A new report from 1EdTech and Credential Engine highlights the continued growth of digital badges

LAKE MARY, Fla., February 16, 2023 — Today, 1EdTech and Credential Engine released the third bi-annual Open Badge Count report highlighting the tremendous scale and continued growth of digital badge practices leveraging the 1EdTech Open Badges standard around the world. Collectively, badge product providers reported a total of 74,780,775 issued badges, an increase of 73% from the previous 2020 report. The number of badges being offered also increased by ten percent to 521,070 badges available. For the first time, the Open Badge Count also includes information concerning badge issuers, counting 26,285 badge issuers worldwide.

Open Badges are verifiable and shareable digital credentials that can help power learner potential across K-12, higher education, and professional learning and development. Open Badges contain detailed information, including the organization or individual who issued the badge, the criteria that the badge was assessed against, evidence, when the badge was issued, a verifiable reference to the recipient, and several other required and optional properties. Some badges also contain links to detailed evidence, expiration dates, searchable tags, and alignments to educational standards or frameworks.

“The worldwide use and continued growth of badges as a way to digitally document and share individual achievements is impressive. I am particularly excited about the potential for Open Badges to provide more context about the value of these achievements and their connections to high-priority pathways,” said Credential Engine CEO Scott Cheney. “By giving individuals richly-described, trusted evidence of their accomplishments, the badge ecosystem can support a merit-based foundation for dignity and career advancement.”

“In 2016, the Mozilla Foundation asked 1EdTech to become the steward of the Open Badges standard, charging us with scaling adoption across a broad education to work spectrum, and thus opening up opportunities for all learners and enabling better hiring,” said 1EdTech CEO Dr. Rob Abel. “It is clear from this report, and the vibrant participation in our Open Badges and related Comprehensive Learner Record work that the future we hoped to create is now enabled. The time has come for credential issuers to open up opportunities for learners and employers by offering credentials that meet the Open Badges standard.”

The latest version of the Open Badges standard, Open Badges 3.0, will be demonstrated along with the Comprehensive Learner Record Standard™ (CLR Standard™) at 1EdTech’s Digital Credentials Summit, February 27 - March 1, in Dallas, Texas. The updates align the two standards more closely with each other and will allow suppliers to provide digital credentials that are more easily shared between wallets.

1EdTech members to present Open Badges 3.0 and CLR Standard 2.0 at Digital Credentials Summit 2023

LAKE MARY, Fla., February 23, 2023 — 1EdTech™ Consortium is helping power learner potential with the release of two updated standards, the Open Badges 3.0 standard and Comprehensive Learner Record Standard™ (CLR Standard™) 2.0. With these two releases, learners can more easily share their skills and achievements and have them verified with employers and institutions of higher education across multiple platforms.

Early adopters of Open Badges 3.0 and CLR Standard 2.0 will showcase their products at 1EdTech’s Digital Credentials Summit in Dallas, Texas, from February 27 to March 1. Edtech suppliers interested in implementing the new standards will also have access to open implementation guides and the certification suite.

Digital credentials with open standards from the 1EdTech community are learner-controlled, skills-based, and always interoperable. A recent report from 1EdTech and Credential Engine shows the use of 1EdTech’s Open Badges reached more than 74 million globally, illustrating the value and growth of our digital credentials worldwide.

"Existing educational transcripts and paper-based credentials typically come up short in terms of enabling opportunity and better hiring. Digital credentials, based on open standards from 1EdTech, make it easy for institutions to award credit, learners to curate their achievements, and employers to find great matches for what they need,” said 1EdTech CEO Dr. Rob Abel. “From individual accomplishments and experiences to entire degrees, learner accomplishments and skills can be presented and verified electronically and quickly. The latest releases from 1EdTech are a quantum leap forward in terms of ensuring compatibility across the most used standards that enable talent marketplaces of the future."

The just-released versions of the 1EdTech standards provide support for Verifiable Credentials, as defined by The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), an international community that develops open standards to ensure the long-term growth of the Web. The updates also align the two 1EdTech standards more exactly with each other and will allow suppliers to provide digital credentials that are more easily shared between wallets.

“AwardAssured has adopted the Digital Credentials standards from 1EdTech (CLR 2.0 and Open Badges 3.0) because it benefits our business, our clients, and their learners,” said AwardAssured CEO Chris Booth. “Conformance to these standards can deliver digital credentials that can be universally adopted, trusted, and verified. What we love about this technology is that it keeps the learner at the center, in control of their learning. We see this technology as a crucial enabler that will bridge the worlds of formal education and continued professional learning.”

