Colorado Community College System Badge Consortium

1. COLORADO COMMUNITY COLLEGE SYSTEM BADGE CONSORTIUM
Colorado Community College System is
forming a consortium of 2 /4 year higher
education institutions, business and
workforce to create a digital badging
ecosystem to address stakeholders
(education, industry/business and
workforce) needs.
CCCS is hoping to build a comprehensive
badge ecosystem where digital badges
convey value through micro-credentialed
learning.

2. THE JOURNEY BEGAN…LATE 2013
▪ An fortunate set of circumstances
▪ TAACCCT grants
▪ Colorado Workforce asked for other types of credentialing
▪ Colorado Industry demanded shorter turnaround training
▪ In 2012, Colorado State University (CSU) committed to developing a digital
badge program that would allow them to address the learning needs of a
broader audience. The pilot program was a non-credit professional
development program that unbundled on-demand and competency based.
▪ An unfortunate set of circumstances
▪ Public school system implemented badges wanting them to articulate up to
the community colleges
▪ Workforce was experiencing large incumbent workers needing retraining

3. EARLY 2014…ONE SMALL STEP FOR COLORADO
▪ Collaboration, Collaboration, and More Collaboration
▪ Higher Education
▪ 13 system 2- year colleges, 2 non-system 2-year colleges and 2 four –year institutions
▪ Industry Partnerships
▪ 3 Businesses to pilot accepting badges as well as issuing badges based on agreed upon
criteria
▪ Other ways to acknowledge expertise where applicable aligning with prior learning and
articulations between the CCCS and four-year institutions
▪ Workforce Partnerships
▪ State agency wanting alternatives to:
▪ Credentialing
▪ for-profit trainings
▪ Fast turnarounds
▪ Negotiate, negotiate and more negotiations
▪ Development of a trust network where education/industry/business/workforce agree on the
recognition and acceptance of digital badges and the validation of badges is comprised of
standards, evaluation and evidence.

4. VISIONING ON HOW TO START...2015
▪ Every badge issued or accepted is tied to: specific standards/or competency,
evaluation and evidence of micro-learning.
▪ Created an OPEN Technical Math for Industry MOOC based off the core
competencies of the 2-year MAT 108 Technical Math course
▪ Open for all and however provided an incentive for Colorado residents
▪ provided a loop to lure participants to higher educational institutions in the
state with challenge test for credit
▪ Vision is that the MOOC would be developed which could be the model for a system
wide badging initiative

5. TARGETED BADGES
▪ Badge competencies were targeted at CTE courses to accelerate
students into and through programs
▪ Examples:
▪ Welding AAS has a MAT108 requirement
▪ Stackable welding certificates building up to the AAS no MAT108
requirement. With badging math competencies, the value of the certificate
increases since industry wants students to have certain MAT108 skills in the
field.
▪ Certified Nursing Program has no math requirement, but to be successful
need to understand ratio, proportion, percent, and units of measure.
▪ Badge those areas of the MOOC, then their “application” into the program
is ranked higher due to the math badges
▪ Machining requires basic trigonometry and advanced geometry
▪ Stackable certificates do not require math course, students will be able to
show math competency required for most entry level jobs

6. THE ACCELERATION OF THE COLORADO BADGE
MOVEMENT...LOOK OUT…HERE WE COME
▪ Demand from Industry
▪ Shortage of qualified workers
▪ Colorado Advanced Manufacturing Alliance
▪ Economic development
▪ Executive Branch of Colorado state government
▪ CSULogic is licensable software supporting integration with
a wide range of networks and applications, enabling
deployment across sectors and industries outside of
Colorado State University

7. CSULOGIC
BADGE MANAGEMENT PLATFORM
▪ Automation of badge delivery and integration with existing systems while remaining
agnostic to learning management systems and student information systems.
▪ Mozilla OBI Compliant – not reliant
▪ Competency based
▪ Leverages proprietary big-data, text mining, and content analysis tools that allow us to
evaluate and identify needed refinements to our curricula, making it possible to keep
our curricula relevant and responsive to learner needs.
▪ The badge management solution has three core functions: badge development, badge
awarding, and badge communications.
▪ Summer 2014 successful pilot of the Colorado State University OnlinePlus digital badge
platform in non-credit programs
▪ Public-Private Partnership
▪ Adaptable for education, industry and workforce badging

8. POTENTIAL BADGING PROJECTS FALL 2015
▪ Apprenticeships
▪ TechHire
▪ Colorado Technology Association
▪ CAMA
▪ BASIC
▪ Nursing

9. CC BY AND ATTRIBUTION
▪ This Workforce Solution, CCCS Badge Consortium” presentation by Brenda
Pereapresentation is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International License. Based on a work created under the Department of Labor,
TAACCCT3 grant, permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available
at https://www.cccs.edu/partnering-for-success/trade-adjustment-assistance/taa-
coetc/