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Digital Badges

What is a Digital Badge?

A digital badge is a certification issued by an entity that supports its validity using a cryptographic signature. The information is stored in a standardized structure and distributed within a PNG or SVG image file.

The Mozilla Foundation began in 2011 the development of OpenBadges, a project aimed at standardizing the way of registering, validating, and sharing digital certifications on a standardized structure. As of 2017, the development of OpenBadges passed into the hands of the IMS Global Learning Consortium, establishing itself as a standard in the educational world.

Use cases

Education

  • Graduates of a career, master’s degree, diploma or course.
  • Acquisition of practical knowledge.

Companies

  • Gamification systems.
  • Work experience.
  • Validation of an acquired skill.

Sports

  • Presence or participation in an event.
  • Final position in a competition.
  • VIP access.

Licenses

  • Acquired right: possession, usufruct, exploitation, or miscellaneous permits.

What information is included?

  • Who acquired it?. Ex: student data.
  • Who issued it? Ex: data of the educational institution.
  • What does it consist of?. Ex: course content.
  • How was it acquired? Ex: course description and evaluation.
  • When was it acquired? Ex: graduation day.
  • Issue date with timestamp, which can be:
    • Issued by Trusted Badges.
    • Issued by a third party.
    • Backed by blockchain.
  • Method that guarantees its validity:
    • URL of trusted institutions.
    • Digital signature.

Advantages

It is possible to keep them in any digital and paper storage device.

Their signatures are cryptographic, which makes it impossible to forge them.

Making copies is as simple as copying a file, and no intermediaries are needed.

Share them by email and social networks.

Verify its validity in minutes and at any time.

Originality can be verified even when the issuing institution no longer exists.

There is no need to trust the people who make up the issuing institution.

The timestamp reliably guarantees its date of issue.

How is authenticity verified?

The issuers have an asymmetric cryptographic key, composed of a Private Key and a Public Key. With the Private Key they sign the digital badges. Then, with the Public Key (known throughout the community), its authenticity can be verified, and that its data has not been altered.

At the same time, digital badges can have time stamps that guarantee that their issue date was not manipulated.