There is enormous potential for digital credentials to have further impact on the education, training, and workforce sectors within the Department of the Air Force. Using digital badges to reflect digital credentials will be widely used to encourage learning and to provide real and tangible information to supervisors to best inform them of the talents, skills, and achievements of Airmen and Guardians seeking professional growth and new opportunities.

Digital Badges:

• Are verifiable, translatable, shareable, and secure digital records of achievement that demonstrate what Airmen and Guardians know and can do
• Validate technical and soft skills that may otherwise be unaccounted for in various training records
• Enhance commanders ability to identify Mission Ready Airmen (MRA) with current and future skill sets that put the right people in the right place at the right time
• Contain metadata such as detailed badge descriptions, concrete earning criteria, issuing bodies, issuance and/or expiration dates, skills tags, and industry or academic standards
• Offer career field managers tools to make data-driven decisions to promote a learning culture, optimize professional development and talent management efforts, build and manage a skills inventory, recruit for specific skills, and prepare for mission readiness
• Provide comprehensive learning and development pathways for career fields that do not have defined career field education and training plans
• Help Airmen and Guardians translate their skills to industry when exiting the force and promote their accomplishments on resumes and social media platforms

In addition to helping organizations develop digital badges and related earning pathways, A3BD led a cross-organizational workgroup that addressed the DAF's inability to identify, consolidate, and report relevant credentials in a useful format for decision-makers.

A key deliverable was a consolidated list of credentials identified by enlisted, officer, and civilian career field managers (CFMs).  For this effort, a credential was defined as any record detailing a qualification, competence, or authority issued to an individual by a third party with relevant or de facto authority.  Credentials include, but are not limited to, certifications, licenses, degrees, and certificates.  CFMs identified credentials that are required, or desired, for members in their career fields/series. 

CFMs can access this list of credentials by clicking here.  Note, this is a Sharepoint location so a CAC is required for access.  If you would like to make changes to this list, contact A3BD for guidance by emailing AETC.A3BD.Workflow@us.af.mil. 

The value of digital credentials increases when the issuer can stack credentials into collections to demonstrate multiple achievements, often referred to as aspirational skilling or future skilling. The Open Badge V2.0 Standard allows individuals to demonstrate skill mastery across various issuers; manage the respective digital credentials in a collection (also known as a secure profile, skills wallet, or skills backpack); and share them on professional social media platforms such as X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, and LinkedIn.

In six major steps, A3BD will work with the CFM to:

1. Identify audience, roles, SMEs, working groups, and industry partners. 
2. Define value proposition, skills, expectations, timelines, responsibilities, and communication plan.
3. Map badge pathways, align skills to external and internal benchmarks, then layout how badges level and stack together.
4. Build badge criteria, rubrics, and checklists.
5. Execute communication plan and digital credential launch.
6. Test, learn, iterate, and refine the process.