"As a company, Territorium is committed to providing innovative solutions that meet the needs of our clients. By actively working to implement the CLR 2.0 and Open Badges 3.0 standards, we are demonstrating our dedication to staying at the forefront of industry best practices,” said Joe Green, vice president of product strategy for Territorium. “These standards not only promote interoperability with other service providers but also allow for seamless integration, making it more convenient for learners to access their records and credentials. This focus on implementing standards further reinforces our commitment to providing adaptable, scalable, and desirable solutions to meet the evolving needs of our clients."

"RANDA has supported CLR alignment with VC from the beginning,” said RANDA Solutions CEO Marty Reed. “We are excited to see how far and how quickly the workgroup has aligned on a path forward. We see the CLR standard leading the acceleration of adoption through increased interoperability and cross-standard exchangeability."

All of 1EdTech’s standards are open and available on 1EdTech’s website. Open Badges may be found here, and the CLR Standard™ may be found here.

Sixteen Edtech Products Have Achieved 1EdTech Certification for OneRoster 1.2

LAKE MARY, Fla., March 3, 2023— Education technology suppliers are collaborating via the non-profit 1EdTech™ Consortium to make it much easier for teachers to get real-time information on student progress from all the learning applications in a single place.

1EdTech (formerly IMS Global) community members across K-12 districts and edtech suppliers collaborated to evolve OneRoster^® to enable the automated transfer of assessment results and both standards-based and competency-based grades across various systems, tools, and apps for the benefit of teachers and administrators. Teachers and administrators can now see all of the results data in one place, enabling them to focus on helping students succeed without having to record grades and scores manually to get the needed information.

Since its original release this fall, 16 products have been certified for 1EdTech’s OneRoster 1.2 open standard.

“OneRoster 1.2 makes it easier to gather data from across a district’s ecosystem, putting it in the hands of educators faster and giving them more time to identify challenges and help their students succeed,” said 1EdTech CEO Dr. Rob Abel. “This is what happens when educators and suppliers work together, with no agenda other than to find the best solutions to power learner potential.”

OneRoster 1.2 works closely with other 1EdTech standards, making new integrations easier and repeatable, so districts can continue to innovate and grow without redoing their entire ecosystem. It also enhances user management, so educators can access everything they need without logging in and out of various tools.

“PowerSchool is eager to adopt the OneRoster 1.2 standard because it addresses issues that are important to our customers, including Preferred Name Synching and Score Scales,” said Carrie Vail, Senior Director of Product Management at PowerSchool. “We are saving educators time by reducing time spent re-entering data across different systems, so they can focus on what really matters, helping their students succeed.”

“Becoming an early adopter of OneRoster 1.2 was an easy decision at Clever,” said Dan Carroll, CPO and co-founder at Clever. “As one of the leading K-12 digital learning platforms, Clever, our application customers, and our partnered school districts have received so much value from utilizing the OneRoster 1.1 standard, and the exciting updates in 1.2 will help us ensure even better data quality and security for students across the globe.”

The student information systems certified by 1EdTech for OneRoster 1.2 currently include Digital Koumu Student Information System, Focus SIS, Infinite Campus, and PowerSchool eSchoolPlus SIS.

“The release of OneRoster 1.2 is a big deal for K-12 institutions and the platforms that support their vital work because it dramatically improves ease of use and increases privacy and productivity,” said Dr. Barry Brahier, chief product officer of teaching and learning for Infinite Campus. “Every school district should be demanding their platforms support OneRoster 1.2.”

Educators interested in seeing what products are certified for OneRoster 1.2, or any other 1EdTech certification, may view the TrustEd Apps Directory.

Edtech suppliers looking to implement OneRoster 1.2 to serve their clients better can get in-person support during the OneRoster Bootcamp at this year’s Learning Impact Conference. For more information and to register, click here.

1EdTech’s TrustEd Apps Management Suite Recognized in the EdTech Awards 2023

LAKE MARY, Fla., March 30, 2023—  1EdTech’s TrustEd Apps Management Suite (TAMS) was recently recognized for Student Data Privacy with a Cool Tools 2023 EdTech Award from EdTech Digest.

TAMS is designed to make it easier and more equitable for teachers to access and use digital tools in their classrooms without inadvertently putting student data at risk. Instead of depending on an individual teacher’s research into a specific tool or app, which can vary depending on how tech-savvy a teacher is, TAMS brings apps and tools into one location for teachers to find what they need. It also shows vetting results so they know if there are any potential privacy concerns.

