By Daniel Meiser
Baltimore Watchdog Staff Writer
The ever-shifting nature of the job market has put traditional higher education in a predicament – maintain the same old lock-step model of taking courses for a degree in four to six years or evolve into something new.
Towson, Bowie State and Frostburg universities, as well as other higher education institutions, point to “digital badging” and other “micro-credentialing” as one solution to the job market conundrum.
“These badges would allow students to have access to other credentials besides a degree inside a higher education model,” said Lorie Logan-Bennett, director of Towson’s Career Center.
Having a digital badge means a student – in addition to taking college courses in a major – acquires additional skills through internships, work study and freelance opportunities. Like Boy or Girl Scouts, students tout their experiences through decorative patches. And, just like the scouts, the badges help set students apart from others in a highly competitive job market.
The badges are needed most to boost “soft” skills,” such as communication and planning, while such credentialing is not needed as much for “hard” or technical skills. While a four-year degree is still required for many jobs in professional fields, the landscape of job markets is headed in various directions that need more from graduates, experts said.
With these badges, officials said students would show their mastery in a given field or with a particular skill to bolster a resume and address specific weak points often seen by employers. “The Communicator,” “The Critical Thinker,” and “The Leader” are a few examples of ways to highlight an individual’s proficiency in topics.
“These badges would be open to all students regardless of major or class standing,” Logan-Bennett said.
LinkedIn, the most popular professional social media site, could be the place that badges can be most prominently displayed for potentially thousands of companies to see, she said.
“While looking into additional educational opportunities, I found the digital badges that Towson University offered to be intriguing,” said senior Zach Blazer.
Blazer said he is an Information Technology major. While traditional education is important, he said it is necessary to acquire more skills than just a degree.
Many other universities in Maryland have embraced digital badging initiatives to expand their appeal and educational framework. Bowie State, Frostburg, University of Maryland at Baltimore County and others are on a long list of higher education institutions that are adopting this trend.
Officials said badging categories may expand but it takes years for a program like this to fully scale. As with many developing programs in higher education, officials point to time, money and a real desire to fully develop any idea or concept.
The origin of the badging program began in 2013 with the founding of the University System of Maryland’s Center for Academic Innovation Division. Officials said that the center is guided by a commitment to data-informed decision making, strengthening collaboration across academic and student affairs, and leveraging the value that System institutions bring to student.
The USM has partnered with Portfolium to support the system’s career-readiness digital badging initiative, officials said. This partnership occurred out of the desire to be able to reach all students who wished to participate in this initiative.
“We believe Portfolium can provide the technical infrastructure we need to reach the next level for our institutions,” said center Director M.J. Bishop. “Without these kinds of tools, it would be difficult to make badge earning opportunities available to all of our students.”
But a key question remains for employers and graduates.
“The pushback to this new style of gaining experience credentialing is what is the true worth of a badge,” Logan-Bennett said.
Skeptics point to the fact that there are no specific credit-hour requirement or some other kind of educational metric by which to measure them. For some doubters, transforming higher education will take more than just increasing the use of technology.
“It will involve the effective utilization of the right tools to solve an identified educational need blended with strategies to integrate these new approaches in culture-changing, sustainable ways,” Bishop said.