Talk given at NSF-funded Badges + Virtual Learning Environments (VLE) conference at Penn State University

1. Badges as Augmented
Credentialing in a World of
Increasing Automation and
Artificial Intelligence
James E. Willis, III, Ph.D.
Badging and Educational Technology Consultant
Independent Professor and Scholar, Religious Studies and Philosophy
https://www.forbes.com/forbes/welcome/?toURL=https://ww
w.forbes.com/sites/jamesmarshallcrotty/2012/01/26/the-end-
of-the-diploma-as-we-know-
it/&refURL=https://www.google.com/&referrer=https://www.
google.com/

2. Badges: What Makes Them Interesting
•Like the internet, they’re democratizing
•Like the internet, they’re uncontrollable and
unpredictable
•Always novel, innovative uses emerging … with
more to follow
•Redefining how we think about credentialing
and recognizing qualifications

3. Badges: What Makes
Them Interesting
•Uses on social media creating a career-long transcript and
skills improvement
•Evidence contained in a badge must pass test of
veracity on its own terms
•Not only socially-constructed learning, but socially-
verified endorsements
•Possible uses in rapidly-changing workforce, re-/up-training,
and skills acquisition
Vitrine Technologie Education
Mozilla Open Badges

4. Today’s Talk
•The Problem:
•STEM education plays an important
role in technology progressions.
•However, automation and artificial
intelligence (AI) will lead to:
•Job losses
•Increased outsourcing
•Shifting economies www.cio.com
https://sites.google.com/site/tuxedostemacademyccs/faqs/understan
ding-the-stem-process

5. Today’s Talk
•The Argument: STEM students and vocational learners
can benefit from emerging micro-credentialing
opportunities: badges can evidence claims to
demonstrable competencies in a variety of skills that
complement and expand workplace capability.
•VLE offers additional opportunities to provide
evidence of learning in advanced fields.
•Digital badges connect VLE experiences with specific
claims to learning to remain ahead of automation and
AI

6. The Problem: The Rise of Automation
• Shifting Economics
•Major financial and social
driver in ‘knowledge’ economy
•Technology is growing at a
rapid pace
•Speed, streamlining, and
scaling automation become
key economic motivators
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/happens-robots-can-jobs/
http://money.cnn.com/2016/01/15/news/economy/smart-robots-stealing-jobs-davos/index.html

7. Chui, M. & Manyika, J. (2015). Competition at the digital edge: ‘Hyperscale’ businesses. McKinsey Quarterly. Retrieved from
http://www.mckinsey.com/industries/high-tech/our-insights/competition-at-the-digital-edge-hyperscale-businesses
“
http://www.businessinsider.com/silicon-valley-season-3-opening-sequence-2016-4http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/08/17/us/detroit-decline.html

8. (My) Definitions of Automation and AI
• Automation: replacing work done by humans
increasingly with machine-driven processes
• Artificial Intelligence (AI): complex processing to
compute information in a complex network akin
to a human mind (but more focused!)
• Effect on jobs is similar: displaced, unemployed,
and depressed workers
• Recent tech giants’ interest in universal basic
income (UBI): moral absolution for an industry
replacing jobs?
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601519/how-to-create-a-
malevolent-artificial-intelligence/
http://www.radicalcompliance.com/2016/10/19/
automation-third-party-risks/

9. Shifting Educations
•Education was once key to maintaining a
place of economic and social privilege, but
it was rather calcified
•Place of privilege for the privileged
•Last 2-3 decades: enormous growth of
sector (i.e. online education)
• Shifting priorities between education for the
sake of being educated to a ‘knowledge
economy’ where education is needed for a
job
http://blog.mytrustedtutor.com/inconsistencie
s-in-online-exam-and-offline-exam-modes/
https://theconversation.com/hints-tips-and-pitfalls-
for-graduates-in-getting-their-first-job-35957

10. Shifting Educations
•Education not limited to formal education, but
learning skills to continue to be educated in a
rapidly-changing economy
•Rise of alternative credentials, lifelong learning,
and credentialing opportunities
•STEM education encourages connecting success in
knowledge-driven economy and technical skills
needed in the workplace

11. Shifting STEM Workplaces
•Automation and AI will lead to loss of jobs,
increased outsourcing, and shifting economies
•Examples: automatic programmers, robots in
healthcare, tracking mechanisms
•Deeper dive: tracking mechanisms in
healthcare; outcomes-based tied to physician
pay
•Changes will affect many (or all?) areas of the
workforce, so it’s important to think about this
now
http://www.business2community.com/marketing-automation/marketing-
automation-content-outsourcing-can-help-small-businesses-01300053