“Our members would tell us, time and time again, that teachers with the best intentions would find new tools to use in their classrooms without realizing what data was being shared,” said Dr. Tim Clark, 1EdTech Vice President of K-12 Programs. “This could also cause inequities, with some teachers being able to find higher quality tools than others. TAMS addresses both of these concerns and saves the teachers valuable research time because we already did the work for them.”

“TAMS is a prime example of how 1EdTech works with its members to create an open, trusted, and innovative edtech ecosystem that benefits all learners,” said Dr. Rob Abel, 1EdTech CEO. “It’s important to note that the vetting process uses the 1EdTech data privacy rubric standard, a community-developed and managed standard that helps edtech suppliers and school districts better understand data privacy.”

Celebrating its 13th year, The EdTech Awards program is the world’s largest recognition program for educational technology. It recognizes the biggest names in edtech, shining a light on cool tools, inspiring leaders, and innovative trendsetters across the K-12, Higher Education, and Skills and Workforce sectors.

“A very big congratulations to all The EdTech Awards 2023 finalists and winners—and congratulations to all who endured the upheavals of the last few years only to come through stronger, more experienced, resilient, and resolute in laying out the future of learning,” said Victor Rivero, who as Editor-in-Chief of EdTech Digest, oversees the program.

A full list of winners and finalists of The EdTech Awards 2023 can be found here.

The EdTech Awards were established in 2010 to recognize, acknowledge, and celebrate the most exceptional innovators, leaders, and trendsetters in education technology. This year’s finalists and winners were narrowed from the larger field and judged based on various criteria, including pedagogical workability, efficacy and results, support, clarity, value and potential.

Agreement provides Georgia educators access to TrustEd Apps Management Suite

LAKE MARY, Florida, 30 August 2022— The state of Georgia took an active step to prioritize student data privacy at its meeting Thursday in Atlanta. The Georgia State Board of Education approved a state-wide partnership with the 1EdTech™ Consortium (1EdTech). 1EdTech is a non-profit collaboration of more than 740 leading education sector organizations, including states, school districts, universities, and edtech suppliers.

The partnership allows every publicly funded school in Georgia to deploy 1EdTech’s TrustEd Apps™ Management Suite, making it easy to provide information on educational technology resources and tools to administrators and teachers. 1EdTech vets the privacy policies of hundreds of edtech companies annually, using an open standard privacy rubric designed and approved by 1EdTech members. 1EdTech has vetted more than 8,000 edtech applications through this process and published the results in a teacher-friendly dashboard. TrustEd Apps gives institutions, administrators, and teachers the help they need to determine if an educational technology tool meets their expectations for data privacy.

“Many districts don’t have the staffing or time to thoroughly review a product’s data privacy policy before deciding to adopt it for use in classrooms,” said Dr. Rob Abel, CEO of 1EdTech. “That leaves them two choices, either don’t adopt new tools that could benefit teaching and learning or adopt the tool without fully understanding what student information it's collecting or sharing outside to third parties. TrustEd Apps does that work for them, so they have a wider and more secure set of options.”

While the partnership provides access to every publicly funded school in the state, some Georgia districts were already working with 1EdTech to improve their digital ecosystems and student safety. Those districts are now excited to collaborate even more closely across the state.

“In the last few years, technology use has grown, along with the need to ensure student data is secure,” said Jill Hobson, Chief Technology Officer for Gainesville City Schools. “The TrustEd Apps rubric meets what we consider critical needs for review and will be a big burden lifted for school districts, especially smaller ones like Gainesville City that don’t have the capacity to do this on our own. As a state, we collaborate well, and the ability to easily share our experiences with different tools will be extremely valuable to every district in Georgia.”

"1EdTech provides an excellent opportunity to network with our peers in Georgia and beyond as well as powerful resources, such as product interoperability certifications and the TrustEd Apps dashboard,” said Jim Farmer, Chief Technology Officer of Fayette County Schools. “These valuable resources help districts address what can essentially become the 'Wild West' of people using edtech tools at the expense of time, security, and privacy. The community-developed standards from 1EdTech empower districts to dramatically improve implementations and integrations and the dashboard allows us to deal with the challenge of vetting resources in a time-saving, structured way. I know it will be extremely helpful to all Georgia districts."

“1EdTech has provided significant support for our district as we’ve worked to develop a digital ecosystem that ensures high levels of interoperability and digital privacy,” said Brian Blanton, Chief Information Officer of Henry County Schools. “It’s exciting to know that the Georgia Department of Education is scaling this support to districts across the state.”

