence and conferring legitimacy that predate and function independently of formal institutions.

The Solution: Recognition Sovereignty: This session introduces the Indigenous Recognition Systems (IRS) framework as a decolonial model for justice. It argues for a paradigm shift: from seeking recognition for Indigenous knowledge (e.g., through Recognition of Prior Learning, RPL) to demanding recognition of

This interactive design challenge engages participants in hands-on badge design for civic participation. Using an adapted Badge Canvas, small groups prototype credentials for learners such as students, election workers, or community leaders. Participants define outcomes, evidence, and assessment approaches aligned with durable skills and experiential learning. The session models learning by actively engaging participants in the design process.

This collaborative session shares lessons learned from Yavapai College’s first year of microcredential development. We’ll discuss what worked, what didn’t, and what we wish we’d known, including processes, quality criteria, faculty and student support, and alignment to the workforce. Participants at any stage will be invited to share their lessons learned and learn from one another.

As Learning and Employment Records (LERs) gain traction, two “last-mile” questions continue to shape whether credentials can move from concept to real-world impact: what information employers actually need to make decisions, and how credentials are transferred between systems in practice.
In this session, 1EdTech will share early findings from ongoing research exploring these two foundational areas. Drawing on employer research, ecosystem surveys, and technical analysis, we will summarize:

• What employers say they need to see in credentials to support skills-based hiring and talent decisions (e.g., skills clarity, validation signals, evidence, and context).
• How credentials are currently transported across issuers, wallets, repositories, and employer systems—and where gaps, inconsistencies, or alignment appear.

Designed for a general Digital Credentials Summit audience, this session is informational rather than prescriptive. It offers a clear snapshot of emerging insights to help educators, credential issuers, platform providers, employers, and policymakers better understand the current state of LER adoption—and what may need to evolve next.
Attendees will leave with a shared baseline understanding of the evidence shaping LER discussions heading into deeper technical and employer-focused conversations.

This presentation explores the growing demand for trusted, high‑quality, and verifiable credentials by examining the importance of transparency in credentialing processes, highlighting strategies for effectively engaging stakeholders in credential development, and demonstrating how strong credentials enhance both student career success and employer trust.