Guidance for Credential Issuers
The 2025 Badge Count findings highlight the size, diversity, and complexity of today’s digital credential landscape. With millions of badges available and tens of thousands of organizations issuing them—including colleges, employers, government agencies, industry associations, non-profits, and alternative education providers—Open Badges now span nearly every part of education, workforce development, and lifelong learning.
In such a broad landscape, credential issuers play a crucial role in ensuring that digital credentials are clear, trustworthy, and meaningful to learners, educators, and employers. High-quality practices are essential to help credentials stand out, support mobility, and function effectively across interconnected learning and employment ecosystems.
Open Badges 3.0 and the Credential Transparency Description Language (CTDL) can be used together to issue certificates, licenses, degrees, skills credentials, and other types of achievement records. Open Badges provides a secure, verifiable, and structured format, while CTDL provides a consistent, linked open data schema—including clearly defined terms—that improves clarity, semantic precision, and interoperability across platforms and sectors. Credential issuers using the Open Badges standard should embed CTDL data within their credentials to make them more discoverable and meaningful. Applying these standards across all digital credentials helps issuers communicate value, align with marketplace expectations, and support transparency at scale. The following recommendations outline essential practices that can help credential issuers produce clear, verifiable, and useful digital credentials. For more information about these practices, please see the linked resources below and review your badge platform provider’s documentation.
Use Open Badges and CTDL metadata consistently.
When creating a credential, ensure all required Open Badges 3.0 and CTDL metadata are captured in the appropriate structured fields, not embedded in long descriptive text. Clearly declare Open Badges 3.0 achievement types to refer to the correct CTDL credential types, provide CTDL-aligned metadata, and include Credential Registry CTID globally unique identifier links as part of the credential’s defined data structure.
Use Open Badges and CTDL terms to fully communicate credential value.
Describe credentials in ways that clearly convey the verified skills and competencies they represent. Specify what the earner did to earn the credential and why it matters, ideally aligning with recognized skills frameworks or job roles. Use the TrustEd Credential Framework and CTDL to provide structured metadata that communicates the credential’s context, achievement, and criteria.
Explicitly connect credentials to defined CTDL pathways.
Use CTDL pathways to show how a credential fits into a broader sequence of learning and career opportunities. Clearly define how each credential contributes to progression, such as preparing earners for a higher-level credential, an occupational role, or a specific job task. Connecting credentials through CTDL pathways helps show how achievements relate to one another, how skills build over time, and how credentialing aligns with educational and workforce goals.
Integrate workflows across the credential lifecycle.
Connect credentialing workflows to systems already in use, such as course and program catalogs, student information systems (SISs), learning management systems (LMSs), and platforms that support Open Badges 3.0. Integrations reduce manual effort, improve data quality, and keep information synchronized across the credential lifecycle, from credential creation and marketing to issuance and ongoing management. Automating key steps enhances consistency, supports scale, and ensures that credentials remain accurate and up to date.
Ensure credentials are verifiable and trustworthy.
Issue credentials using platforms that support secure, tamper-evident Open Badges 3.0 so that each credential can be cryptographically verified across systems. Publish and link CTDL-aligned metadata and register credentials in the Credential Registry to ensure public discoverability and authoritative validation. These practices allow employers, educators, and other stakeholders to reliably confirm achievement details and trust the credential’s authenticity.
Procure standards-compliant tools.
Select credentialing platforms and related systems that fully support Open Badges 3.0, CLR Standard, CTDL, and other relevant standards. Using verified, standards-compliant tools ensures interoperability, accurate metadata exchange, secure verification, and consistent quality across the credential lifecycle. Prioritizing certified and assessed technology solutions also reduces integration challenges across the credential lifecycle.