“TrustEd Apps allows us to provide the privacy and security information to our principals so they can focus their efforts on determining the instructional value of a product,” said Dr. Aaron Turpin, Assistant Superintendent of Technology for Hall County Schools.

Georgia is the third state to partner with 1EdTech, and the first to enable TrustEd Apps collaboration with all publicly funded schools. Last year, South Carolina was the first state agency to set up TrustEd Apps statewide for 82 school districts, and earlier this year, the state of Arizona started a 1EdTech pilot program with 20 districts.

1EdTech Consortium and HR Open Standards Consortium partner to better match employee skills with employer needs

LAKE MARY, Florida, and AURORA, Colorado, 5 October 2022— Offering a better way to hire is the goal of a new joint initiative between 1EdTech™ Consortium and HR Open Standards Consortium.

The collaboration between these two leading non-profit organizations will allow job-seekers to showcase their accomplishments in a meaningful way for employers and allow employers to easily and reliably find employees with the skills they need.

The initiative combines 1EdTech’s digital credentials standards, Open Badges and Comprehensive Learner Record (CLR Standard™), with the next-generation HR Open Resume/CV standard. This combination creates a standards-based resume that incorporates an individual’s academic achievements, skills, and workplace milestones in a more illustrative and digitally verifiable way through a digital wallet or platform, helping to make hiring processes more efficient and equitable.

“More than 50 million Open Badges have been issued worldwide, and leading institutions, including Arizona State University, Southern New Hampshire University, Western Governors University, and more, are implementing a CLR,” said Dr. Rob Abel, CEO of 1EdTech. “Combining these successful efforts with HR Open is the next logical step towards bridging the worlds of education, corporate learning, employment, and human resources. We are encouraging market adoption of this work in conjunction with 1EdTech’s ongoing Wellspring Initiative.”

“1EdTech and HR Open have a long history of working together, and we are proud to partner on standardizing verifiable digital credentials. We are committed to improving the employment journey, and this new opportunity to collaborate will bring together many elements from the learning and employment ecosystem,” said Leslie Erwin, HR Open President.

Founded in 1999, the HR Open Standards Consortium is the only independent, non-profit, volunteer-led organization dedicated to developing and promoting a standard suite of specifications to enable human-resource-related data exchanges.

This initiative is made possible by the 1EdTech Foundation with generous support from Walmart.

1EdTech Community Releases OneRoster 1.2, Encouraging Immediate Adoption

LAKE MARY, Florida, 20 October 2022— Keeping track of student progress and leveraging that data to help students succeed just got a lot easier thanks to the latest version of 1EdTech’s OneRoster® standard, with version 1.2 released publicly today.

1EdTech (formerly IMS Global) community members across K-12 districts and edtech suppliers collaborated to evolve OneRoster to enable the automated transfer of assessment results and both standards-based and competency-based grades for the benefit of teachers and administrators. Teachers and administrators can now see all of the results data in one system, enabling them to focus time on helping students succeed. They will also save countless hours previously spent manually recording grades and scores.

OneRoster allows schools to securely and reliably exchange roster information, course material information, and grades between systems. The 1.2 update works with other 1EdTech standards, including Question and Test Interoperability® (QTI®), Learning Tools Interoperability® (LTI®), and Caliper®, to allow its assessment results profile to pull more detailed information from various systems and tools, and transfer that data directly back to one gradebook of record. 

Assessment and grade information becomes even more valuable to educators when combined with 1EdTech’s Competencies and Academic Standards Exchange® (CASE®). CASE matches the digital content to state academic standards, giving educators a better sense of how well a student is grasping the required concepts. 

With all this information, teachers can better tailor lessons or extra assistance to an individual student’s needs by assigning assessments or additional resources for the needs of individual students. 

“OneRoster has been the lynchpin to enable a better K-12 digital ecosystem for several years,  and now OneRoster will make it easier to provide data across a district’s ecosystem to educators automatically, and in time to help students,” said Dr. Rob Abel, 1EdTech CEO. “We encourage all market participants to achieve OneRoster v1.2 certification as soon as possible to enable these benefits for end-users.”

“The inclusion of Learning Objectives in the OneRoster 1.2 standard will allow standards- and competency-based gradebooks to communicate across platforms,” explained Rachel Johnson, Director of Enterprise Solutions, Loudoun County Schools. “The result will be collectively hundreds of teacher hours saved as the double entry of grades in LMS and official gradebooks will now be an archaic process. Vendors looking to truly improve the outcomes for students and teachers should look to adopt version 1.2 before the 2022-2023 school year is over to allow teachers to take advantage of this opportunity.”