12. Shifting STEM Workplaces
•Solutions:
•Finding the place where humans have always
operated best with their technologies: between
technology and productivity
•Emphasis:
•Creativity, human ingenuity, productivity as an
outworking of human problem-solving and synthesis
that is not yet achievable with AI
https://www.thetrumpet.com/8960-the-mystery-of-human-creativity-explained

13. Filling the Gaps and Finding On-Ramps:
Microcredentials as Economic Salve
•Badges can serve important
functions in the spaces between
formal education and formal
credentials.
•Badges can provide evidence
and persistent artifacts
demonstrating knowledge
•Example: Dan Hickey’s
Assessment BOOC
http://indianapublicmedia.org/stateimpact/2015/10/
http://remediatingassessment.blogspot.com/2013/12/the-varied-functions-of-digital-badges.html

14. Filling the Gaps and Finding On-Ramps:
Microcredentials as Economic Salve
•Badges are emerging in
workplace training, short-course
credential registries, and others
vocational and continuing
education providers
•Examples: Wonderlic Badges,
NOCTI Badges, University of
Wisconsin Extension, DeakinCo
https://developers.credly.com/case-studies/deakin-
university

15. Filling the Gaps and Finding On-Ramps:
Microcredentials as Economic Salve
•Career-based social
media like LinkedIn
provide compelling
reasons to augment
and bolster one’s
specific skills
http://www.dontwasteyourtime.co.uk/awards/open-badges-badges-for-learning/
https://credly.com/blog/post/credly-linkedin-profiles/

16. Filling the Gaps and Finding On-Ramps:
Microcredentials as Economic Salve
• STEM-wise, badges help to show further skill gain,
additional relevance, and updated training to remain viable
https://www.youracclaim.com/organizations/oracle/badges https://www.certiport.com/Portal/desktopdefault.aspx?page=common/pagelibrary/ac
p-badging.html https://www.youracclaim.com/org/sas

17. Filling the Gaps and Finding On-Ramps:
Microcredentials as Economic Salve
•Badges can help workers keep up with the pace of
technological innovation
https://www.giac.org/digitalbadges
https://education.microsoft.com/badges-points-
certificates/badges-and-points

18. Filling the Gaps and Finding On-Ramps:
Microcredentials as Economic Salve
•Operational within a domain of
training, but also an extension into
other domains
•Key to emerging economic situations:
workers who are flexible, trainable,
focused and unafraid of having to
change rapidly
•Improvise, adapt, overcomehttp://xplor.org/edp-certification-program/
https://www.youracclaim.com/org/cisco

19. Filling the Gaps and Finding On-Ramps:
Microcredentials as Economic Salve
• Skills will change from what one can
do to what one can learn and create
http://trueselfcafe.com/tag/human/

20. Filling the Gaps and Finding On-Ramps:
Microcredentials as Economic Salve
•Skills will be refined with specific programs
https://www.online.colostate.edu/badges/certified-gardener/http://www.tomsitpro.com/articles/digital-badges-it-certification,1-3087.html

21. Filling the Gaps and Finding On-Ramps:
Microcredentials as Economic Salve
•Not just a cultural,
but an educational
change
•Attitude change, too
http://www.mitchyb.com/2015/12/

22. Filling the Gaps and Finding On-Ramps:
Microcredentials as Economic Salve
•Badges can function as on-ramps and low-risk ways to
explore other domains
https://www.worldchefs.org/Certification http://www.deactraining.org/certification

23. VLE as Learning and Evidence of Accomplishment:
Rethinking the Artifact
•VLE offers additional opportunities to provide
engagement and evidence of learning in advanced
fields
http://www.allaboardhe.ie/vle/
https://elearningindustry.com/tags/virtual-learning-environment

24. VLE as Learning and Evidence of Accomplishment:
Rethinking the Artifact
Digital badges can provide the mechanism by which learners can
connect their VLE experiences with specific claims to learning (as a
record of accomplishment).
http://guides.libraries.psu.edu/c.php?g=516093&p=3540444

25. VLE as Learning and Evidence of Accomplishment:
Rethinking the Artifact
• The archive is no longer a place to verify previous events or to have a record
of it, but rather a present place to engage with claims and evidence
http://badges.thinkoutloudclub.com/modules/why/do/
https://blog.forallrubrics.com/category/forallbadges/

26. VLE as Learning and Evidence of Accomplishment:
Rethinking the Artifact
• Badges and VLE can help learners remain ahead of the automation and AI
workforce changes
http://www.nbcot.org/digitalbadge https://www-03.ibm.com/services/learning/ites.wss/zz-
en?pageType=page&c=M425350C34234U21
https://cppinstitute.org/cpp-c-certified-
professional-programmerhttps://www.youracclaim.com/org/linux-professional-
institute/badge/lpic-1-linux-server-professional-certification

27. Questions?
James E. Willis, III, Ph.D.
jameswillis3@gmail.com
@willis3james