Open Accreditation

Description

From the Open Education Primer:

"Degrees are a statement of quality and a commentary on competence. The person hiring you doesn’t have to know your teacher or what kind of person you are. Instead, they just have to trust the system and the institution that grants the degree. While this scales up nicely it doesn’t necessarily mean that you can be a useful contributor to society.

Open accreditation is the recognition of the interplay between formal and informal learning. The recognition of informal learning is already embedded within the post-secondary institions of several provinces in Canada through prior learning assessment and recognition programs. This is a process that helps adults demonstrate and obtrain recognition for learning they have acquired outside of a formal educational setting. Open accreditation merely takes the idea to its logical conclusion.

“Let’s say you’re active on Twitter and Facebook and eventually a group of people get to know you even though you aren’t necessarily an expert, don’t have a degree, you’re actively engaged in it, you’re talking about it, you’re writing about it. After a period of time you become an informal expert on those areas,” says Siemens.

Of course, you don’t have to be active in Twitter and Facebook to develop your reputation. Instead, you merely have be participating in any shared public social space. Degrees are recognition of what you did five-to-ten years ago, but your reputation is a recognition of what you’ve actually done and what you’re doing right now.

“Look at programmers. Tons of people who have constructed influential programs didn’t get a degree in programming. They’re producing something of value, people use it and it makes a difference. Their competence is determined by your reputation in that community,” says Siemens.

This is a bit out there. Of all the open education principles this one is the furthest away from the mainstream. Institutions aren’t going to be rushing to scrap one of their most important metrics in how they receive funding. Businesses expect them and society at large probably isn’t ready for it. However, we have to start having these conversations in order to progress." (http://www.unlimitedmagazine.com/2010/09/an-open-education-primer/)

Characteristics

Jenny Hughes outlines the characteristic features of such a system:

"Reliability- it should be based on an assessment process that yields the same results irrespective of who is conducting it or the environmental conditions under which it is taking place.

Validity- Face validity implies a match between what is being assessed or tested and how that is being done. Content validity means that what you are testing is actually relevant, meaningful and appropriate and there is a match between what the learner is setting out to do and what is being assessed.

Replicablity- Ideally an assessment should be carried out and documented in a way which is transparent and which allows the assessment to be replicated by others to achieve the same outcomes.

Transferability- Although each assessment should be designed around a particular piece of learning, a good assessment system is one which could be adapted for similar situations or could be extended easily to new activities.

Credibility- People actually have to believe in your assessment! It needs to be authentic, honest, transparent and ethical.

Practicality- This means simply that however sophisticated and technically sound the assessment is, if it takes too much of people’s time or costs too much or is cumbersome to use or the products are inappropriate then it is not a good assessment system!

Comparability- Although an assessment system should be customized to meet the needs of particular learning events, a good assessment system should also take into account the wider assessment ‘environment’ in which the learning is located."

(http://www.pontydysgu.org/2008/10/open-accreditation-a-model/)

Status

ChatGPT'synthesis, based on the material available on our wiki in 2025 (but dated from a few years before):

Open accreditation and peer-based credentialing have emerged as innovative approaches to recognizing and validating learning and skills outside traditional educational institutions. These concepts leverage community validation, digital platforms, and decentralized systems to offer more flexible and inclusive forms of accreditation.​

Open Accreditation and Open Peer Accreditation: Traditional accreditation often relies on centralized authorities to validate educational achievements. In contrast, open accreditation emphasizes decentralized and transparent processes, allowing individuals and communities to recognize and endorse each other's skills and knowledge. This approach aligns with the principles of open education, promoting accessibility and collaboration.​

Peer-to-Peer Recognition of Learning: Peer-to-peer (P2P) recognition involves learners assessing and acknowledging each other's competencies. This method fosters a collaborative learning environment where validation comes from community members rather than formal institutions. It challenges traditional hierarchies in education by valuing the insights and judgments of peers.​

The Mozilla Open Badge Infrastructure (Mozilla Open Badges and Recognition Badges): Mozilla's Open Badge Infrastructure (OBI) represents a significant advancement in open accreditation. It provides a framework for issuing, managing, and displaying digital badges that signify various achievements and skills. These badges can be earned from multiple sources and aggregated in a "badge backpack," offering a comprehensive digital portfolio. Recognition badges serve as digital representations of accomplishments, enabling individuals to showcase their competencies across different platforms.