“As both a provider and a consumer of OneRoster data, PowerSchool is excited for the specification improvements addressing problems important to our customers, like Preferred Name Syncing and Score Scales,” said Carrie Vail, Senior Director, Product Management at PowerSchool. “Through the adoption of OneRoster 1.2, there is an opportunity to empower educators by reducing time spent on tedious double-grading entries across a district’s entire digital ecosystem.”

The OneRoster 1.2 version also enhances user management so educators can access everything they need without logging off and back into various tools.

“Gainesville City Schools is happy to support the adoption of this version of OneRoster,” said Jill Hobson, Chief Technology Officer of Gainesville City Schools. “The improvements in security, demographic data and support for standards-based grading using CASE are invaluable to K-12 schools. 1EdTech has been very responsive in developing OneRoster to match the evolving needs of educators.”

“When teachers have actionable information at their fingertips, students more easily experience success,” said Dr. Barry Brahier, Chief Product Officer of Teaching and Learning for Infinite Campus. “OneRoster 1.2 brings OneRoster’s rock-solid interoperability to new realms of information, including support for the standardized test scores with the Assessment Results Profile and competency-based grading approaches by incorporating the Competency and Academic Standards Exchange (CASE) specification. OneRoster 1.2 means 1EdTech is once again making the vision for the edtech ecosystem a reality. And that’s great news for teachers, students, and every K-12 stakeholder.”

“At D2L, we strive to give our customers the solutions and open learning ecosystem they count on so that they can help their students reach their full potential.  As a leader in the edtech ecosystem, we know the critical importance of efficient, standards-based integration. The newly released OneRoster® 1.2 standard enables the flow of critical information that brings alive the promise of competency-based results across platforms, eliminating the need for double entry of grades and saving teachers hundreds of hours collectively. We plan to support school districts that we partner with by adopting the OneRoster 1.2 standard, and we thank 1EdTech for their leadership,” said Stephen Laster, Chief Operating Officer at D2L.

1EdTech encourages suppliers to adopt the new version as quickly as possible so customers may take advantage of all it has to offer. More information on the OneRoster 1.2 specification may be found on the 1EdTech website by clicking here.

The TrustEd Apps Certified Leader Program kicks off at the 2022 Digital Curriculum and App Innovation Summit

LAKE MARY, Florida, 7 November 2022— 1EdTech™ Consortium, the leading non-profit educational technology partnership worldwide, launched the TrustEd Apps Certified Leader (TACL) Program for improving the digital learning experience today. TACL is designed to help K-12 and higher education leaders develop a comprehensive strategy to implement a trusted, open, and innovative, best-in-class edtech ecosystem at their institutions.

“We’ve reached the point when every institution, K-12 through higher education, and even professional development, use some type of digital learning,” said Dr. Rob Abel, 1EdTech CEO. “1EdTech uses open standards to improve the instructional experience by blending together technical innovation with effective pedagogical practices. This program walks participants through that process and helps them apply the skills and knowledge they gain to design a trusted digital learning ecosystem.”

The program is divided into five learning modules: data privacy and accessibility; curriculum innovation and strategies; designing the digital learning ecosystem; data insights for learner success; and learner achievement opportunities. The first module for the initial cohort kicked off at 1EdTech’s Digital Curriculum and App Innovation Summit this morning.

“As director of instructional technology, I need to combine my curriculum knowledge, as a former teacher, with more technical knowledge,” said Leigh Anne Scherer, director of instructional technology for North Clackamas Schools in Oregon. “These modules help me bridge that gap so we can have productive and in-depth conversations when finding the best tools to use in the district.”

“Companies should be held to a higher standard to ensure the tools will do what they say they do,” said Greg Bagby, coordinator of instructional technology for Hamilton County Schools. “This is a place where I can verify tools are compatible and compliant with what I have in place in my ecosystem.”

“I want a better understanding of data privacy to provide knowledge back to our districts and teachers,” said Angela Ingram, knowledge and interoperability manager for Georgia’s Department of Education. “There is a lot of important information that educators at all levels need to understand to protect our students’ information.”

Each module will take approximately ten hours to complete, with three different components: synchronous learning, an individual project, and an assessment. Participants will earn a digital open badge (a portable, verifiable credential that can be shared across all platforms implementing the Open Badges 2.0 standard) for each completed module, and become TACL certified once all five badges are earned. The TACL certifications earned by this cohort are planned to be awarded at 1EdTech’s Learning Impact Conference to be held in Anaheim, California, June 5-8, 2023.

