STATE OF THE FIELD IN YOUTH ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITIES

Table of Contents
Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Annexes
2012 State of the Field in Youth Economic Opportunities
1.5.2.1 New Tool: What is a “Badge”
Learning happens in K-12 and college classrooms,
adult education and in professional development
programs. Learning also happens in an array of other
online and in-person environments: in afterschool
programs and online tutorials, through mentoring,
playing games, interacting with peers in person and in
social networks, with smart phone apps, in volunteer
workshops, at sports camps, during military training,
and in countless other ways and other places.
A badge is a validated indicator of accomplishment,
skill, quality or interest that can be earned in any of
these learning environments. Badges can support
learning, validate education, help build reputation,
and confirm acquisition of knowledge. They can signal
traditional academic attainment or the acquisition of
skills such as collaboration, teamwork, leadership, and
other 21st century skills.
Badges are used successfully in games, social network
sites, and interest-driven programs to set goals,
represent achievements and communicate success.
A digital badge is an online record of achievements,
the work required, and information about the
organization, individual or other entity that issued
the badge. Badges make the accomplishments and
experiences of individuals, in online and offline
spaces, visible to anyone and everyone, including
potential employers, teachers, and peer communities.
Chapter 1: Workforce Development
The Mozilla system provides an infrastructure for virtually any awarding, verifying, and displaying these
non-traditional credentials on the Internet, and therefore represents an open-source solution for credential
portability. The project’s companion “Badges for Learning,” competition, supported by the MacArthur
Foundation and implemented by HASTAC with Duke University and University of California, announced grants
to 60 institutions and entities (museums, non-profits, after-school programs, research institutions and for-profit
companies) in December. These grants rewarded “ideas for compelling learning content, activities, or programs
for which a badge or set of badges would be useful for recognizing learning that takes place in a particular area
or topic,” while later rounds of grants will focus on building technology systems that facilitate the awarding of
badges by diverse groups. Already, Carnegie Melon’s Robotics Academy has constructed badge sequences for
students and instructors that incrementally certify skill achievements and pedagogical competency, while also
building towards industry-recognized certifications, for example, in the LABVIEW (robotics) programming
language. 27
Whether or not the Open Badges Project infrastructure ultimately establishes itself as the standard for
incrementally awarding and verifying modular credentials, the project represents the kind of disruptive
innovation that will provide workforce development practitioners with new tools for recognizing learning and
competency achievements, and perhaps an entirely new, more democratic, context for both formal and nonformal
education and training in the digital age.
1.5.3 Broadening Stakeholder Base to Contribute to Industrial Policy
A revived focus on industrial policy in multilateral institutions and developing country governments will
create opportunities for workforce development practitioners to adapt and innovate in formal sector training
for youth. Much of this discussion is inspired by China, where the strength (or power) of public coordinating
institutions has permitted great advances in strategic industrial policy with corresponding investments in
27 http://dmlcompetition.net/Competition/4/badges-projects.phpid=2607
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