Many university students exert significant effort to enhance their résumé. Chung-Ang University (CAU) provides various extracurricular programs aimed to help students with their competency improvement. The 'Digital Badge' is a system that allows for easy viewing of students' participation in extracurricular programs. The CAU E-learning Center has decided to issue digital badges to conveniently show students' participation history in extracurricular programs. CAH will tell students more about what a digital badge is and how students can obtain them!

The Role of E-learning Center in CAU

The introduction of digital badges at CAU is operated by E-learning Center. E-learning Center provides support services to both professors and students to make high-quality education online, in line with the digital shift. In addition, it is also involved in the creation of K-MOOC (Korean Massive Open Online Course) courses.

Digital Badge Program Introduced By CAU

What Is the Digital Badge Program?

A digital badge is a form of digital credentialing that represents achievements in learning, skills, and competencies. Digital badges are stored through a mobile app. It allows students to record their history of participation in courses or activities online. It has the most significant advantage as it offers a convenient and trustworthy way to show student's experiences and competencies. Digital badges utilize blockchain technology[1], and it enables transparent recording of the educational processes and competencies students engaged in. People can access their Digital Badges from anywhere at any time. Therefore, individuals who have been issued digital badges can easily access their past accomplishments when needed.

2023 Digital Badge Issue Course in CAU

The E-learning Center plans to introduce the digital badge program from August 2023 conducted as a pilot operation until 2024. Afterward, in 2024, they have announced their plan to expand the scope of digital badge issuance and operate it more extensively. Let's look at how students can obtain digital badges. To apply for a digital badge, a person[유1] has to complete extracurricular courses offered in the 2023 academic year and attach the course completion certificate when submitting the digital badge application. There are a total of five courses offered in the 2023 academic year, consisting of two in the K-MOOC category and three in the CAU-ON category, and all courses in both categories will be operational until January 12, 2024. For K-MOOC, No Code SW Development, Personal Date: Law and Policy, and for CAU-ON, Big Data Analysis [Basic], Personal Data and us of Pseudonymous Information, Digital Transformation, and Convergence Security are offered.

These courses are primarily designed to improve digital literacy skills that are essential in modern society. Since the running periods of K-MOOC and CAU-ON courses are different, referring to the table below to confirm the operational periods would be helpful.

How to Get a Digital Badge

The process for applying for a digital badge is quite simple. Students who want to apply for the digital badge program should start by taking the courses introduced above. If they receive a total score of 60 points or higher, a course completion certificate is issued. To apply for the digital badge, simply submit the certificate along with the application form. The application form is currently accepted through Google Forms, and students can attach their course completion certificate along with their information on the form. Even students who took the courses last year can receive a digital badge with just the completion certificate. After submitting the application form and completion certificate via Google Forms, the digital badge will be issued to the email address provided in the application form. Applications received by the 25th of each month will be confirmed, then the students can issue the digital badge the following week.

The Ministry of Science and ICT has announced plans to commercialize digital badges in collaboration with educational institutions in the future. Therefore, it is expected that digital badges, which make it easy to prove students' abilities, will be more widely utilized in other areas such as the job market. This program presents an excellent opportunity for CAU students, as they can conveniently obtain and use these badges. Let's improve the digital skills needed in modern society and get digital badges.

[1] Blockchain technology is a distributed data storage technology that transparently records information in a way that anyone can access, and it replicates and stores this information across multiple computers.