More information on the program can be found by clicking here.

Board members are leaders in the 1EdTech mission to power learner potential

LAKE MARY, Fla., January 19, 2023 — 1EdTech (formerly IMS Global) added eight new directors for 2023 and re-elected one incumbent via its annual member board election process.

1EdTech is the world’s leading non-profit collaboration dedicated to powering learner potential by fostering an open, trusted, and innovative edtech ecosystem with more than 870 members worldwide, representing K-12, higher education, corporate learning, and edtech suppliers.

The recently elected board members are: 

• Dr. Gwendolyn Britton, Vice President, Product Strategy, Southern New Hampshire University
• Annie Chechitelli, Chief Product Officer, Turnitin
• Jim Chilton, EVP, Chief Technology Officer & GM INFOSEC, Cengage
• Dr. Christopher Davis, VP of Academic Services and Quality, University of Maryland, Global Campus
• Sarah DeMark, VP, Workforce Intelligence & Credential Integrity, Western Governors University
• Jeff McCoy, Associate Superintendent, Academics, Greenville County Schools
• Marc Nelson, VP of Platform Product Management, Savvas
• Dr. Shana Rafalski, Chief of Staff, Clark County School District
• Darlene Rankin, M.Ed., Director, Instructional Technology, Katy ISD

The new members will join more than a dozen others from educational institutions, supplier organizations, nonprofits, and industry to oversee the business of 1EdTech and provide leadership on behalf of all members.

Paul Czarapata, president of the Kentucky Community and Technical College System, will be the 1EdTech board chair for 2023. Melissa Loble, chief customer experience officer at Instructure, will be the board vice-chair for 2023. Dr. Vince Kellen, chief information officer of the University of California San Diego; Dr. LaTanya McDade, superintendent of Prince William County Public Schools; and Serena Sacks-Mandel, global chief technology officer at Microsoft, have been added to the 1EdTech board executive committee in 2023.

Jack Suess, CIO for the University of Maryland Baltimore County, and Donna Kidwell, chief information security and digital trust officer for Arizona State University, will step down from the board after years of dedicated service.

“I want to thank Jack and Donna for their hard work in helping us build 1EdTech to what it is today,” said Czarapata. “I’m grateful they will continue to help us move this work forward as Contributing Members, and I look forward to working with our new board members who will bring new ideas and perspectives to our work.” 

1EdTech’s board comprises representatives from seven K-12 institutions, seven higher education institutions, and ten supplier organizations. 

“Our board members are very special people from very special organizations that are actively leading the creation and adoption of the open and trusted edtech ecosystem that lowers the barriers to innovation and increases opportunities for all learners at all levels,” said Dr. Rob Abel, CEO of the 1EdTech Consortium. “The leadership from our board and our Contributing Members are having a profound impact on educational institutions' ability to accelerate and scale both strategic and operational innovation.”

A new report from 1EdTech and Credential Engine highlights the continued growth of digital badges

LAKE MARY, Fla., February 16, 2023 — Today, 1EdTech and Credential Engine released the third bi-annual Open Badge Count report highlighting the tremendous scale and continued growth of digital badge practices leveraging the 1EdTech Open Badges standard around the world. Collectively, badge product providers reported a total of 74,780,775 issued badges, an increase of 73% from the previous 2020 report. The number of badges being offered also increased by ten percent to 521,070 badges available. For the first time, the Open Badge Count also includes information concerning badge issuers, counting 26,285 badge issuers worldwide.

Open Badges are verifiable and shareable digital credentials that can help power learner potential across K-12, higher education, and professional learning and development. Open Badges contain detailed information, including the organization or individual who issued the badge, the criteria that the badge was assessed against, evidence, when the badge was issued, a verifiable reference to the recipient, and several other required and optional properties. Some badges also contain links to detailed evidence, expiration dates, searchable tags, and alignments to educational standards or frameworks.

“The worldwide use and continued growth of badges as a way to digitally document and share individual achievements is impressive. I am particularly excited about the potential for Open Badges to provide more context about the value of these achievements and their connections to high-priority pathways,” said Credential Engine CEO Scott Cheney. “By giving individuals richly-described, trusted evidence of their accomplishments, the badge ecosystem can support a merit-based foundation for dignity and career advancement.”

