What is it, in one sentence?

Open Badges is the global standard for digital badges. It is maintained by 1EdTech, an international nonprofit that develops education technology standards.

Think about phone chargers. When every company uses a different plug, each phone needs its own charger. Once everyone switches to USB-C, one cable charges any phone.

Digital badges work the same way. If every platform invents its own format, a badge can’t be read, or checked for authenticity, anywhere else. Open Badges is the global standard that gives every badge the same format and the same way to verify it.

A digital badge is any online credential. An Open Badge is a digital badge that follows this global standard.

Who created it, and when?

Open Badges has been refined for more than ten years. The organization that started it is not the one that maintains it today, and the way badges are verified changed as the versions moved on.

How does Open Badges 2.0 work?

Most 2.0 badges are stored on the platform that issued them. To verify one, you check it against the issuance record kept on that platform. Recipients are usually identified by email address.

Because it has been around for years, many of the badges issued so far are 2.0, and many badge collection services read 2.0 badges.

What changed in Open Badges 3.0?

A 3.0 badge uses the same format as Verifiable Credentials1, the global format for online credentials. The issuer digitally signs every badge, so the badge itself proves who issued it and what it says, without asking the issuing platform.

For recipients, the biggest change is that a badge is no longer tied to one platform. It becomes a record they carry with them.

2.0 or 3.0: which should you use?

Both are in use today. Most badges already issued, and the services that read them, are 2.0, while new platforms and wallets are moving to 3.0.

So when choosing a platform, look for support for both. You can check certification by searching the platform’s name in 1EdTech’s official certified products list, which shows each version and certification date.

How do you choose an Open Badges 3.0 platform?

Supporting 3.0 can mean different things on different platforms. These five points show whether a badge will stay useful to its recipient for years.

The unfamiliar term here is probably DID2. It identifies the issuer by its own digital identity rather than by an account on one company’s service, so you can still confirm who issued a badge even if the issuing platform changes.

Is it used in Korea?

Yes. Ministry of Education programs such as K-MOOC Digital+ (Korea’s national online course platform), the AID 30+ bootcamps for working adults and the Youth Leap talent bootcamp award digital badges to graduates, and these badges follow the global standard.

In 2024, the Ministry of Education and the Korea Education and Research Information Service (KERIS) convened a national digital badge council to discuss wider adoption. Before that, KERIS reviewed Open Badges 3.0 as the standard technology for digital badges in a 2023 research report.

How does Certi cover these?

Certi is certified for both Open Badges 2.0 and 3.0. Here is how it covers the five points above.

It is used for university co-curricular programs, government initiatives and corporate training. See real badges in the Korea University K-MOOC, Ministry of Education Startup Teams 300+, SK hynix Heinstein stories. Administrators never have to touch the specification: enter the badge details in Certi and the badge is issued to the standard.