New Digital Badges from Executive Education Help Alumni Showcase New Skills

NC State Executive Education has launched a Digital Badge Program that awards verifiable, digital credentials to eligible course participants. The digital badges serve as a visual of the skill a participant has developed and will verify expertise to potential employers. 

There are currently 12 badges offered by Executive Education and, so far, 915 certificates have been issued to graduates of various programs offered by the organization. These include open programs Business Essentials, Innovation Leaders, SCRC’s Procurement Leadership and Women in Technical Leadership as well as custom offerings with clients Biogen, BlueCross BlueShield NC, Infosys, JSOC and Nagoya University.

To qualify as a program for which digital badges are issued to graduates, each program must meet specific requirements pertaining to program length, breadth of material, application activities and other activities that verify the participant has learned a new skill or behavior.

“The initial interest in Executive Education offering digital certificates and badges came from our clients two years ago as they were launching efforts to use this process to track personal growth and career pathing, recognize strong leaders and promote their investments in developing their people on social media,” said Dan McGurrin, director of Executive Education. 

“We learned a great deal from The Graduate School’s efforts, which was the first organization at NC State to offer badges. We hope our initial efforts will provide some learning and guidance for the university when and if NC State launches a full program, possibly for both non-credit and credit activities.”

Executive Education is working with Credly, a leading digital credential organization, to provide its participants with digital badges. Using the Credly Acclaim platform, participants can transform knowledge, skills and achievements into digital credentials that connects them to learning and career opportunities.

“Our process and the Credly system offer a number of potential benefits for our professional clients but we find the greatest enjoyment from badge earners is the ability to share their accomplishment on multiple social media platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and What’s App,” McGurrin said. 

Executive Education plans to soon help other centers and initiatives at the NC State Poole College of Management integrate digital badges into their own professional programs.

Learn more about the Executive Education Digital Badge Program. 

This post was originally published in Poole College of Management News.