“In 2016, the Mozilla Foundation asked 1EdTech to become the steward of the Open Badges standard, charging us with scaling adoption across a broad education to work spectrum, and thus opening up opportunities for all learners and enabling better hiring,” said 1EdTech CEO Dr. Rob Abel. “It is clear from this report, and the vibrant participation in our Open Badges and related Comprehensive Learner Record work that the future we hoped to create is now enabled. The time has come for credential issuers to open up opportunities for learners and employers by offering credentials that meet the Open Badges standard.”

The latest version of the Open Badges standard, Open Badges 3.0, will be demonstrated along with the Comprehensive Learner Record Standard™ (CLR Standard™) at 1EdTech’s Digital Credentials Summit, February 27 - March 1, in Dallas, Texas. The updates align the two standards more closely with each other and will allow suppliers to provide digital credentials that are more easily shared between wallets.

1EdTech members to present Open Badges 3.0 and CLR Standard 2.0 at Digital Credentials Summit 2023

LAKE MARY, Fla., February 23, 2023 — 1EdTech™ Consortium is helping power learner potential with the release of two updated standards, the Open Badges 3.0 standard and Comprehensive Learner Record Standard™ (CLR Standard™) 2.0. With these two releases, learners can more easily share their skills and achievements and have them verified with employers and institutions of higher education across multiple platforms.

Early adopters of Open Badges 3.0 and CLR Standard 2.0 will showcase their products at 1EdTech’s Digital Credentials Summit in Dallas, Texas, from February 27 to March 1. Edtech suppliers interested in implementing the new standards will also have access to open implementation guides and the certification suite.

Digital credentials with open standards from the 1EdTech community are learner-controlled, skills-based, and always interoperable. A recent report from 1EdTech and Credential Engine shows the use of 1EdTech’s Open Badges reached more than 74 million globally, illustrating the value and growth of our digital credentials worldwide.

"Existing educational transcripts and paper-based credentials typically come up short in terms of enabling opportunity and better hiring. Digital credentials, based on open standards from 1EdTech, make it easy for institutions to award credit, learners to curate their achievements, and employers to find great matches for what they need,” said 1EdTech CEO Dr. Rob Abel. “From individual accomplishments and experiences to entire degrees, learner accomplishments and skills can be presented and verified electronically and quickly. The latest releases from 1EdTech are a quantum leap forward in terms of ensuring compatibility across the most used standards that enable talent marketplaces of the future."

The just-released versions of the 1EdTech standards provide support for Verifiable Credentials, as defined by The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), an international community that develops open standards to ensure the long-term growth of the Web. The updates also align the two 1EdTech standards more exactly with each other and will allow suppliers to provide digital credentials that are more easily shared between wallets.

“AwardAssured has adopted the Digital Credentials standards from 1EdTech (CLR 2.0 and Open Badges 3.0) because it benefits our business, our clients, and their learners,” said AwardAssured CEO Chris Booth. “Conformance to these standards can deliver digital credentials that can be universally adopted, trusted, and verified. What we love about this technology is that it keeps the learner at the center, in control of their learning. We see this technology as a crucial enabler that will bridge the worlds of formal education and continued professional learning.”

"As a company, Territorium is committed to providing innovative solutions that meet the needs of our clients. By actively working to implement the CLR 2.0 and Open Badges 3.0 standards, we are demonstrating our dedication to staying at the forefront of industry best practices,” said Joe Green, vice president of product strategy for Territorium. “These standards not only promote interoperability with other service providers but also allow for seamless integration, making it more convenient for learners to access their records and credentials. This focus on implementing standards further reinforces our commitment to providing adaptable, scalable, and desirable solutions to meet the evolving needs of our clients."

"RANDA has supported CLR alignment with VC from the beginning,” said RANDA Solutions CEO Marty Reed. “We are excited to see how far and how quickly the workgroup has aligned on a path forward. We see the CLR standard leading the acceleration of adoption through increased interoperability and cross-standard exchangeability."

All of 1EdTech’s standards are open and available on 1EdTech’s website. Open Badges may be found here, and the CLR Standard™ may be found here.

Sixteen Edtech Products Have Achieved 1EdTech Certification for OneRoster 1.2

LAKE MARY, Fla., March 3, 2023— Education technology suppliers are collaborating via the non-profit 1EdTech™ Consortium to make it much easier for teachers to get real-time information on student progress from all the learning applications in a single place.

1EdTech (formerly IMS Global) community members across K-12 districts and edtech suppliers collaborated to evolve OneRoster^® to enable the automated transfer of assessment results and both standards-based and competency-based grades across various systems, tools, and apps for the benefit of teachers and administrators. Teachers and administrators can now see all of the results data in one place, enabling them to focus on helping students succeed without having to record grades and scores manually to get the needed information.