Crowdsourced Credentialling: Crowdsourced credentialing involves the collective endorsement of an individual's skills by a community. This model leverages the wisdom of the crowd to provide more nuanced and context-specific validations of abilities. It offers an alternative to traditional credentials by emphasizing real-world skills and peer acknowledgment.

Certificates of Completion: Many online learning platforms issue certificates of completion to signify that a learner has finished a course or program. While these certificates may not always carry the same weight as traditional degrees, they provide tangible evidence of learning and can be valuable in demonstrating commitment and acquired skills to potential employers.

Educational Paradigms

The evolution of education can be conceptualized into Three Generations of Education:

Education 1.0: A traditional, one-way dissemination of knowledge from teacher to student.​

Education 2.0: Incorporation of Web 2.0 technologies to enhance traditional education methods without fundamentally altering the teacher-student dynamic.​

Education 3.0: A transformative model where learners actively create and share knowledge artifacts, blurring the lines between teachers and students, and fostering cross-institutional and cross-cultural educational opportunities.

Anya Kamenetz on the DIY Future of Learning: Anya Kamenetz discusses the shift towards a more open and self-directed learning paradigm. She highlights how technology and openness are transforming content delivery, social learning, and accreditation, enabling learners to take control of their educational journeys.

Current Status of Open Accreditation Initiatives: Since the initial discussions and implementations of open accreditation concepts, there have been significant developments:​

Expansion of Digital Badges: The adoption of digital badges has grown, with various organizations and educational institutions issuing them to recognize a wide array of skills and achievements.​

Integration into Professional Platforms: Professional networking sites have incorporated features allowing users to display earned badges and certifications, bridging the gap between informal learning and formal employment opportunities.​

Standardization Efforts: There have been movements toward standardizing digital credentials to ensure their validity and recognition across different sectors and regions.​

Blockchain for Credentialing: Emerging technologies like blockchain are being explored to provide secure, verifiable, and tamper-proof digital credentials, enhancing trust in open accreditation systems.​

These advancements indicate a growing acceptance and integration of open accreditation methods in the broader educational and professional landscapes."

Status 2025

By ChatGPT, based on new sources:

"The movement toward open and peer accreditation has seen significant advancements in recent years, particularly with the evolution of digital credentialing systems like Open Badges. These developments have enhanced the security, portability, and recognition of skills and achievements across various platforms.​

1. National Association of Peer Supporters
2. We Are Open Co-op

Open Badges 3.0 and Comprehensive Learner Records 2.0

In May 2024, 1EdTech released Open Badges 3.0, marking a substantial leap in digital credentialing. This version introduces enhanced security features and improved interoperability, empowering learners, educators, and employers to recognize lifelong learning more effectively. The updated standard aligns with Comprehensive Learner Records (CLR) 2.0, facilitating a more detailed and verifiable representation of an individual's skills and accomplishments. ​

The Open Badges 3.0 Implementation Guide, published in December 2024, provides detailed instructions for product developers on integrating these standards. It emphasizes the importance of assertions—claims specific to one learner that detail achievements and include metadata about the achievement, issuer, and learner. ​

Open Recognition and Decentralized Credentialing

The concept of Open Recognition has gained traction, focusing on empowering individuals and communities to acknowledge and make visible their achievements and competencies. This approach extends beyond traditional institutional recognition, fostering a more inclusive and participatory acknowledgment of skills. ​

