Badges

IMS Global Unveils Digital Credentialing Initiative

• By Joshua Bolkan
• 04/21/15

IMS Global Learning Consortium has unveiled the IMS Digital Credentialing Initiative, an effort designed to promote the adoption, integration and transferability of digital credentials, such as badges.

With an eye to "leveraging existing experience, expertise and momentum," the initiative "will complement and further IMS's leadership in competency-based learning, including partnerships with AACRAO and the Competency-Based Education Network (C-BEN) to define extended digital transcript and CBE interoperability," according to a news release. "The Digital Credentialing initiative will augment current IMS interoperability standards and extend Open Badges as needed to support deeper integration and exchange within extant systems, while exploring new models of badge system design, storage, usage and evaluation in the institutional context."

"There has been some excellent work on open badges over the last few years at the Mozilla Foundation with support from the MacArthur Foundation," said Rob Abel, CEO at IMS Global, in a prepared statement. "IMS is pleased to be able to help support and evolve this work to fit the needs of educational institutions and corporations. IMS will ensure that our work is coordinated with the evolution of Open Badges."

"We are pleased that IMS has decided to partner with us to help with the evolution, adoption and promotion of Mozilla Open Badges," saidd Mark Surman, executive director of the Mozilla Foundation, in a news release. "IMS has a unique focus on educational technology worldwide that we're sure will enable substantial progress."