Since its original release this fall, 16 products have been certified for 1EdTech’s OneRoster 1.2 open standard.

“OneRoster 1.2 makes it easier to gather data from across a district’s ecosystem, putting it in the hands of educators faster and giving them more time to identify challenges and help their students succeed,” said 1EdTech CEO Dr. Rob Abel. “This is what happens when educators and suppliers work together, with no agenda other than to find the best solutions to power learner potential.”

OneRoster 1.2 works closely with other 1EdTech standards, making new integrations easier and repeatable, so districts can continue to innovate and grow without redoing their entire ecosystem. It also enhances user management, so educators can access everything they need without logging in and out of various tools.

“PowerSchool is eager to adopt the OneRoster 1.2 standard because it addresses issues that are important to our customers, including Preferred Name Synching and Score Scales,” said Carrie Vail, Senior Director of Product Management at PowerSchool. “We are saving educators time by reducing time spent re-entering data across different systems, so they can focus on what really matters, helping their students succeed.”

“Becoming an early adopter of OneRoster 1.2 was an easy decision at Clever,” said Dan Carroll, CPO and co-founder at Clever. “As one of the leading K-12 digital learning platforms, Clever, our application customers, and our partnered school districts have received so much value from utilizing the OneRoster 1.1 standard, and the exciting updates in 1.2 will help us ensure even better data quality and security for students across the globe.”

The student information systems certified by 1EdTech for OneRoster 1.2 currently include Digital Koumu Student Information System, Focus SIS, Infinite Campus, and PowerSchool eSchoolPlus SIS.

“The release of OneRoster 1.2 is a big deal for K-12 institutions and the platforms that support their vital work because it dramatically improves ease of use and increases privacy and productivity,” said Dr. Barry Brahier, chief product officer of teaching and learning for Infinite Campus. “Every school district should be demanding their platforms support OneRoster 1.2.”

Educators interested in seeing what products are certified for OneRoster 1.2, or any other 1EdTech certification, may view the TrustEd Apps Directory.

Edtech suppliers looking to implement OneRoster 1.2 to serve their clients better can get in-person support during the OneRoster Bootcamp at this year’s Learning Impact Conference. For more information and to register, click here.

1EdTech’s TrustEd Apps Management Suite Recognized in the EdTech Awards 2023

LAKE MARY, Fla., March 30, 2023—  1EdTech’s TrustEd Apps Management Suite (TAMS) was recently recognized for Student Data Privacy with a Cool Tools 2023 EdTech Award from EdTech Digest.

TAMS is designed to make it easier and more equitable for teachers to access and use digital tools in their classrooms without inadvertently putting student data at risk. Instead of depending on an individual teacher’s research into a specific tool or app, which can vary depending on how tech-savvy a teacher is, TAMS brings apps and tools into one location for teachers to find what they need. It also shows vetting results so they know if there are any potential privacy concerns.

“Our members would tell us, time and time again, that teachers with the best intentions would find new tools to use in their classrooms without realizing what data was being shared,” said Dr. Tim Clark, 1EdTech Vice President of K-12 Programs. “This could also cause inequities, with some teachers being able to find higher quality tools than others. TAMS addresses both of these concerns and saves the teachers valuable research time because we already did the work for them.”

“TAMS is a prime example of how 1EdTech works with its members to create an open, trusted, and innovative edtech ecosystem that benefits all learners,” said Dr. Rob Abel, 1EdTech CEO. “It’s important to note that the vetting process uses the 1EdTech data privacy rubric standard, a community-developed and managed standard that helps edtech suppliers and school districts better understand data privacy.”

Celebrating its 13th year, The EdTech Awards program is the world’s largest recognition program for educational technology. It recognizes the biggest names in edtech, shining a light on cool tools, inspiring leaders, and innovative trendsetters across the K-12, Higher Education, and Skills and Workforce sectors.

“A very big congratulations to all The EdTech Awards 2023 finalists and winners—and congratulations to all who endured the upheavals of the last few years only to come through stronger, more experienced, resilient, and resolute in laying out the future of learning,” said Victor Rivero, who as Editor-in-Chief of EdTech Digest, oversees the program.

A full list of winners and finalists of The EdTech Awards 2023 can be found here.

The EdTech Awards were established in 2010 to recognize, acknowledge, and celebrate the most exceptional innovators, leaders, and trendsetters in education technology. This year’s finalists and winners were narrowed from the larger field and judged based on various criteria, including pedagogical workability, efficacy and results, support, clarity, value and potential.

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