In this modern, information rich, technology driven world individuals are constantly mastering new skills, knowledge and competencies. These skills, knowledge and competencies are acquired in formal and informal environments. This fragmentation of learning presents a unique challenge to vocational education organisations and industry training institutions. How do they accurately measure and acknowledge the learning that has occurred? Traditional methods of monitoring and recording performance, such as institutionally verified test scores, allocated grades, credits earned, and observations made, fail to acknowledge the learners informal acquisition of equivalent measures. Advocates argue digital badges and digital badge ecosystems will help clarify, validate and define the skills, knowledge and competencies learners have acquired. However, individual badges, in isolation, do not truly represent a learner’s progress, indicate a learner’s proficiency or acknowledge a learner’s achievement.

This presentation will address the key questions posed by the potential introduction of a badge system in vocational education and industry training. Firstly, how do individuals purposefully acquire, store, collate and display the outcomes of learning they have undertaken, secondly, how do formal and informal networks validate and describe the learning that has occurred, and finally, how does, industry, institutions and organisations recognise and reward the learning that has occurred.