In January 2025, discussions around developing an Open Recognition Wallet emerged, aiming to provide individuals with a decentralized platform to store and manage their credentials securely. This initiative seeks to enhance user control and privacy in the digital credentialing space. ​

Conferences and Collaborative Efforts

The 22nd international ePIC conference, held in Paris from November 6 to 8, 2024, brought together global participants to discuss the future of digital badges and open recognition. The conference focused on strategies to scale and expand digital badge initiatives, reflecting the growing interest and investment in this field. ​

1. Open Badge Factory

Integration Challenges and Institutional Adoption

Despite technological advancements, integrating open badges into existing educational frameworks presents challenges. Institutions are exploring ways to align digital badges with traditional qualifications and professional accreditation, ensuring that these credentials are valued and recognized in formal settings. ​

In summary, the open and peer accreditation movement is progressing through technological innovations, conceptual developments in open recognition, and collaborative efforts to standardize and implement digital credentials. These advancements aim to create a more inclusive, secure, and widely accepted system for recognizing and validating learning and achievements."

Discussion

Summary of the debate around the idea here at http://openeducationnews.org/2008/10/04/momentum-on-open-accreditation/

For an Open Achievement API

Here’s a quote by David Wiley:

“Maybe instead of hacking WordPress, we should be hacking degrees. Anyone up for a completely informal, completely open, homemade certificate-style diploma? A handful of courses offered by all of us - take intro open ed from me, connectivism from George and Stephen, media studies from Brian (you know you’ve always wished he would teach it), and then complete three cumulative edupunk projects under the tutelage of the Reverend, D’Arcy, and Tony.

Open accreditation may be much closer than we think. We just need to continue to find creative ways to hack our courses into the existing university systems around the globe. At the same time, we need to establish a recognizable brand name for the collection of courses we would offer, so that folks will have heard of them. Until then, we’ll have to ride the strength of our names.”

One of the interesting proposals in this debate comes from Tony Hirst, who proposes a Open Achievements API:

“a far more general “Open Achievements API” might actually be something quite useful. As well as describing formal awards, it could also optionally refer to informal achievements, or “trust measures” such as eBay seller rating, Amazon reviewer rank, World of Warcraft level or Grockit experience points.

In a sense, an Open Achievements API could complement the Google Open Social API with a range of claims a person might choose to make about themself that could be verified to a greater or lesser degree. The Open Achievements API would therefore have to associate with each claimed achievement a “provenance”, that could range from “personal claim” through to some sort of identifier for securing an “official”, SSL transported verification from the body that presumably awarded the claimed achievement (such as a particular formal qualification, for example).

By complementing Open Social, the Open Achievements API would provide a transport mechanism for associating CV information within a particular profile, as well as personal and social information. If it was supported by informal learning environments, such as the School of Everything, OpenLearn, or SocialLearn, it would allow informal learners to badge themselves with a portable record of their learning achievements (much as OU students can do with the Course Profiles Facebook Application).” (http://openeducationnews.org/2008/10/04/momentum-on-open-accreditation/)

See also David Wiley's http://opencontent.org/blog/archives/585

Approaches to Open Credentialing

Open Credentialing Federation

What's an intermediate proposal? Creating an Open Credentialing Federation.

This would start with reputed organizations. It could involved OCW/edX institutions like, Harvard, MIT and UCBerkeley. But it's likely to come from others.

The Federation, which credentialing organizations could join, would establish open standards for various credentials. edX schools offer free completion certificates. But they intend to charge a fee--to fund their non-profit. A similar fee would sustain the non-profit federation, among other revenues.

Smaller name credentialing organizations have an incentive to federate. It's hard to compete with big names. Federating would provide a bigger name, more economic, political and socio-cultural clout. Similar to Tony Hirst's "Open Achievement API", it could offer more granular recognition of competencies as yet another competitive advantage. Diaspora integration would take things even further.

More Information

Detailed treatment in the following article: Peer-To-Peer Recognition of Learning in Open Education